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WHITE: USGP Primer
Greg White breaks down the big stories heading into this weekend's Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix.
Greg White  |  Posted July 23, 2010   Monterey, CA
(Photo: Yamaha Racing)

PROGRAMMING NOTE: MotoGP qualifying from Laguna Seca will air on SPEED Saturday, July 24, and the race will air LIVE on SPEED on Sunday, July 25.

MotoGP is back in the United States as we're about to kick off the USGP weekend at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for Round 9.

Jorge Lorenzo leads the way but he hasn't had the greatest of luck at Laguna Seca in the past. He's had a couple of big crashes at the track and he's just hoping to actually make it to race day 100% healthy this time around.

Valentino Rossi returned to action last week after missing six weeks with a broken leg in what was one of the most impressive displays of determination we've ever seen. In the final corner of the final lap in last week's race at the Sachsenring, Rossi was in third place until Casey Stoner forced his way by up the inside, but Vale still finished right behind Stoner in fourth place.

Nicky Hayden has been struggling as of late but he comes to a track he knows and loves and has won at. One of the advantages of being that familiar with a circuit is he can really focus on the motorcycle unlike at a track he wasn't very good and still working to really get a handle on, even after all these years.

That also plays in the favor of Ben Spies on the satellite Yamaha. This is one of three tracks that Ben will show up at all year that he's raced a MotoGP bike at before (here, Indy, and Valencia). With the way Friday works, you have one hour-long session and instead of trying to learn the racetrack like he's been doing most of the year, he'll be able to concentrate straight away on settings of the Yamaha M1. That doesn't just mean suspension, in Moto Grand Prix that also means gearbox and electronics -- you can tune the motorcycle to do different things in each corner. So having that advantage means Ben could easily improve upon his eighth place taken here a couple years ago.

American Colin Edwards likes this track as well. He won here in 2002 during his second World Superbike championship year. He won Race 2 here and then every single race after that to chase down Troy Bayliss in the championship. Can he turn things around with the M1 this weekend? He and Spies are getting some new parts for the motorcycles. We'll track those guys down this weekend and see exactly what's going on with that.

And Roger Hayden is here on the LCR Honda so we'll see what he can do filling in for Randy de Puniet. Not a lot of pressure but it should be fun to see him back on a competitive motorcycle.


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