Got my passes for the 2015 Indianapolis GP, and special access to Paddocks.
Schedule:
- August 7 2015, Friday - Free Practice
- August 8 2015, Saturday - Qualifying
- August 9 2015, Sunday - Raceday
Travel
- Took off on Friday night to Chicago from SF, overnight flight landed at 4.30 in morning.
- Picked a rental car to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, still 200 miles to destination.
- Took a nap in a rest area after a sleepless night.
- Indianapolis was such a deserted town compared to SF.
Qualifying, Saturday
- Went directly to paddocks and roamed around a bit.
- Backyard to pits and team garages, this was exciting.
- You cannot actually see teams working inside garages but they occassionally come out for parts.
- Within first 5 minutes, Andrea Doviozoso raced past me on his scooter.
- Went to Moto America and Moto2 team garages, huge trucks around there.
- Graves motorsport had the healthiest lineup.
- Stunt shows on other part of the raceway.
- Explored some gear shops and bought VR|46 merchandise.
- Explored more of the exhibition from manufacturers around the world.
- Stayed in the garages during MotoGP qualifying, not much was happening here then.
- Waited for Valentino outside the garage for like an hour and he arrived.
- I just stayed to get a picture, and saw he was giving autographs for fans, I put my hat forward and this happened.
- Jumped around for a bit and left for my hotel.
Raceday
- Had a sound sleep. Woke up already late for some action.
- Headed directly to the pits. Raining.
- Found an umbrella
- Had a chance to meet Aleix Espargaro, no one knew him so I just reached out.
- Off to stands for race, and penthouse seats didn’t disappoint me.
- Rossi managed a hard fought 3rd, but disappointed for Lorenzo.
- Raced to the pits again post celebration.
- Bradley Smith and Aleix Espargaro were the first ones to exit pits.
- Not many people knew other racers except VR|46. Another reason why his garage was swamped with fans and other riders left unnoticed.
- Photobombing Danilo Petrucci and Yonny Hernandez.
- There goes Dani Pedrosa, such a short guy.
- In fact, all these riders were short and lightweight, totally made sense as it helps easy maneuverability and shift of bike weight.
- Andrea Iannone, the Ducati rider was having a banter with reporters when I approached him.
- There comes the today’s champion Marc Marquez, undefeated at Indianapolis five times in a row.
- A dozen fans surrounded him but not bad, worth waiting 2 hours.
- Most of the teams packed up their stuff, this was the winning bike from today going home.
- Saw Dani Pedrosa leaving in his rental cruze.
- Drove back to Chicago but the freeway was closed so had to detour for 70 miles through farmlands.