Is Indianapolis really a Honda circuit? With four Yamahas on the two front rows of the grid, you would have to say it wasn’t any longer. There is a Honda on pole, but as that’s Marc Marquez, that doesn’t really count: alongside his perfect nine wins from nine races, he now also has eight poles from ten qualifying sessions.
Any discussion of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the different manufacturers at a circuit really needs to disregard Marquez at the moment. In 2014, the Spaniard is just too much of an outlier, as his ability to put a couple of tenths or more on the opposition at will demonstrates.
The 2014 Indianapolis GP will be the last American race for Colin Edwards, as The Texan Tornado will be hanging up his spurs at the end of the MotoGP season. The help commemorate his departure from Grand Prix racing, Edwards has picked a special helmet and leather design for the Indy GP, and unsurprisingly, it has a military theme.
Edwards has always used the Indianapolis GP to debut his helmets that honor the branches and people of military service, and the American rider told us that this weekend’s camouflage livery is an homage to that tradition.
Saying goodbye to his home crowd on Sunday, the Texan will for sure also race at Silverstone and Valencia, though the rumor is that Alex de Angelis will rider the NGM Forward Yamaha at the rest of the year’s races.
Yesterday we wondered how many college football stadiums we could fit inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval, and today we tackle a different kind of religion (tackle, get it!) in our quest to fathom how big the facilities are here at IMS. So with that in mind, what could be more appropriate than a small city…Vatican City.
The Vatican is is the smallest internationally recognized independent state, by both area (110 acres) and population (842). Can this small country fit inside The Racing Capital of the World? Continue forth to find out.
For the past four years, my coverage of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has followed something of a ritual. The riders would ride the track. The riders would talk to the media about how awful the track was, the bumps, the different types of asphalt, the drainage covers, the joints between the tarmac, the corners which were too tight.
I would write about what the riders had said in my nightly round-ups. And I would receive an email complaining about what I’d written from IMS’ otherwise excellent media office.
It’s hard to blame Indy’s media office for such a reaction. They are the best media office of all the circuits on the calendar, by a country mile, better organized and providing useful and timely information on everything happening on the track.
It is part of their duty to handle criticism of the circuit, especially that coming from a bunch of Europeans only using half the real Speedway track, and requiring corners. They were only doing their job.
They will have a much easier job this weekend. Rider reaction to the changes made at Indy has been overwhelmingly positive, with barely a whisper of criticism of the track. The single surface on the infield is a vast improvement, the changes to the track layout make it much more suitable for motorcycle racing, and most of the bumps have been removed.
The circuit is “more like a normal track,” as Marc Marquez put it. Pol Espargaro concurred. Indy is “more of a motorbike track” the Tech 3 man said.
Colin Edwards will contest only three more MotoGP rounds in the 2014 season. The Texan is to race at Indianapolis, Silverstone and Valencia, before hanging up his helmet. From Brno, Alex De Angelis will take Edwards’ place, and Edwards will race as a third rider for the NGM Mobile Forward Racing team in the UK and at the last race of the year.
Edwards’ final year in MotoGP has not gone according to plan. The Texas Tornado had hoped that the arrival of the Yamaha Open class bike at Forward, to replace the Kawasaki-powered CRT machine would spark a revival in his fortunes.
When Edwards finally got to ride the Open class Yamaha, however, he found to his dismay that he could not get on with the Yamaha chassis, and was unable to get the bike to turn. He had pinned his hopes on the arrival of a chassis from FTR, but financial problems for the British chassis manufacturer meant he was left to struggle with the Yamaha frame until Mugello.
When a new chassis did arrive, fresh from the drawing board of now ex-FTR designer Mark Taylor, it did not see Edwards drastically improve his pace.
MotoGP’s Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix is this weekend, in case you were unaware. As such, Asphalt & Rubber is live from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this week, the racing capital of the world.
While the GP riders may not be huge fans of the IMS infield circuit (we’ll see if that opinion changes, now that Indy has repaved and reworked several turns), everyone is in agreement that IMS itself is an impressive facility.
A massive racing complex, it is hard to explain how big the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is to someone who hasn’t been here…so we thought we would try a new approach over the next few days. First up, Big 10 football. The Hoosier State is known best perhaps for basketball, as a member of the Big 10 Conference, the University of Indiana et al have some mammoth buildings are their disposal.
It’s too easy to realize that Indianapolis Motor Speedway is bigger than say Memorial Stadium, but how many Big 10 football fields do you think can fit in the IMS oval? Make your mind up now…no cheating.