Tomorrow I fly out to Austin for one of my favorite weekends of the year – MotoGP at Circuit of the Americas! There’ll also be some quality time at the Handbuilt Show and I’ll be riding the track the day after the GP race with Aprilia Racers Days. Let’s take a look at what to expect:
First, a little surprise: when MotoAmerica announced King of the Baggers four years ago, I thought it was silly and I didn’t take it seriously. I’ve since had the chance to ride Kyle Wyman’s 2021 championship-winning bike for a story with Cycle News and although I still think it’s a bit silly, I definitely take it seriously now.
The industry is taking it seriously as well – King of the Baggers has inked a deal to expand into Europe and this weekend (for the first time ever) KotB will be part of the GP weekend. They have a 3 lap “Challenge” race on Friday as well as two 6-lap races on Saturday – the second race on Saturday will be immediately after the MotoGP sprint race. Here’s a full schedule for the entire weekend if you’re curious.
The King of the Baggers lap record holder at CotA is Kyle Wyman, who set a 2:15.461 in a warm up lap last year. Compare that to the MotoGP record of 2:01.892 set by Francesco Bagnaia on his Ducati last year. Seeing how much faster the GP bikes would be down CotA’s two loooooooong straighaways, that’s less of a gap than I expected.
OK, enough about baggers. Austin will be the third race of the season – Jorge Martin (who won the last race at Portimão) is currently leading the championship, with Brad Binder and Enea Bastianini rounding out the top three. Last year’s champion and the winner of the first race of this season (Francesco Bagnaia) is currently in 4th due to an incident in the last race with Marc Marquez that ended his day early.
Finishing up the top 5 is rookie sensation Pedro Acosta, who has made saved my MotoGP fantasy team from being a disaster and (more importantly to him) made GASGAS relevant in road racing (even if it’s a repainted KTM).
This is the first time in decades that an American-owned team is participating in MotoGP, so CotA will be their home track. The race season has not been kind to Trackhouse Racing but they’re taking advantage from a marketing standpoint as their display bikes will be shown at the Texas Governor’s Mansion for a photo op, then on display at the Revival Cycles shop. Their sister NASCAR team will also do a demo lap at the track on Saturday after qualifying, too. I actually had the chance to see the display bikes months ago as Trackhouse sent them to us at Iconic to receive them from Italy and then bring them to the public launch in Los Angeles:
Five Fun Facts:
1. This will be the 11th time that CotA hosts MotoGP – previous winners of the last ten races include Marc Marquez (7 times), Alex Rins (2 times), and Enea Bastianini.
2. Related to the above, Honda has won eight times, Ducati has won once, and Suzuki has won once. Honda riders have won 17 of the last 19 MotoGP races held in the USA.
3. This may be Marquez’s best chance to win a race this season. If he does, it will have been 903 days since his last win (2021, Emilia Romagna).
4. On the other hand, maybe Pedro Acosta surprises everyone! If he wins, he’ll be 19 years and 325 days old, making him the youngest rider to win a MotoGP race (previous record: Marc Marquez at 20 years and 63 days). If Acosta places on the podium, he’ll become the youngest rider to take back-to-back MotoGP podiums. That was also Marc’s record, and he also set it at Austin (though back in 2013).
5. Some milestones:
Marc Marquez: the eight-time World Champion will be celebrating his 250th GP.
Fabio Di Giannantonio: the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team rider will be celebrating his 150th GP.
Raul Fernandez: the Trackhouse Racing rider will be celebrating his 100th GP (and of course, he’ll be at his team’s home track)
If you can’t be in Austin this weekend, these are the three main ways that you can watch the MotoGP side of things:
1. Stream it online with MotoGP’s proprietary VideoPass. It’s not cheap but they do offer a free trial.
2. It looks like this year you will also be able to stream it on HBO Max.
3. Watch it on TV. According to this page, the US provider is truTV – you’ll have to figure out what channel that is for you.
For live-ish updates, my silliest stuff will be on my Instagram stories. If you’re looking for a more professional look at this weekend, keep your browser pointed at Crash.net and MotoMatters.
Hopefully I’ll see you out there!