A Trip to the MotoGP (2005)


In July, I rode my BMW R1200GS from Spokane, WA to Montery, CA to attend the MotoGP race at Laguna Seca. I shot quite a few photos while there, but not so many on the trip there and back. And I didn't get around to creating this page until almost December, so its a bit sparse on text. The photos are what its all about, anyway.

Click on an image to start the show. From there you can navigate forwards, backwards, or back here.

 

The trip there

I rode down by myself, taking 2-lane roads and two days for the trip. I didn't shoot many photos as I was using a Canon digital SLR which is a bit of a pain to do from a bike.
   
 

Cannery Row

One of the "features" of big motorcycle races at Laguna Seca is the unscripted show on Cannery Row by showoffs with more guts than brains. This year, the police closed off Cannery Row to traffic, so it became a big wide sidewalk, full of people. They still let bikes in, but only to park or exit. Nevertheless, we witnessed the aftermath of one wheelie-gone-bad which put the bike into the side of a rental car driven by what looked like a non-motorcycling family with small kids.
 

People

I had a pit pass, so I got to see a few famous faces, some of which I got shots of. I also ran into about 15 WetLeather people, plus another dozen or so motorcycling folks I know. It was quite the old-home weekend.
 
 

Bikes

Lots of beautiful motorcycles to photograph, too many, in fact. I couldn't shoot them all. Here are some of the better ones I did get shots of.
 

Laguna Seca

I didn't get many good shots of the actual races, as I couldn't really watch and still take photos. Besides, even as close as we were sitting, you really needed a telephoto lens, which I didn't have. Ideally one which would shoot through a wire fence without image degradation...
       
 

The trip home

The trip home was also a 2 day affair, via some different 2-lane roads.

Produced by Marc's "webshow" Perl script v1.5 on 21-Mar-2008
Copyright © 2005 by H. Marc Lewis All rights reserved.