My MotoGP

[bbolesaz]

I’ve been to each of the MotoGP events at Circuit Of The Americas (COTA) and this year was my 5th.  I guess since I’m a regular now, I got on to a mailing list asking for track worker volunteers.  It pointed to a website, where an application could be filled out. What the heck, I’ll fill one out.  After all, there’s free camping if you want it, free meals, a ring side seat and free tickets for a friend. Now, my expectation was that before you get to be a track worker at MotoGP, you probably have to apprentice at maybe an AMA or Moto America event or at least maybe a local track day.  The application had a section asking for “your track marshalling resume”.  I simply wrote “None.”  The application went on to explain that there are 3 specialties for workers, flagging and communication (F&C), track marshal, and medic assist.  I figured that I’m too old to drag a bike out of a gravel trap, so scratch that one.  I know basic first aid, but I figured that wouldn’t qualify me for medical, so F&C it is.  Having spent a few minutes of my day filling out the application, I figured I would never hear back from them.

But, about a month before the event, they did get back to me.  I was accepted.  Wow, that’s a surprise. And after I had already bought my own admission tickets. I started getting emails from the organizers and found out that the training session was Thursday, a day before I normally arrive in Austin.  

To save vacation days and because I really like burning miles on a motorcycle, I do the 963 miles from Mesa, AZ to COTA in less than 24 hours, leaving Mesa after work and riding to El Paso, Tx., getting a few hours of sleep, then riding from El Paso to Austin arriving in the late afternoon.  On the way home, I reverse the process with the stop in Fort Stockton, Tx.  So, to make it to class Thursday, I left Mesa Tuesday evening.

The ride to Austin went off without a hitch and by Wednesday evening, I was set up at my friends place in Austin and we enjoyed some Gus’ Fried Chicken for dinner. Did I say without a hitch?  Well, there was one. Tuesday morning I got an email with some FAQ about flagging.  In there it was mentioned that flaggers are supposed to wear all white.  Seriously, you are telling me I need white clothes 8 hours before I’m pulling out of the garage?  Other than gym socks and briefs, I own no white clothes.  And I’m at work all day Tuesday.  Some frantic phone calls to various stores (men’s stores, paint stores, golf shops, sports stores), I finally track down some white pants and 2 white shirts and pick them up at lunch.  It would have been nice if they had told me that sometime before the day I’m leaving. But it makes sense.  You can’t be wearing a red or black shirt or the riders might mistake your shirt for a flag.  The white is only thrown from the start/finish line, so white it is. They had emailed a link to a training video that was very poorly done by Dorna, the MotoGP sanctioning body.  And now that I look back, yes, all of the flaggers are in white, but that wasn’t explicitly mentioned.

Thursday morning, I ride out to the track to attend flagging school.  Lots of other noob flaggers there also.  The class is much better than the video and they also cover how to work the radio, which may be the most important part of the F&C job. The “flag chief” is the more experienced member of the flag crew and generally works the radio. It is their job to notify race control of any events that happen in your area, which is the racetrack from your station to the next station. The hardest part of working the radio turns out to be keeping cool when a bike is crashing right in front of you.  You can’t frantically call in “Holy shit, Rossi just dumped it”. The procedure is your station number, what flag you are showing, status of the rider, status of the bike, number of the bike, anything else.  So, if Rossi dropped it on the track in my corner, the call might be “Control, control, Turn 11, waving double yellow, rider up, bike down, number 46.”
 

[bbolesaz]

In MotoGP, a double yellow flag means that either the rider or the bike is still on the track.  A single yellow means that they are off the track, usually in the runoff area or gravel.  There were Moto America races during the weekend also, and just for confusion’s sake, their yellow flags are done differently.

COTA has 20 corners.  But because there isn’t line of sight or there is too much distance between corners, some corners have more than 1 station.  My corner, Turn 11, had 8 different stations; 11, 11A up to 11G.  A fully staffed station must have at least 2 flaggers, one for the flags and one for the radio.  It must have at least 4 track workers, basically 2 for each side of the bike if they have to carry it with straps. And there must be 1 EMT/Paramedic and 2 Medical workers who are essentially stretcher bearers if needed.  Not all stations have all functions.  Some, like those in 11F and 11G only had flaggers because of line of sight issues. Not all had Medical workers.  There were 4 stations on the long back straight. There are also flaggers in the pits. There are little signs around the track so you know where to go. F11 is Flag 11, T11A is Track 11A and M11D is Medical 11D. For the MotoGP, 46 stations were defined and when you multiply by the people for each station you easily have hundreds of folks working the track.  At this point, I realized why a noob like me was accepted.

Each track worker is given a “tabard”, which is like a pull over vest. The track and flag folks get an orange colored one with a big “T” on it. The medical folks get a red one with “M”.  The event and year are on it to be sure no one is using one from last year to sneak onto the track. The tabards also have numbers on them that are recorded when you get it. They have to be returned at the end of the day and checked so people don’t take them as souvenirs. You do get to keep them after the last race on Sunday.

The track marshal headquarters is a big tent pitched in one of the outer unpaved parking lots.  That is also where the camping is if you take advantage of the free camping spaces.  And the parking area for the workers. Just glad it didn’t rain and I didn’t have to worry about my bike sinking in and falling over in the dirt parking lot.

By lunch on Thursday, class was over and the schedule was published.  They hadn’t finished the track assignments, so I still didn’t know where I would be working.  Now, about the schedule. I found another reason why people aren’t waiting in line for this job.  Morning sign in and breakfast starts at 5:00AM at the big tent.  The morning meeting starts at 6:00AM.  Carpools take you out to the stations. The mornings are spent going through track inspections from COTA, Moto America and Dorna.  Then a full morning of practice or racing, about 45 minutes for lunch, then a full afternoon of practice or racing.  The last hot laps are around 5:00PM and you go back to the big tent for dinner.  It makes for a really long day.  Plus, there is no place to hide from the weather on the track, no popup shelters or the like.  Plus, have you ever tried to wave a flag for a few minutes?  This marshal gig is a hard job !

Since I had Thursday afternoon off, I thought I take in some riding around Austin.  I chose a relatively close in local favorite, Lime Creek Rd., by way of Stratford Dr., Redbud Trail, Westlake Dr. and FM-2222.  Good scenic ride with good twisties. Unfortunately, I ended up too close to 5:00PM on the return and got caught in famous Austin traffic.  Austin traffic, SUX !  
 

[bbolesaz]

Friday morning, the alarm rings at 4:00AM and I make it to the track just after 5:00.  When I sign in, I find out that I am working Turn 11.  Turn 11 is one of the sharpest turns on the track, probably about a 160 degree turn almost doubling back on itself.  Riders come in from Turn 9 and 10 quite quickly and have to brake heavily. Like most of the turns at COTA, it is designed to visually throw off your line reference, so if you are not precise, you will miss the optimal line.  It does have a very large paved runoff area before the gravel trap. Blowing the turn and running off of the track is a VERY common occurrence, but with the huge runoff area, crashes are not so frequent. We don’t flag for runoffs, only crashes.

The flag chief for Turn 11 is a nice lady from east Texas named Leslie. She is a track day regular, both riding and marshaling and has flagged at Moto GP at COTA several times before. We have 2 newbie flaggers, myself and Mark. We have anywhere from 4-6 track folks and 2-3 medic assistants and 1 EMT (they get moved around occasionally).

Friday is all practice except for two Moto America qualifiers.  Moto3 (250cc) runs first, then MotoGP, then Moto2 (600cc).  We have to flag green for the first 2 minutes of each practice session. Then we flag yellow if something happens.  We did wave whole course red flag once for a bad crash, not in our corner, that spilled fluids.  One station near pit entrance waved the black flag and number board once.  Some stations got some rain drops Saturday morning and flew the rain flag. The oil flag came out at a few stations, but not ours.  The blue flag was never used, nor was the meatball flag.

Turn 11 happened to be the location of the “practice start” line.  Practice starts happen on the cool down lap of a practice session.  The riders will, like it says, practice starting from that line.  However, since the bikes stop at the line for the practice starts, Turn 11 has to flag double yellow (bike stopped on track) while practice starts are going on.  This could be upwards of 5 minutes by the time the whole field finishes the practice start, so that was a real arm workout.

Friday was a hotter than normal, humid Texas day.  Lots of water and sunscreen consumed. By the end of the day I was hot and tired.  I had dinner in the big tent. After dinner, we had 2 choices of “perks”, a pit lane walk or a track parade lap.

Naturally, I went for the lap.  I got queued up at the beginning of the line to go onto the track.  I found out last year, that you don’t want to be near the end. If you are, the corners bunch up and you can’t take the corners nicely.  They told us that since there weren’t too many bikes wanting on the track, we would get 2 laps around. Sweet. The pace riders at the front basically held between 60 and 70 MPH for the entirety of the lap.  Kinda slow for the back straight but actually a good pace for the slow corners like 1, 11, 12, 15 and 20.  Could almost touch a peg in those corners. Turn 1 has to be the most fun.  Weird apex and no sight line until you are around and down the hill.  Even though I had spent the entire day watching it, I still blew the entry into Turn 11 on my first lap around. I was in good company.  On the second lap, my entry was spot on and my line was good.

After rolling off of the track, my day was done and I rode back to my friend’s house for a welcome shower.  

Friday was my night to go see the Hand Built Motorcycle Show in downtown Austin.  This event runs the same weekend as the GP. It is a custom bike show, but not like a typical take a Harley and throw $40,000 worth of chrome at it.  Mostly café racers, street trackers and other oddities.  Most of the bikes can be described as buy a used bike for a few thousand and do something interesting with it.  And there is no shortage of imagination on display. It turned out that Ari Henning from Motorcyclist magazine was at the show.  I asked him if he was there as a reporter and he wasn’t. He was just checking out the cool bikes like anyone else. Very nice guy, but even dorkier looking in person than in pictures in the magazine. Didn’t get to bed till after midnight Friday night, so Saturday morning was going to be tough.
 

[bbolesaz]

We knew that a cold front was going to blow into town Saturday morning.  Early in the morning, it was cloudy but still warm.  Once the front hit the track about 9:00AM, the wind picked up and the temps dropped dramatically. Just then, I realized a flaw in my white wardrobe.  I only had short sleeve polo style shirts. To make things worse, I forgot to grab my riding jacket from the bike when I parked. So, I called my friend and asked him to bring me a white sweatshirt.  He came through later in the day with a nice warm off white hoodie that was perfect for the occasion.

Saturday was practice and qualifying for MotoGP and Race 1 for Moto America.  Qualifying is much like practice, just the stakes are higher and riders were closer to the edge. Saturday, flagging was welcome as it gave us a chance to warm up the blood somewhat.  In between races, we tucked up against the crash walls looking for some shelter from the cold wet wind.  Fortunately, the skies never opened up and the program went on schedule.  It was a nightmare for the tire engineers. Nice Thursday, hot Friday, cold Saturday and nice again on Sunday.  It was real easy to tell if the tire engineers had guessed wrong on the tires, the bikes would be sliding all over the track. Usually the first couple of sessions in the morning were very sketchy and they would have it dialed in by the afternoon.  We had a lot of runoffs in Turn 11 but only 1 crash in a Moto3 qualifier.  It is surprising when you see it up close, but even with traction controls, the bikes wiggle furiously under hard braking.  When the tires were wrong, the rears of the bikes would wobble almost 6 inches side to side. Even with good tires, there would be a few inches of wiggle.  If the front tire stepped out of its line, you knew that that bike was about to run off.  So, once I got used to it, I would watch the bikes approach the corner watching the front tires for that little twitch that signaled too much braking.

Sunday is finally the real deal day.  I had to get up even earlier, as I had to pack my bike since the plan was to start for home immediately after the races.  The officials checked us out even more carefully than usual and after a few practices and warm ups, it was time for the 3 main events.  I got to work the radio for the Moto3 race.  We had one crash off the track that I got to call in.  Kept my cool and reported it just the way they said to.  The Moto3 racing is fun because the bikes have small engines and on a big track like COTA, drafting is a big deal. So all of the racing takes place in a tight knit pack of bikes.
The Moto2 race was mostly un-eventful for our corner, a few minor wide runs.  

In the big show, Pedrosa got the start with all of the players  just behind.  Vinales, lost the front end on I think T13 and ended his day and time as points leader. Marques hunted Pedrosa down and they had quite the battle before Pedrosa started to fade. Rossi then passed Pedrosa and started to points race after that.  He let Marquez go, knowing he was the new points leader. Pedrosa hung on for third. Cal Crutchlow of Great Britain finished a respectable fourth, and Johann Zarco of France finished fifth, after running Rossi off of the track in T4.  It was not a good day for Ducati or the new KTM team.  We had one crash in T11, but the rider quickly remounted and went on his way.

For all of the real races, the corner workers get to do what they call an international salute, where we all run out to the edge of the track, waving all of the flags at once.  Some of the riders are nice and acknowledge the corner workers.  The last race of the day was the Moto America race.

And then it was over.  We all went back to the big tent to turn in our flags and radios. We got to keep the tabbards we had on, got souvenir hats and T-shirts and said our goodbyes.  I geared up, mounted up and started by long trek back to sunny Arizona.

Was it interesting. Yes.  Was it fun. Yes.  Was it a lot of work. Yes.  Would I do it again. Probably not. Next year the plan is to sit on the grass, with a tasty beverage and watch.
 

[bbolesaz]

Map of the track with notes -


The Turn 11 crew hanging out Friday afternoon.


Part of the Turn 11 crew. This is the flagging station.


Practice session, note someone running wide.


The free lunch on the crash barriers in the corner.


Yours truly, flag boy.


Mark and Leslie


Dinner in the big tent.




Gloomy skies Saturday morning.


Flag boss Leslie.


The on track crew.


Crazy European Rossi fans.


Turn 11 crew trying to stay warm Saturday afternoon.


Moto America 1st race.


Sunday morning MotoGP riders parade.  Marques dressed like a bandit who is about to steal yet another COTA win.




Henry (medical) and Leslie (flag chief).


Turn 11 crew Sunday afternoon, just before the big show.


You may be wondering why there aren't more pictures.  
Turns out Dorna is very protective of their copyrights which extend to all photographs taken within the fences of the track. So we were explicitly told no picture taking. Heard that some flash cards were confiscated from folks wearing GoPro's while they were working. The ones I have of bikes are Moto America.
 

[fotoguzzi]

Incredible report! thanks for posting..

[fotoguzzi]

does your Scurra still have the original clutch?

[LowRyter]

T11  is a great Gen Adm spot to see the race.  The only things missing are bleachers and TV monitor screen. 

[bbolesaz]

Yep, the Scura is still on the original clutch.  The ODO shows 23K miles, but it's needle is not faded like the tach, so I suspect that the speedo is a replacement.  Given that, not sure how many miles are actually on the beast.

 

I think COTA has great general admission viewing. My favorite is just under the tower on the right side. You can see turns 1-6 and 17-18.  We were bummed because they didn't power up the TV in T11.  Cheap ass COTA.

[LowRyter]

No TV in T11 was why I like the bleacher seats in T1.   Pretty good view for most of the track up there, the start/finish, pits, action in T1 and TV for the rest.

[plexiform]

This was my first MotoGP and I cannot believe I havent been to this before.  Loved it!  The sound and vibration of those bikes as they pass the grandstand is just incredible.  The Hand built motorcycle show was a great unplanned bonus..

 

[PJPR01]

Very nice story BB...enjoyed that, and enjoyed Moto GP here as well...have been for the last 4 years also to COTA.  Must be great fun to be right on the track as they are coming by!  Thanks for the story and pics!

[bbolesaz]

Thanks, and having this thread pinged reminds me that I promised some pix from the Hand Built show.  Kinda busy at work right now (typing this in the back of a meeting), but stay tuned.

[Chuck]

Thanks, and having this thread pinged reminds me that I promised some pix from the Hand Built show.  Kinda busy at work right now (typing this in the back of a meeting), but stay tuned.

Hmmmm. Have you seen the "Mr. Sparky" cartoon by Larson with the dogs in the meeting?    I had it posted in my shop for years..

[bbolesaz]

Yep, been a fan of Far Side for many years.  And yes, I resemble that remark.  Well, except for the ball licking part.  And yes, I'm doing it again right now.  Not the ball licking part.