US Red Bull MotoGP 2011

Photos from practice for the 2011 Red Bull MotoGP race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Rossi Wins Red Bull Indy MotoGP; Hayden Second

Valentino Rossi sliced through the remnants of Hurricane Ike in Indianapolis Sunday to win the first motorcycle race at the Speedway since the track opened in 1909. While I was only able to get to the track for a couple of hours on Friday, I was thoroughly impressed with the bike control exhibited by the GP and 125cc riders. It was a typical Indiana weather weekend too - intermittent to pouring rain Friday, 90 degrees and steamy on Saturday, then hurricane winds and driving rain for the main event Sunday. If you don't like the weather around here, then wait 5 minutes and it will change, or so they say...

There was an excellent crowd on Friday and from all reports I've seen, IMS officials are happy with the first running of this event. There's talk of changes to Turn 5 to give more runoff room for next year, and with the race scheduled for the last weekend in August, maybe the riders will get the "dog days of summer" heat & humidity all weekend instead of just Saturday. It still looks like the esses leading onto the south short chute are too slow, but what do I know? I'm a car guy.

And 2009 will be 100 years since the track opened with the two-wheelers, so it should be an even bigger event. I had to go shoot the ARCA stock cars at Salem the next night so I had all the racing (and wet weather) I could stand for one weekend after Friday. I was thinking if I stayed away, then maybe the rain wouldn't follow me but it didn't matter to Ike. Or the roughly 100,000 fans who showed up at IMS Sunday. There's no place like Indy. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?