The racing in Austin starts, and we get another Marquez win. But how long will the streak continue…?
Ever since MotoGP introduced the Sprint race, the Saturday schedules start a lot earlier as they have to get Qualifying done in the same day. So I got to the track around 8am to hit up the media office and pick up my credentials.
The first thing I noticed is that there is a ton of construction going on at Circuit of the Americas! It looks like the T11 clubhouses are almost done, they’ve dug up a lot of the area around the Grand Plaza, and they’re even building a second roller coaster…which will apparently have a quick dip underground:
The first people I saw ended up being some buddies from Krämer Motorcycles – Jensen Beeler (the CEO of Krämer USA) and Ross Olson (Krämer’s test rider). They were taking one of their new APX-350 MA over to REV’IT’s booth as the new TAILORTECH program is a partner in the Talent Cup, they offer the young racers a similar custom suit service that they offer riders in WorldSBK and MotoGP. I raced against Ross last year in AHRMA and he is quick!
Over at Iconic, we’ve recently created a parts platform called Iconic Moto Market. Our intent is to provide a place for people to find rare OEM and quality aftermarket parts from a trusted source. Weirdly, we got a call from Josh Hayes – I had just seen him a couple of weeks ago at the Yamaha R9 launch – turns out that his wife Melissa Paris was running one of the MotoAmerica Talent Cup teams and she needed a KTM spring release tool (to pull out the piston rods in the fork legs) which is generally only available to dealers and she couldn’t find any in the US. Turns out we had one, so I told her I’d bring it with me personally.
So my first stop of the day was supposed to be in the Talent Cup paddock, though I admittedly got distracted by the Troy Lee Designs truck as Troy is a friend of ours and I really wanted to see the new Desmo450 MX which they were showing off at CotA as well as eight Supercross rounds this year.
I liked that they had a cutaway engine slowed down to give a peek at how the desmodromic valves work:
There was also the DesertX Rally that Alexander Smith (Malcolm Smith’s son) got second place with at the 2024 NORRA Mexican 1000.
I had the pleasure of riding the regular DesertX for a story with Motorcycle.com (did you see my behind-the-scenes on that?) and it was exhilarating in stock form – I wish I had the talent to maximize what the Rally version would be capable of!
Goofing around in South Dakota
I finally pried myself away from the Ducatis and headed over to the Talent Cup paddock. MotoAmerica had understandably put Kenny Roberts’ team right at the front for everyone to see as Team Roberts is definitely getting most of the headlines.
Their rider is Kody Kopp, who has had great success in American Flat Track (Rookie of the Year and 3x AFT Singles champion) but is a relative newcomer to road racing.
I then went over to the tent of another Talent Cup racer – Solly Mervis. Iconic sponsors Solly but I had yet to meet him person and I was excited to change that. When I showed up he was in the middle of an interview for Moto America:
You can learn more about Solly here, and I’ll be covering him in more detail as part of a separate post about my experience watching the Talent Cup this weekend.
Back in the main paddock, I was delighted to see a bunch of my friends from all around the country like comedian Alonzo Bodden and Brian Case, the Executive Director at the Barber Museum.
Brian’s been making waves in the last couple of years as he’s been able to acquire a significant portion of Kenny Roberts’ motorcycles for the museum. Continuing that, Barber brought out the 2006 KR211V and displayed it at the Alpinestars hospitality suite. The Honda 990cc V5 engine produced 261 horsepower and it weighed just 319 pounds.
Also in the paddock was my favorite costume of the weekend – a couple that were dressed up as the Mario brothers…or should I say Marquez brothers. The line of people waiting outside of Marc’s pit all day hoping for a photo or a signature was stunning and no other rider came close to attracting the same attention. It must be frustrating for the other guys – moments after I took this photo, Franky Morbidelli walked out of his pit (just next to Marc’s) and no one went up to him.
My highlight for the day was definitely the Sprint race because my buddy Bob Starr was able to get me on the grid for the start! I walked through the Yamaha pit and got to check out Alex Rins’ bike up close…plus a few others:
While the riders were out on their sighting laps, teams got their areas set up on the starting grid.
Us Americans need to represent better at our round – I’d have to imagine the stands would be packed if this was a race in Spain.
Guests like myself were required to stand to the side until all the bikes had come in and had stopped moving.
Fabio’s in this photo if you look hard enough.
Then we were allowed to walk around a bit. I mostly filmed video for our social media but here’s a few stills:
Pecco
Maverick Vinales
Jack “Thriller” Miller puts his chest protector in.
Joan Mir, who was able to save a lowside during qualifying earlier in the day.
The start of the Sprint was fantastic and the first lap was probably the best lap of the season with multiple lead changes and aggressive attacks. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend you check out this video (Dorna doesn’t allow YouTube embeds so I can’t share it for you here).
The first lap was madness! Photo courtesy of MotoGP
Also highlighted in the above video was a strong performance from Fabio Quartararo. I watched the race from the Yamaha pit and it was exciting to see #20 get a good start in 4th place, the energy from his team was palpable. In Turn 15 of Lap 4 he lost the rear but was somehow able to quickly save it and only lose one place in the process. Unfortunately for him, the Ducatis just have more power and eventually he slid to sixth place. But he got lots of love from the press for his fierce battles against the VR46 Ducatis.
Photo courtesy MotoGP
In Fabio’s words, “We managed a really great race. I think that the start was really important. Hopefully we can make a similar one tomorrow, but I enjoyed the race. I mean, this race we have pace – not a really good one.” It was Fabio’s best Sprint result since he placed fifth in Malaysia last year. I’m sure Yamaha was hoping for more but it was a big improvement from their finish last year and I was very curious to see where the former world champion would end up tomorrow – if he makes it to the podium, it’d be his first time since Indonesia in 2023.
Fabio’s bike after the Sprint Race.
Surprising no one, Marc Marquez won the Sprint with a total time of 20:29.50. This is his fourth Sprint victory (third of the year plus the Aragon round from last year). If he’s able to pull off the Sunday win, he’d be the first person to win the first three races of the season since 2014. It also gives Ducati their 17th consecutive Sprint victory. Alex Marquez came in 2nd (the first time he’s been on the podium for three Sprints in a row) and Pecco Bagnaia rounded off the podium (his 4th Sprint podium in a row) – Ducati ended up with the top five positions of the day. An actual surprise was the continued success of rookie Ai Ogura, who placed ninth (and was the top finishing Aprilia, even though he’s a rookie and he’s on the satellite Trackhouse team).
For the second Talent Cup race of the day, I got to be part of Solly’s pit crew! He battled hard but had a tough start to the 8 lap race. He finished 10th in the first race and 11th in the second race with a best lap of 2:30.480, and he was seeing speeds over 120 mph on the back straight. I’m so proud of him – how many people get to say that they raced a MotoGP track the same day as legends like Marquez and Pecco! Per his team (Ice Barn Racing), “Despite the ups and downs, Ice Barn Racing leaves Austin tied for 11th in the championship, just three points out of 6th place. With no crashes and a full weekend of race mileage, it was a net gain in both development and momentum. The high-profile nature of the COTA event, with overlapping MotoGP media obligations, added pressure and distractions, but also offered a valuable learning opportunity. As we return to a more typical MotoAmerica race weekend, the team is ready to apply what we’ve learned and continue progressing.”
As mentioned in the Friday summary, I’ll do a dedicated post for the Handbuilt Show. But I ended up going back and found a few more bikes that I liked, including this Bimota V-Due.
I almost stuck around until the show closed down at midnight and then headed to bed to get ready for race day!
