After much anticipation this past weekend we went to picturesque Phillip Island, home of penguins and a fantastic race track where the MotoGP show comes once a year. This year we had an opportunity to camp next to the track for three nights and watching the whole weekends activities from up close. Our campsite with the track in the back, happened to be the home of over a thousand men and women, mostly men though, having a good time drinking beer, talking around campfires, riding bikes, and shooting off fireworks, when we say fireworks we mean full on New Years style fireworks. The track with it's magnificent views before the weekends activities was only about 10m or 30ft away from where we sat, requiering ear plugs. The big MotoGP bikes were reaching speeds of 328km/h (204mi/h) at the end of the main straight before slowing down to half that speed right in front of us. A view of the main straight disappearing down towards the ocean during the first practice session, eventually almost 110,000 people came over the
weekend to watch the races. KT gets her paparazi lens ready for some shots of the riders. Dani Pedrosa shows that even celebrities blink at the wrong time, he was too damn close for the paparazi lens as he said hello to us. Nicky Hayden also walked by but some people stepped in front of us, grrr. Valentino Rossi, the new world champion, and Hayden sign autographs. Jorge Lorenzo took time to say hi the next day and pose for some photos while Casey Stoner slinked away without giving us a chance to take a photo. Little did he know we would get one anyway between the people. Chris Vermeulen was also there signing autographs in his light blue jumper. Casey, John Hopkins, Nicky, Valentino, and Jorge ride by on a parade lap before the big race giving everyone a good photo op. The last two photos are of one of the bikes on display around the track.
Now on to the good stuff. Here are the photos of the bikes and riders doing what they do best.
If you don't believe that counter steering works just check out the front tires in some of the photos. We had the chance to see these guys riding in the wet as some of the photos show and it was amazing. They hardly slowed down at all, even dragging their knees. It was certainly something to see, even for someone like KT who wasn't really into motorcycle racing it was fun and thrilling. So can anyone figure out who our favorite rider is? Our other favorites? Next time we will show more of our New Zealand holiday photos.
