Finally! I get the chance to go to World Super Bike. All these years of living on the East Coast, I always went to Bike Week in Daytona, FL but had heard how much "better" World Super Bike was... I was told it was like Bike Week except for a weekend and no Harleys. Sounds good to me so I went to check it out.
Although it was over 450 miles away, I jumped at
the chance to be able to be at Laguna Seca
with all these other riders while on my own bike. NY plates and all.
I
rode up with my NYC buddy Pinky and I have to say, the roads traveling up there
were worth the trip alone! I was torn between flying around the corners
and stopping every five minutes to take pictures. (you'll see by the lack
of pictures which urge won).
I
don't remember the exact route we took but we had a nice combination of high
speed sweepers and tight twisties to choose from and very little traffic once we
got out of LA-LA Land... Of course, packing all the things we want to wear
for an entire weekend into a little backpack was quite a
challenge, but somehow we managed to strap everything we needed on to the back
of our cowls. It wasn't pretty but it sure beats trailering it!
Despite our misadventures and detours to find
more
interesting roads than the Interstate, we
managed
to check into our hotel, unpack, change and get to Cannery Row for dinner!
If you've never been, you should check it out - it's a very pretty area.
After
dinner we went to check out the scene. Lots of bikes but lot of cops to go
with them and really too much stuff crammed into to little
space.
Although I don't know many people on the West
Coast
yet, I did know Kitty who introduced me to the rest of her
CCRaceHer pals. We went to the
Blue Fin where
Kitty, Stella, Pinky, Linda and I
all had a pretty good time - despite the long ride there. By midnight,
though, we were all ready to go home and get ready for the races.
Saturday morning was perfect. Sunny and not
too hot, not too
cold. Susanna
decked out in flashy attire bit I just dressed like a squid. Do note
Pinky's shoes -- can you believe she shifts with those things on?
Despite 20 something pounds of Kryptonite chains
and locks, I took pictures of the bikes before we left them just in case that
was the last time we ever saw them. The New York in me always expects
thieves. Luckily they were right where we left them - but,
hey, ya never
know.
First thing I did was hit the Suzuki booth and
'lo and
behold I saw my new bike. :-) Why I don't already own a Hayabusa is
beyond me, but the anniversary edition sure is cute, dontcha think? After
I finished lusting over the Busa, Pinky dragged me out of the Suzuki tent and we
went off
to
check out the vendors. 
Part of our motley crew from the night before were
playing the part of umbrella girls so I
made them do a few poses for the website to keep the male readers happy.
Once
I left their booth I went off to go see what else was going on and I ran across
this slammin Busa... ain't it purdy? I NEED this bike. But
it looks like a
lot of work to keep clean... :-(
By
now, it was time to check out a race or two and I wandered off to the Super
Motard race. Unfortunately if you're really close to the track you have to
be very good at timing when taking pictures with a digital camera.
Otherwise you get a lot of pictures that look like this....
(
)
Which
is a shame... I "just missed" a lot of good shots. I don't know if the
rider is just in front of this frame or just behind it - but as you can see -
the rider isn't IN the picture... I have about 100 pictures like this... :-(
But
I do have a lot of pictures that actually have
racers in them (on and off their bikes) and lots of scenery from the
paddock... Plus I got a chance to chat with
Jessica Zalusky Always great to see
more girls on the track!
After
I got bored in the paddock I went back to the vendor areas to find the
Motorcycle Street & Strip booth. Peter and
Beth were valiantly braving the heat to give away free copies of the magazine
(and even a little chocolate if you were nice). You may not have heard of
this rag, but you should look into it. Although they're
Prostar's official magazine they also
cover urban performance, stunts and, most importantly, feature Girls Who Ride.
For the most part, they're not pimpin chicks in teeny bikinis sprawled out on a
bike and some DO-ME pose... instead they feature girls who ride and love
motorcycles. Way to go MSS!
After
a very loooooooooong day at the track, in the sun, not wearing any SPF anything
- I was mostly ready to just stay in and visit the pool/hot tub area.
However, considering how tame things were the night before, I assumed that
Saturday night Cannery Row would be hoppin. Whoever said WSB was like Bike
Week obviously has never been to Daytona... there's really no comparison.
But that
being
said, I still wanted to be around all the bikes and people. So off I
went...
There was traffic... there was no parking... there were lots and lots of bikes but most of all there were COPS.
EVERYWHERE.
(even at the track) Why they need a CHP sitting at every turn in the road
leaving the track is beyond me, but I never watched my speedo so closely as I
did leaving the track. YUCK!
No wonder things were so tame... aside from it
being a quaint (snooty), little luxury town, the place was teaming with cops
just hoping and praying you'd do something wrong.
No wonder it
was
so boring! With only a handful of bars, a zillion cops and only 4 blocks
of action -- I was ready to call it a night. So I made my rounds,
said howdy to the right people and went back to the hotel to get some much
needed sleep!
By
now, I'm tired, sunburned and probably
dehydrated but psyched for the races.
Unfortunately we had to pack up all our gear and check out of the hotel in
anticipation of the ride home - so we dressed like sensible bikers and
brought shorts to change into. Plus, thanks to Yamaha and Susanna owning an R1,
we got to park in Yamaha parking instead of up in god's country like we did the
day before.
Sunday was mostly a repeat of Saturday except I hiked up to the corkscrew for pictures (oh and snapped a few shots of Bostrom)
The
corkscrew was nice but hot so I went back down to the paddock area to see what I
could find. At Ducati Island there was a cute little tiger parked there --
complete with TAIL. I don't know what kind of speeds
the tail will
withstand but it was a novel idea anyway.
I then ran into some of the girls from Total Package. On our way up we had seen a group of riders in the distance and when we got up close we were delighted to see they were all female! We kicked it up a notch... and had a little bit of fun in the triple digits. After a few bursts in the 150+ range, I eventually got a finger wagged at me so I slowed down (for a while anyway).
By this time I felt like I'd seen all I wanted to see, said hi
to the people I wanted to chat with and was ready to ride home. All
interstate riding this time but still better than being stuck in a car for 450
miles.
I don't think I'd recommend World Super Bike as a hot bike spot or even an alternative to Daytona 200, but if you're on the West Coast it's definitely something worth checking out.
Ride Hard & Take chances every chance you get...
© 2003 dianna.com
