Moto America | Championship of Sonoma | Aug 10-11

It's BEE-chum and the bike is straight... verified that today.

 

Spanish flu.. caught it from Bautista

 

Can't be - the announcer surely knows more than some frame shop that has all kinds of wizardry to check tolerances.






Great showing by Draik, I'm cheering for Dumas (Canadian kid, the only one we have this year running a full season) but was rooting for Draik and Parrish in that amazing 4-way battle.


Back to track condition... Can MotoAmerica PLEASE drop Sonoma and come up to the PNW and schedule a round at The Ridge - my god it's suchs an improvement over that parking lot after an earthquake hits excuse for a track.

 

Apparently there was a random check on some of the Jr. Cup bikes and 3 out of the 4 of them were DQ'd for not having restrictor plates

 

That’s interesting. Which 3?

 

According to the MA results sheets: Josh Serne, John Knowles, and Nikolas Thompson. Looks like Serne finished 5th before the DQ. All on Ninja 400s.

 

Who could have seen this coming...

 

Beeb reports next to no ticket sales at Sonoma so I'd hazard a guess that in the Seattle/Tacoma/Vancouver metro area that the local PNW population would put up similar if not higher spectator ticket sales - sadly the current viewing options at the Ridge are limited and spectator amenities are scarce which I'd bet are the actual reasons for MA not being able to use the Ridge.

Weather there is amazingly dry and hot in Shelton (town where the Ridge is located) from mid-June until mid-Sept so as long as they avoid Spring/Fall rounds they'd have a seriously high chance of dry/hot weather.

I'd love to hear what people who've been there like Ken Hill, Caroline Olsen, Jake Gagne, etc... would say about the track itself in comparison to other MA tracks.

 

I’d swear I heard on a podcast that Jason Pridmore was checking out The Ridge for MA.

 

Jason has spent a TON of time there teaching and guest instructing the past 5 years - he's another one who'd have great insight.

 

A friend I've been trying to get to come out to PittRace tuned in to watch Sonoma. Between the pretty boring superbike race and it looking like there wasn't a soul there watching, it's really going to make it a tough sell. Granted, ticket sales for most live sporting events are down these days. Hoping for a good Pittsburgh turnout again. The last few years have been strong.

 

I was at the race. The pits were packed. The stands not so much. It looked like the numbers were up. Can’t wait to see what it was.

 

Surface sucks. Track is amazing!!

 

Glad to hear the pits were packed. It definitely didn't come across on TV that way.

 

I feel the same way about the back markers. I did see the blue flag. Haven’t noticed that before. I think it was in the stk1000 when Andrew Lee was lapping someone.

 

What Sean said. Superbike isn’t the only show and for the price of admission it’s well worth it even on a “boring” weekend. Every class this year has had some epic racing, some more than others. Go back through MALive+ and dig up some of those races to show him. There are plenty to choose from.

 

I raced car there and it is fun track but that last section down the hill and on to straight sucks.
I heard MA is going there next season.