Honda Road Racerhead #22

Welcome to Honda Road Racerhead, coming to you today from the press room at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah. I’m still stateside, but it’s good to be at my first international event of the season, and to see good friends from overseas and hear a multitude of languages in the paddock. The weather is idyllic, with powder-blue skies and puffy cumulonimbus clouds floating over the snow-covered mountains that surround the valley that holds this track and Salt Lake City. It’s enough to make a Southern California boy question why he puts up with an outrageous cost of living and frustrating traffic in a state that can’t balance its checkbook.

Believe it or not, this is my first visit to this track. This race is the same weekend as the Mugello Grand Prix, and I’ve been overseas the past two years. Other times, our deadlines haven’t made sense, or Laurel Allen has handled the coverage. Anyway, it’s good to finally see firsthand a circuit that I’ve long known from afar was a top-notch facility.

I showed up in town yesterday afternoon, just in time to catch the parade from the capital building to Energy Solutions Arena (I shot a slideshow with my little Canon PowerShot). It was a fun atmosphere, and it’s good to see a community be so welcoming to motorcycle racing.

Although it’s my first time here, that’s not the case for most of the World Superbike teams, who were here for last year’s inaugural MMP WSBK round (check out Andrew Wheeler’s slideshow from that race). On the other hand, it’s the first time for World Supersport, and I’m pumped that Americans are going to get a chance to see these guys in action; the racing in the class is almost always incredible. On the other hand, there are a number of teams with whom the world economy has caught up, and who therefore weren’t able to make either this fly-away race or the one two weekends ago in South Africa.

Whereas last year’s World Superbike race had only a couple of Americans in it—Scott Jensen rode as a wildcard, and Jason Pridmore began an ill-fated stint with Honda Althea—this year finds quite a few home-country riders on track with the regular world championship contenders. Ben Spies has taken the World SBK series by storm since this time last year (he’s second in points and has a perfect pole record thus far), Jake Zemke is subbing for John Hopkins at Stiggy Racing Honda, Jamie Hacking is subbing for Makoto Tamada at Kawasaki World Superbike, Melissa Paris is doing her best to make history (along with Canadian Marie-Josee Boucher) by becoming the first female to qualify for the World Supersport program, and AMA Pro Daytona SportBike rider Chip Yates is also trying his hand in the Supersport class.

Obviously, all of these riders are hoping that their ample experience at MMP will give them an edge (Team Pedercini’s Luca Scassa also has some extra experience here, from when he rode for Eraldo Ferracci’s MV Agusta effort in AMA Pro), but the truth is that these World Superbike and World Supersport guys don’t need much time at all to get up to speed, particularly on a track that’s pretty easy to learn.

One World Superbike regular who’s not here this weekend is Regis Laconi, who’s still recovering from serious injuries incurred at the South African round. The Frenchman underwent surgery in Johannesburg to repair cracked vertebrae and was put in a medically induced coma, and while Regis has since been brought back out of the coma, Italy’s GP One reported him having some complications with mobility in his left leg. According to Cycle News’ WSBK beat reporter Gordon Richie, Laconi is expected to fly back to Paris in another week and a half, but his ultimate prognosis is still unknown. Regis is in the thoughts of many in the paddock.

Although there’s no AMA racing this weekend, there is what promises to be an entertaining support program in the Utah SportBike Association’s Larry H. Miller Superbike Challenge, which includes two classes—GTO (for 1,000cc machinery) and GTU (for 600s). Among the recognizable names set to take part in the former are David Anthony, Christopher Clark, Brad Hendry, Jake Holden, Robert Jensen, Taylor Knapp, Brian Parriott, Chris Ulrich, and Russ Wikle. In the middleweight class, Michael Beck, Robert Jensen, Nate Kern, Knapp, Elena Myers, Ricky Orlando, Parriott, Robertino Pietri, Cory West, Wikle, and Jimmy Wood are all among those on the entry list.

The official name of that support program reminds me to mention that this is the first major motorcycle race here since the passing of Larry H. Miller, the track’s creator and namesake, who succumbed to complications related to type 2 diabetes in February, at the age of 64. The low-key Miller has enjoyed a lot of respect in this city, deservedly so considering the impressive number of successful business endeavors he was behind, but even more amazing was the plethora of philanthropic projects for which he was responsible.

Miller was a devout Mormon who normally stayed home on Sundays, but this race last year was an exception. “He was sitting at home after church and turned on the television, and when he saw all the fans, he got so excited he told his wife they had to go,” MMP media-relations manager John Gardner recently told us. “So they jumped in the car and raced out here, and he spent the whole day just talking to fans.”

Miller is missed this weekend, but he would be proud to see such an important event at his cherished circuit again.

If you’re planning on attending the event, both days this weekend promise a good show. Tomorrow will be the first time that the series’ new elimination qualifying format will be used on American soil, and the aforementioned GTU race runs at the end of the day. The qualifying format is a lot of fun, with three sessions fielding fewer and fewer riders each time. Riders are only provided two qualifying tires for the three sessions, so there’s some strategy involved as well. (The soft tires here won’t have the yellow stripes introduced at Monza, as they were already on their way over the ocean at that time.)

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