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*Liam's Wild Ride*

Hi Liam,

Glad things are working out :thumbup

I'm just gonna kick back and enjoy your thread

later
jim
 
:wow I gotta move to Spain..
 
Looks like you're living the life! Way to go out of your way to do something you're passionate about.

Playing with bikes, racing with motoGP folks, enjoying the finer points of European culture: I'm jealous.

The bartender you posted looks very pretty, and extremely scared! Here's something for use on the forum:

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Just a quick note about that bartender. . . . . She´s a Man, Baby! Apparently the best clubs in Valencia are filled with marraconnes (sp?) and transvestis. I´m absolutely positive this bartendress was not what she appeared to be. Last night MilleRBoy wasn´t let into the club because he was wearing white running sneakers. What a Goof! We´re in Europe fercrissakes! We partied through Old Town and did the traditional pub crawl. Everyone got sauced and by 4 or 5 the crew went home. I got in the mood and couldn´t be shut down so I kept on partying until about nine in the morning and then hit a coffee shop. I actually fell asleep before I ordered and and hour later when I shook my head clear enough to order I had two coffees. Now I´m in an Internet Locutario checking my email (for two Euros!) for 45 minutes waiting for the team to get their butts out of Saler and into Valencia Proper. The drinks they pour here are outstanding, meaning the alcohol content in the beers is quite serious and the shots they pour are Eight Count. 8! I remember my first night being amazed at how much whiskey they were giving me. Little did I know that double is the standard!
 
Robo50 said:
This is the zoomed in version. I wonder if the website took some of my pics (they were floating around for a little while :) ).
Click to expand...

thats a sick helmet
 
My friend Nacho, who works closely with Pedrosa when he was sponsored by Movistar actually made the design for that helmet when they were making the deal to switch from Nolan to Arai. How cool is that?!?

So Saturday night I was tasked with driving some of the riders to a giant festival in Cheste called La Fire. Cheste is known for building large parade float looking things and then burning them. All the little towns in the area compete for the top prize and it has to do with size, complexity, a bunch of stuff I don't really understand. Movistar commissioned a nice big one (over ten meters tall) since they are bowing out of the championship next year. All the famous Spanish riders went as well as Hiro Aoyama. This was my first time driving an X5 and it was a diesel!

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It wouldn't really break loose for me because the tyres were huge. We had a policia escort with lights and sirens blazin' and we formed a six car train that was ripping through the hills behind the track. At one point I was playing Rallye and had two wheels in the dirt. I had to drive Angel Nieto, and since we had met a couple nights earlier he was cool. As in not dismissive, haha.

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There were Policia everywhere and they were holding hands and trying to keep the mob behind the little fences they had erected along our route. Thousands of screaming people. I have never seen anything like it. The roads were so tight that people were reaching out and slapping the car and rocking it back and forth as I was creeping through. Here's Sete and Dani and some of the Movistar Staff escorting them to the presentation.

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It's a little blurry because everyone is bored and moving around. There was a champagne toast and a small speech by a local official and then we were all hustled upstairs by the cops. I don't know why (and I didn't get any pictures) but some of the local Cheste police were really hot chicks!

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This is the monument. It's in the town square and there were thousands of people surrounding our building. The riders threw down t-shirts and hats and it was a huge party since it seemed the entire crowd was tipsy. . .

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La Fire. I couldn't believe how much heat this thing was giving off. We were pretty far away but within a minute or two the rooms we were in got really uncomfortable. We quickly made it back to the cars and high tailed it back to the track.

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The race on Sunday was "the business". I got access to the track interior and placed myself at turn one to watch the holeshot. The crowd around the track in the stands was doing the "Wave" before the race. I started timing it and the wave took between 1:50 and 2:10 to circulate the circuit. I got some video but I don't know how to throw that stuff up on Barf. A couple laps after the start I knew that Gibernau's bike had quit so I took off running for the box. I got there just in time to see the bike come back in and watch a devastated team of mechanics rip into it. It was cyl 5 and no one was sure what was wrong. Literally the mechanics were tearing up and the two japanese guys representing HRC were looking horrible. If you can imagine grown men crying and looking like they had run over the family dog, that's what the feeling was like on that side of the box. Meanwhile, Melandri's crew was quiet and optimistic. There were gleams in their eyes and the contrast between both crews was as big as it gets. When Melandri won his whole team was cheering, jumping up and down, and yes, also crying. I teared up a little, too, but that's cause underneath it all I'm just a big softy.

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Here are some shots from the practice on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday tests went horribly because the temperature was too cold to get the tires really sticky. Also it was either drizzling or raining so the riders were super cautious. Still, they were hauling. On Monday Nicky was just hammering the bike. Melandri was the second fastest and both of them are sure to go head to head next year. Here's a shot for you Hopper fans.

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It took me a second to get the big camera up and running since this was the first time I was using it for action shots. Here's Nicky on his slowest lap. The first one.

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Here's Nicky cooking down the entrance to turn eleven. Love the rake on that front end!

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Vermulean (sp?) got up to speed really fast but he paused in turn two to get a tow from Rolfo I think.

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I think since I was the only guy in the grass at turn two, all the riders noticed me clicking away. I have photos of almost all of them looking right at me. This is Nobu Aoki showing off (the only guy with the balls to stunt for the camera, also the only guy without a race contract next year). But. . . my ego is not that big. Actually right before this shot Nobu's wife rolled up on her suzuki scooter and he was showing off for her. Naturally she missed the shot with her monster camera so she asked me to email it to her.

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