Quick home visit MOTO GP

Apr 22, 2003
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Just recently back from a 2 week stint back home, the cold weather assured me that i have made the right decision to live in Thailand, but the high light of the trip was to get to pit crew for an old mate at Phillip Island at the MOTO GP, he was riding in the Aussie 125 GP bikes one of the support races. If you havent been to a Moto Gp since they moved over to 4 bangers the first thing you notice is the sound, these bikes sound different to any other bike ive heard before, and Rossi what can I say, I was standing on the infield near Honda corner during the last qualifier with 2 minuites to go and Rossi was in 8th, now i had been watching him all weekend and didnt seem like he had much different than the other guys but this lap was different, he looked like a totally different rider, sure enough up into third. Same deal in the race he was back in 5th or 6th when the rain started to fall, he must have realised that they would be pitting to do a bike change and needed to be in a good spot and once again hit that switch and turned into a different rider and shot into second. Actually you would be right to think thier were no other competitors in Moto GP if you look around the circuit, yellow shirts, jackets, pants and hair bearing the number 46 every where you look and the merchandising stalls had a good selection of hats, tee shirts, jackets and badges, well 50% of the stall, the other 49% was taken up by Rossi stuff at a third of the price more expensive than any thing else and the other 1% was 1 style of cap and tee shirt for Casey Stoner the local boy. Had a great weekend catching up with old mates but had a stressful moment leaving the track, you see i was flying out the same night to come back to Thailand and to avoid getting stuck in traffic i borrowed a mates cb 750 so i could get back to Melbourne in time to catch my flight, the plan was good and i had to get to the circuit fairly early in the morning to do the final preps to my mates 125 before his race, it was cold and really foggy, upon arrival i was ushered in to the motor cycle parking compound, i should have paid more attention to land marks because when i returned at the end of the day it was just a sea of bikes, as far as the eye could see, thier i was wandering around for ages trying to find my bike, just like hundreds of other people, by now in a panicked rush i didnt take the extra 5 minuites to gear up fully for the conditions and froze all the way back, downed my last mum cooked meal threw squeezed every thing in the bags and just made my flight.
The other good thing that came out of my trip back was to be able to touch base with a lot of my old mates with bike shops and are more than happy to send parts over for me, so if your chasing some thing for your bike you cant get here in Thailand I may be able to get it posted over
John