Gran Premio di San Marino

In the last post about the Italy trip, we left off at the start of a three day break from motorcycling in the coastal town of Rimini.

This was by design, because the Gran Premio di San Marino was taking place in the Most Serene Republic of San Marino, a microstate which is some 125 times bigger than Vatican City.

There's something visceral about attending a motorcycle race, which is probably true for any type of racing. In the case of motorsports, it's the smell of the exhaust and the rumble of the engine as the machine speeds by. It's one thing to hear the engine, but quite another thing to experience the gut rattling percussive effects produced from the exhaust. It's not unlike standing near the speakers at your favorite Las Vegas night club where each beat rattles every part of your body.

Here's a short clip of the riders completing a warm up lap. You can get a feel for how loud these things are and how fanatical the locals are about the Ducati team.

This was the third MotoGP race that I'd had the opportunity to attend and it was, by far, the most exciting. In most MotoGP events, there are three races, each representing a different class. Moto3 is the class with the youngest riders and the smallest engines. Moto2 is the mid-level class comprised of former Moto3 riders. MotoGP is the top level class with the most experienced and talented riders and the most powerful machines. The first race of the day is the Moto3 class and the last is the MotoGP class.

That's a simple overview and it's relevant because something interesting happened in the Moto3 race that affected the remaining races. The images below show the events immediately following an engine malfunction on the track in which the engine emptied all of its oil on to the track. The cleanup effort was thorough and took about twenty minutes, because a lubricant on a race track often leads to undesirable conditions.

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Here's proof that Italians actually do work. If only they'd been around for that oil spill in the gulf it might have been cleaned up faster.

The best part of the race was that I got to see the lost Mario brother, Giuliano:

[caption id="attachment_1171" align="alignnone" width="640"] Giuliano Mario[/caption]

I wouldn't have recognized him given the weight that he's lost, but his trademark "no-bill" cap gave him away. I later found out that he was there with M. Bison of Street Fighter fame:

[caption id="attachment_1172" align="alignnone" width="640"] Still reeling from that loss to Ken[/caption]

My favorite part about the race in San Marino is that they let the attendees go out on to the track when the race is over.

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I could go on about the race, but this post is long enough already. The next stop in Italy is the lovely tower town of Bologna. Where I visit my first (and only) museum on the trip.