I finally made my escape from the office in Japan where I've been working for the past two weeks. We came up to Moca, 30 minutes from Motegi, on Friday night. The typhoon that's been threatening didn't play a role in the qualifying today. Capirossi ran strong all day, Rossi waited til his last lap of the day, with clouds rolling in, to jump from 5 to 2. The Honda museum and TwinRing are beautiful, but keeping them that way is not easy. Check out the tool for the job: Even in the ranks of MotoGP there's great desparity. It's space suit treatment for Edwards/Rossi and line-dry for Hopkins. Nicole
No more pics from behind the scenes today, I had a one day paddock pass. Saturday's pass was supposed to be shared by me and my 3 co-coworkers but one went in briefly and the other two were content in the stands. On Saturday, most of the 125 and 250 teams had their curtains open so you could walk by and watch them tear bikes apart. The GP guys tried to hide from the masses waiting for autographs and snaps but these folks know how to bogart when necessary. The morning trains provide plenty of practice. Capirossi owned the track today and the race for second was over around lap 14. There was a collective "aawww" on the last lap when Sete and Nakano hooked up. The 250 races were exciting with Aoyama and deAngelis swapping the lead several times. Because it's Japan I was treated to the latest in new gear: It was a beautiful atmosphere-loads of people all digging racing, under blue skies with big bowls of noodles. With 12 points between Hayden and Rossi these last two races are going to be fun. Nicole