The second practice session is equally tense. The pit is crowded, friends and family filling the guest area as Jr. pulls in and out of the garage. His times continue to come down, and he finishes with the day's quickest time, which has Team Roberts feeling good. Still, they know there are a lot of laps left, and anything can happen.
Work continues into the late afternoon. There are adjustments to make, data to analyze, parts to clean. "Michelin won't work on dirty wheels," McNally tells me with a smirk, so I'm tasked with cleaning a load of the day's used fronts and rears with soap and water before pushing them to the Michelin compound 100 yards away so new slicks can be mounted. It's 95 degrees outside, so an hour later I'm as soaked as the wheels I've just cleaned. But it's rewarding to be helping out, even if it's just little things.
Time To Go
Saturday dawns clear and hot, which means our garage will once again impersonate a sauna. While the crew readies the bikes for today's formal qualifying session at 1 p.m., I head to the Michelin tent to collect our freshly shod wheels. I bump into Willing in the team's trailer/office when I get back and ask him about the setup for Laguna. He tells me that once their bikes get to a certain optimum point, they generally need only minor spring and damping tweaks for the various circuits. It's obviously not a universal condition; Hayden will tell me Sunday evening that he and his team chased the right settings all weekend.
A few minutes later McNally hands me a headset. I turn it on and am plunged back into the eerily quiet yet deadly serious environment. Saturday's sessions are even more intense than Friday's, with the ultimate one-hour qualifying session culminating in the wild, final-three-minute thrash in which Jr. grabbed the outside spot on row number one for the race. Afterward, he gets a well-deserved hug from his dad, along with high fives and handshakes galore from friends and family.
It's terribly hot again on Sunday morning, and not much is happening. Most of the tweaking on the bike has been done. There's a 20-minute warm-up, which ends up being just as serious as qualifying the previous day. McNally records what tires Michelin has delivered for the race and labels everything before wrapping them and plugging in the warmers. Jojic walks by and points out the tire to be used that day; McNally tags it with white tape and writes "KR Race!" on it in big letters. There's no room for error now; we're just hours from the USGP.
After the warm-up the techs go over both bikes, cleaning and checking everything. You can feel the pressure building. It's very hot, and everyone is sweating. More and more people are filtering into the pit. You'd think the crowd would be a distraction, but Jr. and Sr. seem to welcome it. They've got a slot in motorcycle racing's Big Show, and it's almost as if they're not gonna deny the experience to the family and friends who have supported them for the last three decades.
Showtime
By race time the scene is surreal. Our pit is jammed, and the pressure's peaking. The number-two bike, set up exactly like number one, is plugged in and ready to go in case anything untoward should happen to the primary bike. McNally, Jojic, Moody and Roberts Sr. are on the grid with Jr. From my vantage point at the garage, the view of the grid and grandstands is unreal-all bright colors, shimmering heat waves and movement. The national anthem is played, and at the end a quartet of Air Force fighters fly overhead with a roar so loud and sudden it scares the breath out of everyone.
I don my headset, and it's quiet again. We're once again in our own peaceful world, despite the crush of humanity surround- ing us.
The noise at the start is loud even through the headset. Jr. grabs the holeshot and leads briefly, then drops back to second, third, fourth and eventually fifth as Vermeulen, Hayden, Casey Stoner and Pedrosa up the pace. All the crew can do now is watch. Their job is done. Rossi and Edwards begin to march toward the front, and just after Rossi passes Jr. his Yamaha's engine goes south, putting the reigning world champ out of the race.
In the end, Jr. finishes a credible fourth, and the scene in the Roberts garage is crazed, with 60 to 80 people cheering and clapping.
Afterward, Roberts Sr. invites me to his motor home for a glass or three of wine, but I decline and head back to the pit to help break things down and pack up. Any goodwill I'd generated with the crew would vanish if I didn't help out. The breakdown takes two solid hours, and it's hard work. One bike is stripped to pieces in 20 minutes, with everything packed away in bags and specific boxes for the trip to the team's Banbury, U.K. shop. The other bike goes into a crate so as to be ready for a test the following weekend.
Suddenly it's 6 p.m., the garage is empty, the sun's going down, and the team's dozen or so crates are already being moved via forklift toward trucks that will deposit them at the airport-and into the belly of a 747-later that evening. I say my goodbyes, thank the crew for putting up with me and then head to Sr.'s motor home, where the party is in full swing. I stop by race-winner Hayden's on the way and offer congratulations. The kid's about as amped as I've ever seen him, and it's good to see.
And Kenny Jr.? As this issue went to press, just after the Japanese GP in September, Jr. had scored 103 points and was ranked seventh in the MotoGP standings-ahead of guys with names like Edwards, Hopkins and Vermuelen. Relative to last year and the troublesome two seasons before that, 2006 has to be considered a victory for America's MotoGP team. And with Honda power promised again for '07, Team Roberts' prospects are looking plenty bright going forward. You can see it in their eyes.
Team Roberts Boardtracker Lives!
Here's what happens when King Kenny Roberts pushes one of his team's former V-five MotoGP engines across the table to custom-bike builder-and ex-AMA 250cc Grand Prix Champion-Roland Sands. The pair debuted the bike at Laguna Seca in front of the Team Roberts garage and caused some serious crowd-control issues, especially when the bike was fired up. No word on whether Roberts Sr. plans to actually ride the thing...