Time flies by way too fast…

Wow, it’s amazing how fast four weeks can fly by. Well, the vacation has come and gone. I barely managed to find my way back to the office Monday morning. Thank goodness it’s in Speedway, Ind., pretty near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where I spent some of my time off hanging out at the Red Bull Indianapolis GP tests earlier this month.

The last weekend of my summer vacation ended up with a lot of saddle time. Ducati Indianapolis celebrated their one-year anniversary Friday and Saturday with a very successful open house. Ducati North America brought out the Duc Truck for the event with a fleet of Ducati demo bikes.

The Red Bull Indianapolis GP Fan Tour attended Friday with a great display, passing out posters, magnets, decals and ticket information.

I ended up helping out with over two dozen demo rides as a control rider over the two-day celebration. It was quite a job keeping all these Ducs in a row! Of course, no experience is complete without some great gastronomic treats. Carraba’s Italian Restaurant in Carmel, Ind., catered an outstanding lunch Saturday afternoon. Yum!

Not to be boastful, I also broke my own earlier record of riding five different bikes in 24 hours. Jarrod, the gauntlet has been thrown down! The new target is now 14 different bikes in 30 hours!

After Friday’s activities, the Red Bull Indianapolis GP Fan Tour headed over to the AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, for the rest of the weekend. Former Indiana Pacers star Rik Smits enjoyed a demo ride on the Ducati Hypermotard. He definitely gives this bike a new size perspective since he is 7-foot-4!  When straddling the Hyper, I can barely touch my size 7 feet to the ground.

Rik would definitely need a bigger soap box than the one I stood on last week.

Earlier last week, the weekly HSTA Two Wheeled Tuesday meeting at Hoghead’s BBQ in Broadripple also had a special visit from the Red Bull Indianapolis GP Fan Tour. Many of the Broadripple locals had the opportunity to touch and feel one of the Ducati Desmosedici GP8 MotoGP race bikes as well as the new Ducati Hypermotard street bike. We all shared some tall stories and enjoyed some lip-smacking barbeque. Yum!

This past weekend was definitely a great finale of experiences to a very relaxing month away from the normal work week, but the inaugural Red Bull Indianapolis GP is now only six weeks away and counting!

See you all next week at redbullindianapolisgp.com.

Greg