The Personal Blog Of
Boston Motorcycle Lawyer

MotoGP In America, Including the Indianapolis Speedway
July 28, 2009

After more than a decade without a MotoGP race on American soil, the USA now hosts two of the 17 races in motorcycling’s top echelon of competition. Comparable to Formula One car racing, MotoGP bikes are the fastest and most elite category of motorcycle road racing.

While MotoGP racing was held at California’s Laguna Seca Raceway from 1988 to 1994, restrictions on two-stroke engines kept the World’s fastest road-race motorcycles out of the U.S. for more than a decade. However, MotoGP switched from 500cc 2-stroke to 800cc 4-stroke engines and in 2005 MotoGP returned to the now modified and renamed Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. The two lower classes (125cc and 250cc) of MotoGP remain 2-stroke-powered, those races are not held in California.

Beginning in 2008, a full schedule of all three classes was planned for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the racetrack most famous for the Indianapolis 500, (Unfortunately, last year’s 250cc race was cancelled due to bad weather.) Less well known is the fact that the Speedway’s first race events were held not for cars, but for bikes. The first motorsports event held there comprised seven motorcycle races on August 14, 1909.

All three MotoGP classes are scheduled to race at Indianapolis on August 30, 2009. For motorcycle racing, the layout is considerably different than for the cars running on the famed oval. MotoGP racing at Indianapolis is counterclockwise, bypassing the banking turn one of the oval track. The motorcycles run counterclockwise on what is normally a clockwise track.