To add to my motorcycle DVD collection I've picked up 'The Doctor, The Tornado and The Kentucky Kid' a follow up to the movie FASTER by Mark Neale, et al. I've written just a little synopsis as I don't have a background as a film critic (unless I've got a couple Guinness in me).
Although it's not as inspiring as FASTER, The Doctor, The Tornado and The Kentucky Kid is a great little movie to watch. (It appears that the Doctor himself was not directly interviewed for the movie and most of his dialogue is from post race interviews but that will have to make due.) The best part of the film is the blow-by-blow commentary provided by Edwards, Hayden and Hopkins as the 2005 US MotoGP is broken down into several distinct viewpoints. It's a shame every race couldn't be given this treatment, but that is what makes it special.
We get to see what this race meant to the Americans (Hopkins included) and how the Europeans reacted to the unique course itself. For someone who was in attendence, this film is especially enjoyable. It's a nice keepsake of the return of Grand Prix motorcycle racing to US soil. It's great to watch Hayden take it to 'em in such dominant fashion as well. I guess I would give it 4 out of 5 wheelies?
Here's a link: http://www.dtkmovie.com/
Friday, February 23, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
Hey SPEED! Are you there?
Are you listening SPEED channel? Could you do us motorcycle fans the huge favor of squeezing in Moto GP qualifying on your NASCAR filled airwaves? Perhaps you could find a slot between watching Dale Jr. brushing his teeth and Tony Stewart on the toilet. We fans don't care if it's at 4:15 am on a Wednesday. We've got TiVo. We're used to being treated like the redheaded stepchild. Just slap it on there somewhere. No, there won't be tons of crashes. No there won't be lots if chit chat that you can understand. But worry not, we'll explain everything later. Oh, did I mention that several Americans are battling for the title? Did you hear that an American actually won the championship in '06?
You can slap your American flag all over the place. Cram the hour with commercials telling us 'that you're thinking of a number' and it's your credit score. Show us how the DR Chipper works on brush and those out-of-control weed patches. Tell me which insurance company knows us motorcyclists better. Just show us qualifying. PLEASE! You might even find it interesting. Oh, I know you showed us qualifying during the USGP at Laguna, but it's a great big world out there and we'd like to see it from time to time. Thank you.
You can slap your American flag all over the place. Cram the hour with commercials telling us 'that you're thinking of a number' and it's your credit score. Show us how the DR Chipper works on brush and those out-of-control weed patches. Tell me which insurance company knows us motorcyclists better. Just show us qualifying. PLEASE! You might even find it interesting. Oh, I know you showed us qualifying during the USGP at Laguna, but it's a great big world out there and we'd like to see it from time to time. Thank you.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
CORKSCREWED (part 2)
The next year (2006) managed to top the first. Sure getting in was easy, it always is. But getting out was absurd. If you wanted to bring a car in you had to pay an additional $50. (What, and no valet?!) This was to encourage the use of motorcycles which is fine if you live within a few hundred miles as I don't. The rest of us poor slobs were left to try our luck on the shuttle bus heading back to the parking lot at Fort Ord. Keep in mind that the heat was insane that weekend. It was 111 degrees on Saturday and 106 on Sunday. The water main had broken (probably sabotaged by the makers of Aquafina) and people were not in the best mood.
To add to things, the track was coming apart in chunks and the newly added bumps made it even more embarrassing for those of us who care about these kind of things. (America's finest track my ass.) Here we are trying to show the world our best effort and this is all we can come up with? Can we not hire the folks from Europe who know how to construct a track properly? Not only was the surface falling apart, but let's face it, Laguna Seca is a glorified go-kart track. The bikes don't get out of 4th gear EVER since there's really no straightwaway to speak of. Barber has the same problem and they had to repave their surface as well. (Although much credit must go to Mr. Barber for doing what he could.)
Back to the exit strategy from hell part 2...
Let's just say it was a free-for-all to get to the buses. How many thousands I don't know but if you did a little math. Calculating how many could fit on a bus, add the time that bus takes to go to the remote parking lot and back, factor in the time that these buses waited until all the buses in line were filled, instead of heading out once they were, take in to account that several buses were not filled to capacity due to the fact that passenger traffic control couldn't count how many people were allowed onto the bus even though the maximum capacity was printed on the side of the bus, multiply that by how many people opted out of the $50 parking pass and you've got a hell of a lot of people. Then let there be no real order to the lines to get on the bus. Hundreds of people were just jamming right to the front and it was a hot and sticky mess after weather like that.
My partner and I waited for an hour and forty in the line which moved no where. This, after circumnavigating the race course to avoid the massive traffic jam trying to cross the track bridge. More bottlenecks than a California vineyard. We retreated and found a place to sit and grab a beer and just wait. After a good hour and a half we went to have a look at the lines, hoping to see some progress. Nope. The line was better organized. But now it stretched for a half mile, all the way down the hill and wrapping around next to the service road. No shuttle for us.
Time for Plan B. We got on one of the last city buses leaving for Carmel. We certainly lucked out there since we might still be waiting at the track to this day. We took that back knowing that it would only be a mile walk back to where we were staying. But it was a chance worth taking. As providence would have it. Someone hit the stop button out on the highway and we got out at as good a spot as we were going to get. We then hiked it up the winding cliff road to the house carrying our gear. We then grabbed a shower and borrowed a car to drive back to Fort Ord to get our rental car which was another hour round trip. And our adventure was done. Sure, this all might sound like a lot of whining, etc. But how in the hell can Jerez de la Frontera host 200,000 fans on site on race day.
Just get your shit together SCRAMP! This year I'll be watching Greg White and the rest of the yokels from the air-conditioned comfort of my humble abode. Go Nicky, and Colin, and John, and Kenny Jr.
To add to things, the track was coming apart in chunks and the newly added bumps made it even more embarrassing for those of us who care about these kind of things. (America's finest track my ass.) Here we are trying to show the world our best effort and this is all we can come up with? Can we not hire the folks from Europe who know how to construct a track properly? Not only was the surface falling apart, but let's face it, Laguna Seca is a glorified go-kart track. The bikes don't get out of 4th gear EVER since there's really no straightwaway to speak of. Barber has the same problem and they had to repave their surface as well. (Although much credit must go to Mr. Barber for doing what he could.)
Back to the exit strategy from hell part 2...
Let's just say it was a free-for-all to get to the buses. How many thousands I don't know but if you did a little math. Calculating how many could fit on a bus, add the time that bus takes to go to the remote parking lot and back, factor in the time that these buses waited until all the buses in line were filled, instead of heading out once they were, take in to account that several buses were not filled to capacity due to the fact that passenger traffic control couldn't count how many people were allowed onto the bus even though the maximum capacity was printed on the side of the bus, multiply that by how many people opted out of the $50 parking pass and you've got a hell of a lot of people. Then let there be no real order to the lines to get on the bus. Hundreds of people were just jamming right to the front and it was a hot and sticky mess after weather like that.
My partner and I waited for an hour and forty in the line which moved no where. This, after circumnavigating the race course to avoid the massive traffic jam trying to cross the track bridge. More bottlenecks than a California vineyard. We retreated and found a place to sit and grab a beer and just wait. After a good hour and a half we went to have a look at the lines, hoping to see some progress. Nope. The line was better organized. But now it stretched for a half mile, all the way down the hill and wrapping around next to the service road. No shuttle for us.
Time for Plan B. We got on one of the last city buses leaving for Carmel. We certainly lucked out there since we might still be waiting at the track to this day. We took that back knowing that it would only be a mile walk back to where we were staying. But it was a chance worth taking. As providence would have it. Someone hit the stop button out on the highway and we got out at as good a spot as we were going to get. We then hiked it up the winding cliff road to the house carrying our gear. We then grabbed a shower and borrowed a car to drive back to Fort Ord to get our rental car which was another hour round trip. And our adventure was done. Sure, this all might sound like a lot of whining, etc. But how in the hell can Jerez de la Frontera host 200,000 fans on site on race day.
Just get your shit together SCRAMP! This year I'll be watching Greg White and the rest of the yokels from the air-conditioned comfort of my humble abode. Go Nicky, and Colin, and John, and Kenny Jr.
CORKSCREWED? Indeed! (Part 1)
For those of us who've been to the USGP at Laguna Seca, the last two years, I just want to say...
don't get CORKSCREWED!
If Steven Colbert can coin a phrase, so can I. I would define 'corkscrewed' as getting the shaft in a most expensive and time consuming way. I've never seen such a messed up situation in my life as I have at that track these last two years. Each year being different, yet equally as messed up.
2005 was the return of the USGP to our soil. That year cars were allowed to park on the grounds with the parking fee included in the cost of the ticket. How nice! Getting in was ridiculously silly and slow. But nothing would prepare us for getting out.
This was the most ridiculous exit strategy since the second Gulf War. We were in a car on Sunday instead of the bus (which I'll get to later) and it took us over two and a half hours to get out to the main road. Add to that the two plus hours we waited at the track to 'avoid the rush'. The only exit road for cars was two lanes and traffic was restricted to one lane only. They had to keep the other lane open for the occaisional shuttle bus that would pass us going the opposite way into the track every 10 to 15 minutes. Thank goodness! Motorcycles were not allowed to split lanes and were being ticketed if they did so. Many bikes overheated and were sitting on the roadside. Nice work gents.
The main reason we took the car on Sunday was because trying to get the shuttle bus back to Carmel was like trying to grab on to a helicopter at the fall of Saigon. Extremely poor planning California style. People were fighting to get on buses in a frantic state in this was only Saturday. If you got on an your friends didn't you just had to hope you'd meet again someday. We had had enough and decided to drive in ourselves on Sunday. We would've been better off coming in on horseback. Although I'm sure we would've not been allowed to split lanes either and the Sheriff's department would've probably had to shoot our horses on site. And then given us a ticket.
Is this the best we have to offer?
don't get CORKSCREWED!
If Steven Colbert can coin a phrase, so can I. I would define 'corkscrewed' as getting the shaft in a most expensive and time consuming way. I've never seen such a messed up situation in my life as I have at that track these last two years. Each year being different, yet equally as messed up.
2005 was the return of the USGP to our soil. That year cars were allowed to park on the grounds with the parking fee included in the cost of the ticket. How nice! Getting in was ridiculously silly and slow. But nothing would prepare us for getting out.
This was the most ridiculous exit strategy since the second Gulf War. We were in a car on Sunday instead of the bus (which I'll get to later) and it took us over two and a half hours to get out to the main road. Add to that the two plus hours we waited at the track to 'avoid the rush'. The only exit road for cars was two lanes and traffic was restricted to one lane only. They had to keep the other lane open for the occaisional shuttle bus that would pass us going the opposite way into the track every 10 to 15 minutes. Thank goodness! Motorcycles were not allowed to split lanes and were being ticketed if they did so. Many bikes overheated and were sitting on the roadside. Nice work gents.
The main reason we took the car on Sunday was because trying to get the shuttle bus back to Carmel was like trying to grab on to a helicopter at the fall of Saigon. Extremely poor planning California style. People were fighting to get on buses in a frantic state in this was only Saturday. If you got on an your friends didn't you just had to hope you'd meet again someday. We had had enough and decided to drive in ourselves on Sunday. We would've been better off coming in on horseback. Although I'm sure we would've not been allowed to split lanes either and the Sheriff's department would've probably had to shoot our horses on site. And then given us a ticket.
Is this the best we have to offer?
No Yokels PLEASE!
Hey SPEED!
Please let us Moto GP fans hear the regular commentators for Laguna Seca this year. Sure, Freddie Spencer was a phenomenal rider and no one can scream like Ralph Sheheen. But please let us hear anouncers that know what the heck their talking about. People that can identify the riders before I can. People who know more than I do. Plus the quality of production looks like it was done by middle schoolers from a small Nebraska town (no offense to you cornhuskers).
Also, I beg of you. No more moronic interviews with Greg White. Last year he had a couple of gems, my favorite being when he walked from the back of the pit garage to the front and proclaimed how 'fascinating' it was that the average Joe doesn't get to do this. Hey Greg, I still don't get to do this. Just because you were there doesn't make it more more magical to me. It's like watching a live concert on TV. It's still on TV. I wonder if Greg has heard about the on-board cameras as well. At least that is something worth watching, not some clown telling us how exciting it is to be there.
Please let us Moto GP fans hear the regular commentators for Laguna Seca this year. Sure, Freddie Spencer was a phenomenal rider and no one can scream like Ralph Sheheen. But please let us hear anouncers that know what the heck their talking about. People that can identify the riders before I can. People who know more than I do. Plus the quality of production looks like it was done by middle schoolers from a small Nebraska town (no offense to you cornhuskers).
Also, I beg of you. No more moronic interviews with Greg White. Last year he had a couple of gems, my favorite being when he walked from the back of the pit garage to the front and proclaimed how 'fascinating' it was that the average Joe doesn't get to do this. Hey Greg, I still don't get to do this. Just because you were there doesn't make it more more magical to me. It's like watching a live concert on TV. It's still on TV. I wonder if Greg has heard about the on-board cameras as well. At least that is something worth watching, not some clown telling us how exciting it is to be there.
Made in China?
It looks as if Harley Davidson is preparing to go out for Chinese. After another year of record profits they're putting the squeeze on their employees. Now, we all know that many of the parts are already manufactured outside the US but don't be surprised to see HD go the way of maximum profit no matter what the cost. Remember when Wal-Mart boasted Made in the USA on the majority of their products?
440 Harley employees were temporarily laid off today due to the strike. I don't know the full story behind the strike at this point but it's definitely something to keep an eye on. Stay tuned.
I guess those of us with rice burners (or whatever they are called) will sadly have the last laugh. Maybe the domestic Harley factory will be focused on a workforce that can polish chrome and mount American flags and leather fringe on the handlebars.
440 Harley employees were temporarily laid off today due to the strike. I don't know the full story behind the strike at this point but it's definitely something to keep an eye on. Stay tuned.
I guess those of us with rice burners (or whatever they are called) will sadly have the last laugh. Maybe the domestic Harley factory will be focused on a workforce that can polish chrome and mount American flags and leather fringe on the handlebars.
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