Midnight, April 15, 2008 is looming ahead

OK, everybody’s favorite experience of each year is only hours away!

That’s right, today is tax deadline day. We all have until midnight tonight to get our Federal and state income tax returns completed, filed and postmarked to our good friend, Uncle Sam.

Here’s another confession, right here, right now on redbullindianapolisgp.com; I am a procrastinator! Just ask Paul Kelly, the Web administrator. The deadline for today’s Experience blog is 4 p.m., and it’s already 3:30 p.m., and I’m still writing!

Actually, not too bad of a procrastinator, though. I spent the past cold, rainy Sunday grinding through and filing my tax returns, only because the weather was too bad to ride. Remember, I already confessed that I am a “fair weather” rider a couple weeks ago, so the foul Sunday weather was to my benefit for once.

Well, today, April 15, 2008 is a bright, sunny, +50-degree day, and guess what I’m going to do later after work? Yup, that’s right: I’m suiting up and getting a bit of saddle time on one of the motorcycles after work.

Since it’s a Tuesday, the local chapter of the Honda Sport Touring Association (HSTA) meets at a local barbecue establishment for some good food and tall tales. It’s not Earl Hayden’s favorite, the Moonlite Bar-B-Q, the Best Barbecue in Kentucky, but the scenery along the Monon Trail in Broad Ripple is much better than Parrish Avenue in Owensboro, Ky.

I think after contributing some of my tall tales with the HSTA folks, I’m going to ride over to the main post office in downtown Indianapolis and watch in amusement as all the frantic procrastinators lined up to get their tax returns postmarked before midnight tonight.

Maybe I’ll see some of you there tonight!

Thank goodness this past Sunday was a cold, rainy day so now I can have some fun today; a bright, sunny, +50-degree day, just ripe for a ride around town this afternoon.

See you all next week on redbullindianapolisgp.com .
Greg

Red Bull Indianapolis GP Media Day

Well, the big day finally came. On Monday, July 16, 2007, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway rolled out the red carpets to the world, announcing the big event to be held on Sept. 14, 2008. The Red Bull Indianapolis GP.

Ralph Sheheen shared with the crowd gathered at the Speedway, to the surprise of many, that the first motorized race of any kind here at the world’s most famous racetrack took place on Aug. 14, 1909, and it was a motorcycle race.

The day’s events actually started earlier with a gathering of over 200 motorcycle enthusiats behind the Murat Centre in downtown Indianapolis. Kenny Roberts Jr. joined the group on a Honda CBR1000RR borrowed from Dreyer Honda. I offered KR Jr. to trade bikes and ride the Hayden Repsol replica. He declined!

It was an awesome, police-escorted ride led by Kenny Roberts Jr. from downtown Indy out to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with everyone corralling into the Tower Terrace area for the big announcement.

Mr. Sheheen then started the press conference, which led into the showing of the video taken at the track earlier in the month, the experience I shared with you all last week.

The highlight of the day had to be the signing of the agreement by Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta and Indianapolis Motor Speedway CEO Tony George to bring MotoGP to Indianapolis.

After the world experiences an Indianapolis Motor Speedway event, this will be just the beginning of a new tradition for the second century of IMS’s history.

Wow, what a day, what a moment, what an experience!

See you all next week on redbullindianapolisgp.com

Greg

Introduction

Hello all, and welcome to my first installment for the redbullindianapolisgp.com blog. Actually this is my first-ever blog, so this should be a lot of fun in the months to come, sharing my activities leading up to the inaugural Red Bull Indianapolis GP.

My name is Greg Sickmeier, and I am a lifelong resident of the Indianapolis area. In fact, I spent my first six weeks in this world across Georgetown Road from the front straight of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway a long, long time ago. Maybe this explains my love of racing and my need for speed!

A bit about me: I am a graduate engineer from General Motors Institute in Flint, Mich., now known as Kettering University. I’ve worked for Allison Transmission, another Speedway company, for 33 years in the service, sales, marketing and training organizations. James Allison, our company’s founder, is also one of the founders of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1908. I just can’t seem to get to far from my roots on Georgetown Road!

During the early 1980s, I raced a Honda CB750F in AMA Pro Superbike and ran a lot of WERA and CCS events during a 12-year time period. At a few of the later events I attended, the Hayden’s were showing up, with Tommy, Nicky and Roger Lee in tow. They were on 125’s, and the youngest ones couldn’t even reach the ground. Someone had to hold the bikes up to get them started and catch them in the pits when they came back in. Earl’s Race Team was a very shoestring operation, with Earl’s old Ford box van packed to the ceiling. Wow, who would have known that all three of the boys would have turned into such great riders and sportsmen!

Another midlife crisis

I drifted away from motorcycles for a few years and have played a lot of ice hockey over the past 14 years or so. A couple years ago, I bought another street bike, and now this impulse purchase has turned into another serious midlife crisis! Four Honda’s, three Yamaha’s and two Ducati’s later in the past three years, I am thoroughly enjoying this second go-around with the motorcycles and the local sport bike scene.

Do you wanna be in the movies?

My involvement with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Red Bull Indianapolis GP started last summer with a phone call from a senior IMS staff member about borrowing my ’07 Honda CBR1000RR Repsol replica motorcycle for a promotional event. Boy, was I excited when I found out what was in the works! That photo shoot turned into a full-blown video session on the “Yard of Bricks” at the track. Yup, that’s me in the Red Bull Indianapolis GP Event Introduction video on the Repsol with Stephan Gregoire on the 1910 Thor. Check it out!

In future installments, I’ll share some more on that experience, along with many other experiences since then and many more experiences to come as we all count down to the inaugural Red Bull Indianapolis GP on Sept. 14, 2008.

I hope you all stay tuned each week here on redbullindianapolisgp.com for “The Experience.”

Greg