I’m not a particularly patriotic type. Over the past few years I’ve come to associate a lot of flag waving and proclamations of American pride with bullheaded moralizing and blind support of an power mad government. But this past weekend I was genuinely happy to see Nicky Hayden riding a victory lap of Laguna Seca while flying the Stars-n-Stripes.

I had the good fortune of going to California this past weekend to watch the first running of a Grand Prix race in the US in eleven years. The event was huge, drawing over 40,000 on Friday for practice and selling out with nearly 60,000 showing up on both Saturday and Sunday. Cramming in practice, qualifying and races for the MotoGP stars, the AMA series and the SuperKarts made for a busy weekend. Adding in demo laps for the fans, a few laps of honor for the Motoczysz C1, Randy Mamola’s two-up rides and some stunt shows by Christian Pfeiffer meant every minute had something for the fans to enjoy.

Getting to see and hear the MotoGP bikes live was definitely the highlight of the weekend. The races could have been more closely fought but were interesting nonetheless. Likewise, the track experience could have been more enjoyable as the Laguna Seca staff seemed completely overwhelmed by the turn-out: hours long traffic delays, hours long lines for the souvenir booths, insufficient seating, insufficient food and overloaded bathroom facilities. To that add in $4 sodas, limited access to the MotoGP paddock with pit passes and embarrassing goofs during the national anthem to really challenge the fans. Having laid out all those complaints, it might seem I didn’t enjoy the MotoGP weekend. Fortunately, the thrill of experiencing the MotoGP race in person more than made up for the negatives and hopefully the Laguna staff will be working to improve these issues for future races.

As it turned out the race was Nicky Hayden’s to lose. From the first time he turned a wheel on the track on Friday he was fastest. In the first practice sessions, his closest rivals were the other riders with prior experience at Laguna Seca: Troy Bayliss, Colin Edwards, John Hopkins, Alex Barros and Max Biaggi. Seven different riders broke the Laguna Seca motorcycle track record in the first practice session giving some further evidence to explain why Suzuki isn’t just running their GSXR in MotoGP. This trend continued in Saturday’s qualifying session where Nicky was the only rider to break into the 1:22 lap times turning not just one but three different twenty twos with a best of 1:22.670 earning him his first pole position.

The race was the final opportunity for Hayden to strut his stuff and strut he did, leading from flag to flag. Nicky pulled a two second gap in the first three laps then maintained it for the next 29 for the win. Each time Rossi or Edwards tried to close the distance Nicky would crank up his lap times in response. It seemed the entire audience of 60,000 fans were urging the #69 Honda on and the final lap was one continuous explosion of noise. Needless to say, it was a popular win and was made all the more emotional when Nicky came around on the victory lap with his father on the back. We fans had all that much more to cheer about during the podium presentation because Edwards held on for second place with Rossi filling out the roster.

Equally interesting was to see how the various riders responded to the Laguna Seca track. Rossi was vocal about lack of safety at various points around the track particularly in turns one and six. Marco Melandri was even more vocal but less specific. Considering he had never been to the track, Rossi qualified second and finished third. Not bad. Melandri, on the other hand, had very different weekend by qualifying eleventh and then crashing out of the race resulting in his first result outside the top four this season. Another promising young rider who struggled at the Monterey circuit was Yamaha’s Tony Elias who started outside the top 15 and finished 13th while still healing from a broken wrist. Most disappointing was Alex Barros who started on the first row but was then taken out in Melandri’s crash. Likewise, wildly popular Troy Bayliss looked like he was going to return to front running form but then ran sixth for the entire race. John Hopkins rode much harder than his eighth place finish would indicate, regularly harassing the faster Hondas and eventually finishing as the top Bridgestone rider. His Suzuki teammate Roberts, Jr had an opposite experience fading lap after lap until he took the checkers a sad 14th.

All these stories are just sidelines though. The day was all about the young American Nicky Hayden and his maiden GP win…hopefully the first of many to come.

[image from my photo collection.]