The first lap of the French GP worked out very well for MotoGP fans. First, Andrea Dovizioso accelerated past Marc Marquez, putting the pole sitter and race favorite into second position. Moments later Stefan Bradl passed Marquez on the outside, Marquez into third.
As the pack entered the Dunlop Chicane, Pol Espargaro passed Marquez, putting 93 into 4th. Valentino Rossi passed Marquez at La Chapelle, 93 now in 5th. Jorge Lorenzo pushed past at Garage Vert, and Marquez went off track to rejoin in 10th place.
Not a good start for the Championship leader, but a wonderful half first lap for fans. Instead of Marquez riding off into the distance, yawn, he had to work his way up from tenth place.
One of the benefits of having contacts in the MotoGP paddock is occasionally getting info that comes in handy. At the end of last season I happened to ask a friend about the July 2013 test at the new Argentina circuit.
I’d been thinking that this round looked interesting; and as I love to go to new tracks, I was thinking seriously about attending MotoGP’s first visit to the Autódromo Provincial Termas de Río Hondo.
The trip from California to Argentina sounded good in theory. It was a shorter journey than flying to Europe, right?
When I give a talk about my work, one of the things I most often hear is how much people enjoy the behind the scenes details of what it’s like to work as a photographer in MotoGP.
Trying something a bit different for this week’s Trackside Tuesday, I’m going to tell you some of the things that happened while I was photographing last weekend’s MotoGP in Austin, Texas. First, some background facts to set the stage.
Chatting with a couple of NASCAR fans recently, I was reminded that any competition is boring if you don’t care who wins. But if you do care, then even cars driving around in circles can be very compelling entertainment.
Those NASCAR fans really cared about how their favorite drivers finished, and not only how they finished in the latest race, but what and how those drivers were doing off the track as well.
Those fans had been captured by the personalities of those drivers. One of the things NASCAR does well is sell personalities. All major sports-related businesses do this to some extent, but some organizations do it better than others.
The NASCAR fans loved their drivers and loathed the others, so each race becomes a contest of great emotional importance. Will Good triumph over Evil? Will Justice prevail? This drama is acted out lap after lap, and then continued post-race with interviews, public appearances, blogs, and so on.