Sunday 19 August 2012 – Final GP Indianapolis MotoGP
Day 129 and 29 to go
8am start again. Paul was up
and ready so I figured I should get out of bed and get my day underway as well.
We watched the morning TV while eating breakfast. I checked on the status of
Casey Stoner and it appeared event with a broken ankle and torn ligaments he
was likely to race.
By 9.15am we were out the
door and off to the track. We were able to park in the same area and head
across to the Brickyard. Paul stopped in at the merchandise stand to pick up
some glasses before we found our stand and then our seats arriving in time to
see the end of Moto2 practice. The GP practice laps started soon after and it
was great to see Stoner going from his crutches to his bike. It was crazy to
even see him out there considering the injuries he sustained yesterday.
The Moto3 race started at
11pm with a crash sorting them out on the first lap. After this the first three
riders were set until the final lap with Vinales tried a little too hard and
ended up on the road leaving Salom, Cortese and Fogler with the podium. Arthur
Sissis the Australian came in 11th.
After the race I had to go
and sit in the sun as the wind was whipping through the stand making it cold
despite the full sun. From there we could see that the stands were fairly
empty, some even appeared to not even be open to spectators. We heard later
there were only 65 000 at the venue and it made us wonder how they can afford
to have a race event here.
The Moto2 race began at 12.30
and from the onset Marquez put his stamp on the race again pushing Espargaro
out of the way. The German rider Aegerter was in the mix for a while before
falling back. The field eventually stretched out across the track. It was good
to see the Aussie, Ant West cross the line in 14th spot. Marquez,
Espargaro and Simon eventually made the podium.
Following the race we went
and sat in the sun watching a trick cyclist entertaining the crowd before I
went to get drinks while waiting for the start of the GP at 2pm. When I
returned I wrapped myself in the Aussie flag and got ready to support Casey
Stoner.
They started the race with a
churchy fello giving thanks and prayers and then the American anthem was sung.
The words of their anthem are very interesting to say the least. We were bored
and just wanted them to get on with it.
Casey’s qualifying laps
before his accident yesterday saw him in 6th spot on the grid and he
made the most of it. The beginning of the race saw the American Ben Spies in
the lead until his bike spat it down the main straight leaving a trail of thick
oily smoke for the other riders to navigate through. Many of them running wide
and missing the first corner. This left a break for Pedrosa who wound it up and
just powered away from Lorenzo.
In the meantime Stoner was
battling to hang on to third spot and 5 laps short relinquished to Dovizioso.
You could see that he was struggling with his injury but he was still having an
amazing race all things considered.
In the end Pedrosa crossed
the line in first 10 secs ahead of Lorenzo with Dovizioso grabbing third and
Stoner coming across the line 20 seconds after Pedrosa, a fantastic
effort.
When the race was over and
done we went for a walk heading to the middle, stopping briefly to see the
podium presentation.
We wandered around the middle
area again before returning to the start finish line seating to watch some of
the Harley Davidson racing. We didn’t hang around for long before making our
way out of the speedway and back to the car to join the procession of vehicles
leaving. We made a quick stop at the University's Barnes and Noble store to buy the final fifty book and we were back in the room by 4.15pm.
We hung out for a while
watching TV and I worked on the net and put photos onto the computer. By 6.30pm
we were hungry so we made our way into the city stopping at a Rock Bottom
Brewery for dinner. We were able to sit outside so we could people watch. There
were plenty of interesting sights, mostly geeks who were leaving the GenCon
exhibit. Classic.
Once dinner was done we returned
to the hotel. A hot air balloon was floating above the city skyline. It was a
beautiful dusk night and perfect I thought for bobbing around.
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