Race day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the 2nd running of the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix, the twelfth stop on the MotoGP schedule. There was no way the weather could have been worse than last year as the remnants of Hurricane Ike slammed into the Speedway shortening the 125cc and GP races, and canceling the 250cc race, but no one expected the weather to be as absolute gorgeous as it was. Sunrise on Sunday morning found many fans shivering and wrapped up in blankets and jackets as temperatures languished in the low 50s, but by mid-morning the clouds began to break up, and warming sunshine was able to make its way through to the historic venue. The Speedway is celebrating its 100th anniversary year of its very first ever motorports event, a motorcycle race held in 1909. Temperatures quickly climbed into the upper 60s where they stayed for the remainder of the day. Given that this is the tail end of Summer here in the central US, the cool temps were very unexpected and welcome. Usually at this time of the year, we’re dealing with temperatures in the upper nineties coupled with very high humidity.
In morning warmup, Dani Pedrosa was again extremely quick, but it was Alex de Angelis who startled everyone with a 1’40.446″ lap on a cool track. The rest of the grid pretty much performed as they did in FP2 and qualifications. When the lights went out, again there were no surprises. Pedrosa jumped out to an early lead, followed closely by Lorenzo and Rossi while Hayden lost a couple of spots. Pedrosa’s only hope for securing the race win, was build a substantial multi-second lead from which he could simply concentrate on his own ride and not be distracted by those behind him. He didn’t manage that, however, and Indy really isn’t the best track for getting out to that monstrous lead. 
This left Lorenzo and Rossi to duel for the race lead, and had many hoping for another epic battle between the two teammates. In this situation before, Vale has shown his remarkable ability to get inside the head of his opponents and force them to make a mistake because of the extreme pressure. This is precisely what the Yamaha duo did to Dani. The battle was to end all too quickly, though as Rossi suffered a similar type of accident to Pedrosa’s. As The Doctor began to turn into T2, the front simply lost grip and washed out. Valentino wasn’t as lucky as Dani, and his throttle was damaged causing him to retire from the GP. With no one else around him, Jorge Lorezo cruised on to a very easy, near 10-second gap victory.
Although with both Pedrosa and Rossi going down in the early laps meant very little was happening for the lead, there was a LOT happening mid-pack as Colin Edwards, Alex de Angeles, Andrea Dovizioso, and Nicky Hayden fought hard for the remaining spots on the podium. Alex secured the second podium step about midway through the race leaving only one spot left. All three and their opportunities, but it ended with Hayden on the podium again in his home GP. Hayden barely held off Dovizioso after pushing his bike and tyres to the very limit of their performance. With his tyres shot, Hayden was plying all of his racecraft to keep the young Italian behind him. Had the race gone one more lap, its doubtful that Hayden would have been able to hold on to his spot, but they didn’t, and the crowd at IMS went crazy as Nicky crossed the bricks. It was a magnificent race, and a great finish for Nicky and Alex, both of whom needed a good result to help bolster their bids for a 2010 ride.
If you’ve ever been curious about motorcycle road racing and have wanted to know why people get so excited about it, come to Indianapolis next year. You can see practice for only $10 and qualifications for only $20. A three day, including race day, pass is only $75 and there’s plenty of great viewing mounds and locations to watch the action. Come out and see it! You won’t be disappointed!
