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Valentino Rossi gave a clinic on Sunday, out-riding Casey Stoner for his first ever win at Laguna Seca. Stoner, despite having the faster qualifying times, could never catch Rossi after a first lap pass and ended up a distant second. Points is points, but Rossi was clearly the more skilled rider in Monterey.
CBS did a pretty good job of broadcasting the race, although the announcers kept cutting to commercial with breathless comments like, “My heart is beating!” and “This is exciting!”. They caught Lorenzo’s high side crash pretty well, but had to spend too much time tracking the field while Stoner and Rossi ran away with the race. Also, you would think that with a race this brief, around 45 minutes, CBS could afford fewer commercial breaks during the race, and hope to make up for the revenue shortfall by building viewership for future races. I was also surprised by the utter lack of crowd shots; it was hard to tell if there was ANYONE actually there for the race.
With Lorenzo and Pedrosa healing from injuries (although with the summer break both are likely to be back at full speed in August), the 2008 season has become Stoner and Rossi. The folks at the Motor Speedway have now started cranking up their PR machine in hopes of attracting 150,000 fans for race weekend in September. Two of their flacks were also interviewed yesterday, expressing some surprise that a lot of attendees will be riding their bikes to Indianapolis, and wondering about things like parking. Hello!!!
Other than a nice article by Phil Wilson in the Indianapolis Star, there wasn’t a lot of coverage out there early on. MotoGP still suffers from a lack of awareness among American motorsports fans, a problem which the annual Indianapolis GP should help address.
MotoGP Hits the Brickyard, Jul 2008
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