[Ducati] Mid Ohio AMA Gallery is up (spoiler)

[Veloce916 at aol.com]

Just back from the most drama filled race weekend I can remember ever  
seeing. Bad weather and rider protests combined with the final race for the  Parts 
Unlimited Ducati team set the stage. It was so hard to follow the twists  and 
turns of the schedule changes, rider and AMA conflicts that the media  pretty 
much just gave up trying to explain it other than "there was a  protest".  The 
phrase most used all weekend was "Do you know what's going  on?" and that was 
from the riders and teams. The combination of live TV and  bad weather is 
always pressure filled but there were weather generated  track issues and at some 
points frankly it really seemed like the protest was  almost a "lets get the 
AMA for past mistakes" situation.  I only suggest  this because in the end, the 
teams sat out the heat races which were run in  perfect conditions. And then 
chose to run in a race with what was basically an  inverted start, which I 
think had the potential to be dangerous. Ironically, in  the end, the racing was 
great, nobody got hurt and at one point Neil Hodgson  made a pass that put him 
in the lead.  If nothing else the race end burnout  was epic, Neil blew the 
tire and still kept revving.  The cases on the tire  split and I thought the 
Dunlop guys were going to throw themselves in the rubber  pile trying to keep 
anybody from seeing the inside of the tire. :-)  Then  he took his bottle of 
champagne and literally plugged it into the back of Ben  Spies leathers.
I miss that guy already.  Ben too now that I think about it.
 
The photo gallery is up:   _http://ducati.smugmug.com/gallery/1959583_ 
(http://ducati.smugmug.com/gallery/1959583) 
 
 
 
Vicki