West on Reservation Road will get you to a back entrance of Fort Ord. It’s monitored by the Highway Patrol and allows only motorcyclists to enter. The entrance will follow a paved road, watch for Federal cops. They’re behind every tree all the way to the Laguna Seca Raceway.
Show the gatekeepers your ticket and grab your socks because you’ll soon be ushered onto a gravel road and then into a semi ploughed field to park. The gravel road is steep in places soooo remember not to grab a handful of ‘front’ brake. After you’ve survived the gravel road, and you will, ask yourself if you remembered to bring a flattened beer can to put under your kickstand so it won’t sink into the soft dirt? It’s not uncommon to return from the races and find yourself helping people pick up bikes that have fallen over. (Someday ask me about my 2011 GREAT ESCAPE exit back up the gravel road on a Road Warrior…Steve McQueen would’ve been proud…well, maybe not)
Hopefully I’ve not discouraged you from attending this MotoGP event because of the steep-in-places-gravel-road and the ploughed-field-parking. If I haven’t and you’ve arrived; you’re in for a treat, especially if it’s your first time. You’re not in Sturgis, I mean Kansas anymore. Conversely the law of commonality prevailed when I was walking in the pits between races. A factory mechanic for Ducati commented on the Kendall Johnson Customs t-shirt I was wearing and said the Discovery Channel Biker Build-Off shows were televised in Europe in French, German, and Italian, and that Kendall’s techniques in upgrading the V-twin was often a topic of conversation, and that the Indian Larry and Russell Mitchell episodes were his favorites.
I can’t believe the speed and power they’re getting from those MotoGP 600cc engines let alone the 1000cc motors…unreal. They’re turning so many rpms they sound like a dentist’s drill. I gotta a tooth ache just from watching them…
Sadly, and I didn’t include it, the only death was from a spectator riding away from the race. There’s a lot of racing, probably near other race courses too, on the roads around Laguna Seca during race weekend, and I plead guilty to doing it a few times when I had my B King. The cops are tryin’ keep a lid on it and for the most part they do a great job.
I should’ve found an alternate place to park (but I was toooooo cheap and my ego told me I could do whatever those young people could do). In retrospect I should’ve paid the money and parked at Ducati Island…oh, well…welcome to the life and times of becoming an old fart…
PEACE RIDE SAFE
–Derrel Whitemyer
