Sit tight, grab a coffee, put some kindling on the fire, or grab your kindle and read on....
I will be updating in "chunks" during the next day or so, beginning with Imola and Magny Cours, then Phillip Island in Australia, then Portimao which will include the road trip my wife Emily and I had en route to the final round of MotoGp in Valencia. Then we'll have some current updates.
The last time I put words to this blog, I was staying in a small gite, in a small beautiful town called Brisighella, a picture of which can be viewed down page. This was to attend the World Superbike race at the famous race track at Imola. I had never been to Imola, much the same as I had never been to Monza. In fact, it's the one thing in common I had with Ben Spies! Many of the tracks he would be racing at, he hadn't seen either. Let's just say that's where the similarities ended. Italy is a wonderful place, and this part of Italy is beautiful. Still rather rustic, but full of history, architecture and kind people. The gite I had rented was a converted barn. The entire property was a vineyard, not huge, but they make and sell their own wines and we had just arrived at harvest time. So the roads that we would travel on would always have at least one tractor with a trailer full of grapes. Occasionally, you'd round a corner and see a rather futuristic tall, spaceship looking tractor designed to remove grapes from their vines. At night you'd hear these tractors, with their "night into day" lights following a strict path up and down the well placed vines removing the grapes.
Needless to say, the air is full of a pungent fruity mustiness as they're taken from the vines, and crushed at many of the small independent wine producers in the valley. The entire region is noted for it's wine, and it's wild boar. In fact, at the place we were staying, the woman who ran the facility, and who owned the vineyard and who also runs a cooking school, would tell me that if I went for a walk in the evening to watch out for wild boar... Ok, I will. In the mornings you would sometimes wake to the crack of gunfire and hunters would be up at dawn looking for game, and no doubt, the odd wild boar...!
Imola holds a very special place in many racing fans' hearts. As with many famous racetracks it also has a rather sad side to it's history, being a race track where many fine racers have lost their lives. One of the most well known, and still loved to this day, is Ayrton Senna. On the Thursday afternoon, Graeme, another photographer by the name of Gareth Harford and myself walked the track, a useful exercise just to get some idea of the layout, angles and so forth. When we came upon Tamburello we went behind the catch fencing, where, to this day, Senna fans place flowers, and memorials to the famed Formula 1 (cars) driver. On a quiet Thursday afternoon with the only sound being some birds and the faint toot of cars horns from the city that surrounds the race track it made for a moment of reflection, and a reminder that sometimes there is a price to pay for speed, competition, and the ultimately, life does go on.
Well..as with everything Thursday ends and the race weekend gears itself up. In Italy, this means chaos. Organised chaos! Italian race fans are really, very enthusiastic. Climbing fences, firecrackers, disco Eurotrance music blaring from huge mobile panini vans. All serving food and coffee as good as anything you can buy in a decent Italian restaurant in the US. The Italians love food, and good food. Umm, so do I so it's a dangerous combination! The racing?
Oh yes! Well, as expected this is a Ducati track, meaning, they really always perform well here and this weekend wasn't any different, however, MotoGP 250 superstar Marco Simoncelli
put in an appearance for the Aprillia Superbike team and finished third in race two! To the delight of the many fans that turned out to watch the Italian. With Ducati riders, Haga and Fabrizio winning race 1 and race 2 respectively, the weekend wasn't helpful for title contender Ben Spies.
But that's racing I guess!! A quick hop skip, quick plane trip and we're off Paris, then a swift drive to Burgundy and Magny Cours!
I have a soft spot for France. I spent many years motorcycling here (or there), I would go on school trips all through junior school, the food, language, countryside, everything about the country I love. Even my wife Emily and I were engaged in Paris 23 years ago! This time I'm staying in a converted 16th Century converted building next to the church in the centre of a very old town by the name of La Charite-sur-Loire. The apartment itself backs up to the 12th century Clunic priory church of Notre Dame. Notably, the winding narrow medieval stone staircase inside the apartment will always stick in my mind because it felt like you were walking up a tower (which you were) to fire arrows upon the invading (insert favourite invading medieval army here).
The town itself is one of a few towns in France that is known as the "City of Books", and as you'd expect, there's a lot of booksellers, with new, used and antique books, most in French, all for sale! Back to the track at Magny Cours, which is out in the middle of nowhere and so it is a nice pleasant and relaxing 20+ minute drive. However, I would only find out after I returned home that my rather enthusiastic driving style would be rewarded with four driving violations, in other words, speeding tickets from some sneaky hidden speeding camera somewhere en route between the apartment and the track. No flashes to alert you, nothing. Perhaps the cows were disguised as speed cameras, who knows..but there you go. The price of racing I suppose!
This weekend would fare a little better for Ben's championship attempt as he would go onto win race 1.
However, Noriyuki Haga would maintain his side of the championship tussle by winning race 2.
This track is huge! A scooter (Thanks Maio! [Merrigalli]) is essential. There's plenty of opportunities to capture something a little bit different, with brightly coloured kerbs, huge swathes of green paint and the light is actually quite good there (or here)...
One thing that struck me, especially as I spent a lot of time working in and out of the Yamaha garage was watching the extremely high level of team work, combined with a good sense of humour to get the work done. With Tom Houseworth who has been with Ben for years, and Gregg 'Woody" Wood, who came on board the Spies championship efforts a few races previously the team developed and second sense for making sure all their work played out.
With the championship now set to come down to the final race in Portimao, Portugal, the weekend is over. Next, we head home to California for a few days, then it's off to Australia and Phillip Island for MotoGP.
There is a reserve that is run by the state not far from where we stay for the week during the races that has a Koala reserve. Since last year the entrance, and visitors centre has been modernised. The walks around the park have been more clearly designated and overall it looks like it has been spruced up considerably. One of the benefits of arriving early for a race weekend and especially during the early part of the week is the lack of other visitors. I have the entire park to myself. Just me, wallabies and sleeping koala's.
This time, I'm house sharing with GB and Eric Malherbe at the All Seasons Eco Resort on Phillip Island. From the main road that heads into Cowes on Phillip Island, it looks like someone has simply decided to place a collection of old red roofed galvanised steel sheds into a field. But these self catered 2 or 3 bedroom chalets are modern, comfortable and have everything you need to make your stay comfortable. They do have internet access, but it's pricey. So beware on over using it. In fact it's ridiculously expensive, my only gripe. That said, it's a lovely place to stay. If you wake early anywhere on this Island, make sure to go for a walk as the sun rises. You'll see Ibis (the bird in the above image) and fields of wallaby and rabbits, all moving, running around getting an early start.
This is now the second year in a row where I start my racing year "on the Island". This week it is to cover World Superbike and to interview Roger Hayden and Jason DiSalvo, for a feature in the American Racing Magazine, Road RacerX. With Ben Spies moving onto to MotoGP, World Superbike now has two riders flying the flag for the USA. Roger is back on a Kawasaki Superbike in the Superbike class, and Jason is aboard a Triumph 675 triple in the World Supersport class. 
The interview, along with images will be in the next edition of Road RacerX which should be out in a few weeks. I wish them both the best of luck. I know Roger is under no illusions that he has a tough job ahead of him, but the interview with him was illuminating and entertaining. Jason, has the benefit of being on factory ride, and has Chaz Davies on the same team. Finishing 8th in his first race during the weekend certainly set the tone for the year, and Roger did equally as well by finishing 18th, making up places and getting faster as the weekend continued.
Visiting the Yamaha garage was good as always, Maio and the other crew folks were pleased to see me, and likewise I was too. I love this crowd and yet again, Maio (Massimo) Meregalli went out of his way to make sure I had a scooter for the weekend. Even though the first one died and i had to push it back from Siberia! Only to be given a new scooter that did work! But it did feel a little different insofar as there wasn't Ben, Tom, Mary and Woody in the crew. But like everything changes. There were a lot less photographers at this years event vs last year, but the crowds were bigger than last, possibly because there wasn't the horrible fires that were happening at the same time last year. Leon Haslam would win race one, and Carlos Checa would win race two. Eugene Laverty would win the Supersport race.
The next time I will be at Phillip Island will be during the MotoGP race that will be during the latter part of the year. This time we will have Ben, Tom, Woody, Mary. But then we'll not have Maio! Oh well. I do love coming to Phillip Island, let's just hope it's a little cheaper and the US Dollar has a little more oomph vs the Australian Dollar...and oh yes, I must organise some sort of internet access as well.
Check back soon! Thanks for reading...and don't forget to become a "Fan" of Andrew Wheeler - AutoMotoPhoto on Facebook!
