The Indy Mile
The Indy Mile
SPECIAL SECTION: BIKES AT THE BRICKYARD
Appearing only in America, the Saturday Night Special
ALLAN GIRDLER
QUICK NOW, NO FAIR GOOGLING, what’s the worst result, crashes and mechanical failures excepted, Nicky Hayden has ever had in seven seasons of MotoGP?
Not counting the 2007 British GP, where he was in the leading group in the rain, crashed, limped to the pits for patchwork and trailed home 17th, four laps down, Hayden’s worst MotoGP finish has been 12th—three times. So his very worst ride in the premier class of the world’s top roadracing series is better than his best finish at the Indy Mile— namely 13th in 1999, a result good enough to help Hayden win that season’s AMA Rookie of the Year award.
And the point?
No matter how close and exciting the Red Bull Indianapolis GP at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway turns out, the best battle of the weekend is almost sure to come the night before, at the Indianapolis State Fairgrounds, with the 42nd running of the Indy Mile.
Not to make this a war of two
worlds, but, well, begin with the formats.
In MotoGR there will be 18 to 20 entrants; riders chosen for talent flavored by who got commercial backing. They will be timed to determine starting positions, and they will race in one race.
In the mile, part of the AMA’s Grand National Series, there will
be close to 100 entrants, riders who’ve earned Expert licenses. They will be timed, and the slower half of the field will head for home or the stands. The fastest 48 will grid for four heat races, with the top three from each heat moving into the main event. Midpackers will work to win a semifinal, while those who don’t make that cut have one more shot: the last-chance qualifier.
What all this means is that when the fastest 17 racers line up for the national, the fans-you and me-will have watched seven races already. We will know these guys are good, and we will have seen it all in one day.
Next, the Indy Mile tradition: The event dates back to 1952, won by Bobby Hill riding, ask your gramps, an Indian. Indy has been won by Joe Leonard, the only racer to date to win national titles on two wheels and four, by On Any Sunday star Mert Lawwill, by three-time national champ Jay Springsteen, and five times by nine-time AMA titlist Scotty Parker.
The most recent Indy Mile winner, before a nine-year pause caused by politics, was Chris
Carr. Probably best known now for holding the world’s landspeed-motorcycle record of 350 mph and change, Carr will be in the field this year.
The most famous of the Indy Miles has to be the 1975 running. The guys at Champion frames got some of Yamaha’s two-stroke Fours, as seen in roadracing, and put them into dirt-track frames, then beguiled Kenny Roberts into trying one.
He hung onto the beast long enough to blast past the leaders on the last lap, but he later said the risk wasn’t worth the reward, and no one was happier than Roberts when the AMA limited dirt machines to two cylinders.
Legends aside, what counts most here is the racing. We’ll see 100-horsepower machines, Harleys mostly with a scattering of hopeful Suzukis, Triumphs and maybe even a BMW or a Kawasaki, averaging 100 mph on a one-mile oval covered with groomed dirt.
Brakes? Only on the rear and used mostly to set the suspension, as in why bother with brakes when you can slow and turn at the same time by pitching the bike sideways? Traction control? Of course. It’s also called the rider’s right wrist.
The view? From the stands, you can see the whole thing.
From the fence, as the Rolling Thunder Show rockets past at 120 mph, riders inches apart, you can see what separates the Pros from the rest of us. The Mile, as someone once wrote, is like being shot out of a cannon every 15 seconds, 50 times.
The winner? Unpredictable. There will be four or five leaders, going into the last lap with four or five battle plans, guessing where to be placed to draft into the lead, not too soon or too late.
And Nicky Hayden? He’d like nothing better than to be there for the mile, the only AMA venue he hasn’t won. But he would be the first to admit he’s lost that vital edge, what with spending all his time on pavement. This time, he’d be lucky to even finish 13th. u
