So yesterday I trundled off through the back roads of Monterey to the track for the first MotoGP event of the year at Laguna Seca. I will have pictures to upload at some point but
As with last year, the place was packed. We got in a little later than I'd hoped, arriving at 11AM, but I had to wait at my hotel (The Hyatt Monterey, which is beautiful) for a couple hours for some folks to arrive.
I affixed my VIP parking sticker to the windshield and entered the highly secure area. Cops and checkpoints were everywhere on the way in. The beautiful thing about the parking access is that you're about 200 steps away from the paddock... otherwise you have to park like miles away.
So we headed to the VIP village, which is nicely air conditioned, catered with open bar to see if any of our Dorna contacts or agenty types were around. At the time they weren't and some of the rookie series were still practicing around the track. You could tell instantly they were the rookies on the smaller bikes because the noise levels were completely bearable. :)
Our small party decided to have a drink, eat a bit of lunch while we hung out and it wasn't long before Phaedra, our primary licensing contact at Dorna came by. I ditched my party and she and I chatted about a number of things for the next 45 minutes or so before I let her get back to the rigors of the event. She and I don't get to catch up that often as most of the interaction she has with Capcom is at a producer or product manager level.
About 15 minutes after that, another of my guests and Andrew, Dorna's agent (but who also does a few things for Capcom on the side) came by. We caught up briefly and he'd been busy prepping a schedule of meetings for me since he'd arrived Friday morning with potential partners. First up, I caught up with at GlobalE, a company members of this site will get to know more clearly in the coming months. I'll keep it a secret what they do but suffice to say, it involves more and better functionality in certain areas here.
Then we ran off to the Red Bull Energy Center, which is even more VIP than the VIP Village in some sense (at least if you like watching celebrities). Michael Jordan is a partial owner of a MotoGP team and this tends to be where he and other Hollywood types hang out. Last year Michael Mann and other A-listers made themselves known there.
At Red Bull I chatted with several of their execs about ways we could work together better in the future. They told me some of their plans, goals and strategies. I did likewise and I think we'll have several opportunities in the coming months.
While this chat was going on, I was slying sneaking a peak at the time qualifiers for MotoGP that were going on. I missed some of the highlights but I seemed to have heard that the track record was broken by Casey Stoner to take the pole position. As an American, seeing Nicky Hayden qualify high up the list to get a place on the front line is nice too. Laguna is said to be his "backyard" and his disappointing performance here last year was a bummer for American fans. Hopefully this year will be a bit better.
Anyway, we then hit the infield to take a look at the kids training flat track that Capcom will be sponsoring at Indy and at all US races next season. The amount of signage and exposure Capcom will get should be fantastic for the company and the game.
By this time it was past 4PM, and the place was still packed with people, and oddity for a GP race on just a qualifying day but a testament to how quickly the sport is finding an audience. In any event, today's the real race. I'll be there in an hour to have breakfast with some of the Dorna folks. Race starts at 2pm this afternoon. Should be exciting so watch it on TV today.
And I'll get some pictures up later too when I get access to a silly mini-USB cable.
