I'm being bitten by a small dog led by an annoying little boy. My wife and all the women who came before her are standing in the shadows of doorways in an overarching European alley as I try to get to a place that I can no longer remember. They all stare at me as though I’d done something awful. Then I’m plucked from this horrible nightmare and awaken to the sight of my gorgeous wife. She has a bemused but lovely smile on her face.

“Honey wake up! It’s time to go Rossi racing!”

Oh my god. Where am I?

I look around the room and it all comes back to me. I’m in Barcelona and I’ve come here to watch the MotoGP race as research for this article. I attempt to stand up but something is wrong. Even my scalp hurts. What did I do last night?

Oh yeah. Absinthe.

Until three weeks ago, I had a couple of unrealized fantasies in my life. One was to attend a motorcycle grand prix in Spain. The other was to drink absinthe at a bar with history. It seems I had achieved one of my goals, but I was beginning to wish that I’d done them in reverse order. I’d always wondered why this type of liquor had been banned in America. Now I was beginning to understand.

I’d flown 8,000 miles and the tickets were waiting at the gate to the famous Circuit Catalunya, where 107,000 screaming fans were assembled to watch the Italian idol, Valentino Rossi, try to defend his fifth straight title against the young American, Nicky Hayden. Ever since his dramatic victory over Valentino at Laguna Seca last year, Hayden has lead the MotoGP field in points—the first time an American has been in the lead since 2000.

I was in Spain to watch the drama unfold. There was no way I was gonna miss it. The problem was that I felt like something or someone had been sleeping in my mouth and perhaps another small creature may have fallen asleep inside my head as well. But…

“Nothing can stop us now.” That was the mantra I was running over and over in my mind as I ineffectually fumbled with concepts as inscrutable, as say, geting dressed. “What are you mumbling about honey?” Mary asked as she was brushing her teeth.

“Nothin’ babe. Just tryin’ to get it together to go. Nothing can stop us now, eh?” She stuck her head out of the hotel bathroom and gave me a coy frothy smile as she worked the toothbrush.

I forced myself to focus and slog through the hangover fog. There was no way we were going to miss this. Motorcycle grand prix racing is without doubt the most intense and dangerous of all motorsports. There’s more passing, more crashing, no roll cages, and the drama very often continues until the last corner of the last lap. It’s exciting and weird to watch guys leaned over so far that their knees are dragging on the pavement or see them trading paint as they pass and re-pass each other.

For most Americans, who are accustomed to watching cars go round and round and only turning left, this sport comes as something of a revelation. It’s a no-holds-barred, 75-mile sprint race over a three or four mile road-style course, and it’s every man for himself. These guys are inches apart in the middle of corners, on one-of-a-kind factory prototypes that cost millions of dollars apiece, at speeds that NASCAR drivers can only dream about in a drug-and stripper-fueled fantasy. In car racing, passing is so infrequent that you have plenty of time to get to the fridge and back to see the replay. In this sport, if you don’t get back quick enough, you’re gonna miss it.

The season runs from early spring until late autumn. They race about every two weeks with a long break in the summer. It’s a 17-round championship that races all around the world. They turn left, they turn right, they go uphill and down, all at speeds that sometimes exceed 200 miles an hour. All on a contact patch about the size of a credit card.

These are the fastest men on two wheels and to watch them slide sideways through corners at insane speeds is as exciting as watching Jerry Rice make a one-handed catch in the end zone. No, wait. It’s a lot more exciting, because it keeps going on and on.

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I’d first discovered the sport when I was living in London in the early ’90s. The males of the species in the Western world seem to have an ingrained and almost universal urge to get up with a hangover on Sunday morning, turn on the tube and watch sports. The English were no different, but at the time they only had four channels. Let me tell you: cricket and sheep dog trials, as sports go, are as mind-numbingly boring to watch as golf or bowling.

So one rainy English Sunday morning, I got up feeling a bit rough and turned on the tube. I have to confess that I’d been an active rider since I was a kid but, since motocycle racing is not much of a TV sport in America, I was unfamiliar with it. To see a real race on an ugly morning in what can be a dreary city was a pleasant surprise. I got hooked.

From then on, every other Sunday morning I was up early with an Irish coffee, no matter how late I’d been out, to watch my new heroes provide me with all the athletic drama, thrills and spills a man could ask for. At first, my wife would groan in the background, but then after a while, even she got into it. Women dig cute young guys in leather outfits that do dangerous things.

Slowly I learned that this was a sport that Americans had dominated for more than a decade—and yet nobody in our country was even aware of it. I’m talking world champions here. The other riders were and still are from Spain, Italy, France, Japan, Great Britain, Australia, Germany and Brazil. Even little Switzerland and Finland were producing winners, contenders, and even champions.

This is truly a world championship and the history of the sport spans all the habitable continents of the globe. And Americans seem to be particularly adept at it.

I found it intriguing and sad that certain American athletes were heroes to millions of people around the world without any local recognition. With Lance Armstrong, we seem to have woken up to the fact that there is, in fact, a wider world of international sports.

Mind you, I’d rather play Russian roulette than watch people pedal bicycles uphill. But without any disrespect to Lance and his heroic achievements battling cancer and winning all those races and all, Kenny Roberts is more my idea of a sports hero. He was the first American world champ, and held that title for three years in a row—from 1978- ‘80. Roberts—a native son of California, I might add—successfully defended his title one year with a broken back that he suffered in an horrific crash early in the season.

In Europe Roberts is universally know as “King Kenny,” and there are a half-dozen other members of the American MotoGP royalty.

Between 1978 and 1993, Americans won 13 world championships. For those of you unwilling or unable to do the math, that’s 13 out 16 years.

These were the glory days of MotoGP. After Roberts, Freddie Spencer and Eddie Lawson traded the title back and forth 1983 to ’89. Wayne Rainey dominated from ’90 to ’92, and Kevin Schwantz took the title in ’93.

The only other Moto GP champs during this American era were a couple of Italians and an Australian. I found it dismal that nobody in this country was even paying attention.

My preference every Sunday was to crawl out of bed, make my wife a cup of coffee, pour some whiskey in mine, and watch the race with her. Then we’d head to the pub for a few pints and talk about the race. Then we’d come home and take one of those delicious Sunday afternoon naps. She was always a lot more frisky after watching a race. If she was thinking about a boy in leathers, I didn’t mind.

≈≈≈

In 1993, my years in England were over and I came back and almost forgot about motorcycle racing. I read the trade papers from time to time. A particularly heroic Australian (Mick Doohan) had come back from a partially crippling crash to win five championships in a row. Even from a distance it was pretty stirring stuff, but Americans weren‘t winning, and I wasn’t all that interested. I was watching Michael Jordan at his peak so it wasn’t like I was bored or anything. Then Jordan quit and the Australian retired after a career-ending crash.

In 1999 a familiar name started to reappear. Kenny Roberts. No, the old champion didn’t decide to throw on his leathers for one of those misguided “one last championship” runs. He’s got more sense and dignity than that. Besides, he was running a team of his own, which is a story in itself.

This was his son, and he was the lead rider for the Suzuki factory team. His father had always ridden for Yamaha and his greatest challenger was the late, great British hero, Barry Sheene on the factory Suzuki. I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for stuff like this.

In motorcycle racing, the factory brand is the team that the rider races for. In those old days it was Team Yamaha, Team Honda, etc. These days it’s Camel Yamaha, Repsol Honda, Rizla Suzuki and so on, but the only thing that’s really changed is the graphics on the bikes. The riders are still chosen by and contracted to the factories. On a deep level, it really is a team sport—the crew chief, the mechanics, and how they interact with the rider, can be the most important factor in a championship. So Kenny Jr.’s move to Suzuki was the kind of human drama that adds depth to being a sports fan. I was hooked all over again.

So I reluctantly bought a larger TV and satellite service so I could watch a son make his father proud on Sunday mornings. In 2000, America had another champion. Kenny Jr. and his team won the championship in a season that saw him riding the wheels off an inferior machine, and taking the crown by dint of pure determination.  

I was suitably proud myself, as most Americans are when one of their countrymen does something good on the world stage. Something that doesn’t involve bombs or bombast.

There was a dark cloud on the horizon, though.

In his rookie year, on what was then 500cc V4 two-stroke machine, was an 18-year-old Italian named Valentino Rossi riding on the factory Honda. He’d been champion in the 125cc and 250cc classes (which are the support classes that run in the rest of the world, but not in the US, where young riders start out on souped-up street bikes instead of small Grand Prix racers). All the pundits reckoned it would take him a few years to come to grips with the awesome power of the 500s. Apparently he wasn’t listening.

After crashing a couple times in the early part of the season, Rossi started winning. I’m sure no one was expecting it, least of all Kenny Roberts, who all of a sudden had a bone fide challenger for the title. Rossi came close to stealing the championship from Kenny that year, and if it weren’t for the early crashes and Kenny’s consistency, he might have pulled it off.

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I’ve known people and heard of others who meet someone in a supermarket, at work, or at a party and, in the face of all logic, leave what was previously thought of as a happy marriage that had lasted years and just walk away. For some of them it worked out fine, I hear. For others it proved to be the height of folly.

I’d been loyal to my American riders for over a decade but I was starting to feel a disquieting urge. Rossi’s ebullient humor and grace, as opposed to Kenny’s American Gothic stoicism, was beginning to seduce me. He has since done the same thing to millions of people around the world, including my wife, who normally hates any kind of sports except Olympic figure skating. On top of all this, his dad was a famous grand prix racer in his own right. Valentino grew up in the paddock. Racing was in his blood. Just like Kenny.

I’ve got a friend who describes herself as a talent junky. I share the sentiment to some extent, but there has to be something else going for it. Dennis Rodman may not have been the greatest talent on the court, but he sure was a pleasure to watch. Over the next five years I watched as Valentino proved himself to be not only one of the greatest riders of all time, but a consummate showman as well.

In the process, he won five championships in a row. Which is just one of the countless records that he either shares or owns outright. Two years ago Honda was claiming that it was their superior machinery rather than Rossi’s talent that was winning. So Rossi quit Honda and went to Yamaha, who hadn’t won a championship since 1992, with America’s own Wayne Rainey.

Everybody thought it was impossible, but Vale (as he’s known in Europe) won the first race of the year. Nobody had ever won back-to-back races on different makes of motorcycles. Another record.

He went on to win the championship, the first back-to-back championship since Eddie Lawson had done it in ‘88 and ‘89. I could go on and on but I won’t torment you with statistics.

Mind you, Valentino doesn’t do it all for charity. According to Forbes, he made $28 million last year. For the last two years Rossi has made the mighty Honda Corporation eat humble pie. He was king of the world, A#1. But nothing lasts forever.

During the early years of Rossi’s domination I also followed the AMA Superbike series—which is kind of like the second level farm league for grand prix. A new name kept coming up and an equally intriguing story was emerging. This is the story of the continuing rise of Nicky Hayden—the Kentucky Kid.

Nicky started winning at a very young age. He grew up in Kentucky in a family of motorcycle racing nuts. His father and mother both raced when they were younger. When he comes to Laguna Seca this year, his two brothers will be racing in the AMA support races. One of them is a champion in his own right.

Nicky’s got racing in his blood. Just like Rossi and Roberts. A few years ago, all three brothers stood on the podium at an AMA dirt track race. Nothing like this has ever happened before or since. Like I said, I’m a sucker for these family connections.

Added to all of this, he’s got an exciting riding style, he’s charming and gracious—in a laconic, Southern way—and my wife thinks he pegs out on the babe-o-meter. It’s hard to imagine a better American ambassador for the sport, so I dig him too.

After Hayden won the 2002 AMA Superbike championship, Honda plucked him out of the minors and made him Rossi’s teammate.

It was a learning year for Hayden and he ended up as Rookie of the Year. After Rossi quit to go to Yamaha, Nicky became Honda’s top rider.

At the time, Honda was experimenting with its racing bikes, and Nicky was thrown into the deep end of the development of some very exotic machinery. He struggled while Rossi won. But then came Laguna Seca last year.

Nicky won the first US Grand Prix race since 1994. From that point on he’s been on fire.

≈≈≈

As of the Fourth of July, Nicky was 35 points in the lead. He’s been dead consistent while Rossi has struggled with technical difficulties early in the season, but Rossi seems to have gotten them sorted out and is still the only one on the grid to have won four races this year.

Vale won last Sunday in Germany after starting from the fourth row of the grid. It was a nail-biting, last-lap, last-corner thriller, with only four tenths of a second separating the first four riders. Nicky ended up third. Rossi’s catching up on the championship, and sits in second place overall.

Laguna Seca is a crucial race for a lot of different reasons. It’s the last race before the summer break. If a rider does poorly in this race, it can tend to play on his mind while he’s sitting on The Riviera with some hot chick. Also, this is Nicky’s home race, and after winning it last year, if Rossi were to win this time it would play hell with his confidence while bolstering Valentino’s with seven races to go. This is gonna be a battle royale.

You can’t get tickets any more, but you can still watch it one of two ways that I know of. Speed Channel on cable or satellite, with more advertisements than wanted. Or if you have a high speed internet hookup, you can sign up with MotoGP.com for a pittance and watch a low resolution version of the whole race without commercials. And you can watch it live or later.

I am lucky. I will be there.

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Back in Barcelona it’s a short train ride to the track with a bunch of drunken Italian Rossi fans. An incredible beauty among them has “VALE” crudely tattooed on her bicep. They’re gracious enough to share some beer with me, and I’m feeling better as I step off the train a half hour later in Montmelo.

More beer in cantinas. A two-kilometer walk to the track and $3 beer at the concessionaires. Look to spend more at Laguna Seca.

Inside the track, I’m struck by the mélange of nationalities and ages in one place at one time. Everybody, from infants to seniors, has come to this event from all over the continent. On the track, they’re from all over the continent as well and Nicky’s no shoo-in.

As we take our seats in the gigantic bleacher section, I’m going through a moral dilemma. An American is on the charge again but I’ve been rooting for Rossi for a while now, and he’s the underdog. So, being a born moral equivocator, I’ll cheer them both on.

The race is a monster. There’s a massive six-bike pileup in the first corner of the first lap and the race has to be restarted after 30 minutes to allow time for three riders to be airlifted out. The other three run back to the pits and climb on their spare bikes. Pure chaos.

In the meantime, the fans are getting restless. It’s hot, and the beer is being consumed. Then the spectators seem to spontaneously start these massive crowd waves that you can see travel a quarter mile around the rim of the bowl that the last third of the track sits in like a black ribbon in a soup of grass, kitty litter and corporate logos. My wife Mary doesn’t take part, but she’s amused that I do. Call me a rank sentimentalist if you like, but I think it’s pretty cool when you can get 107,000 people together, everybody’s having fun, and the only violence is on the track.

Then the race restarts and Rossi gets a bad start from the pole. After lap two, Nicky’s in second and Rossi is in sixth. By lap eight, though, Rossi is leading after more crashes and more passes.

In the end, with the crowd going wild, Rossi wins in Catalunya for the seventh time. Nicky comes in second, and, lo and behold, Kenny Jr. comes in third, riding for free this year for his dad. It was Father’s Day too.

Two Americans and my favorite Italian stood on the podium in Spain. It was a good day.

Since then, Nicky won at Assen, in Holland; Rossi broke his right hand and left foot, and still came in a heroic eighth (showing that he’s made of sterner stuff than most mortals). Rossi then rode to a memorable second place in Great Britain two weeks later, while Nicky came in seventh.

The points chase is still way too close to call with eight races to go.

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In the GP in 1994 at Laguna, there were 21 riders from 11 countries. This year it’ll be about the same. 21 riders from 8 countries. Besides Rossi, Nicky’s biggest challengers for the season are:

• Dani Pedrosa. An extraordinarily talented 20-year-old Spaniard in his rookie season. 125cc and (two times) 250cc champion. He’s Nicky’s teammate and rival.

• Loris Capirossi. 125cc and 250cc champion a long while ago. At 33, he’s the oldest guy out there. He rides for the factory Ducati team and is a wily old veteran who’s riding hurt. He was one of Rossi’s heroes as a child.

• Marco Melandri. Another talented Italian and former 250cc champion. He also rides for Honda, but remains Rossi’s friend (for now).

• Casey Stoner. Another 20-year-old rookie riding for a Honda satellite team. His parents sold their home in Kurri Kurri, Australia to live in a motor home in England in order to allow him to live out his racing dreams. It seems like madness but it has paid off. He’s doing his family proud and my wife thinks he’s the cutest thing on Earth.

Nicky’s also gonna have his hands full with some other Americans who know the track pretty well themselves:

• Colin Edwards. The Texas Tornado. He’s Rossi’s teammate and finished in second place at Laguna last year. He’s dying for his first win. He’s also won two World Superbike titles (a whole other production-based series).

• Kenny Roberts Jr. He’s having an incredible season so far, after some dismal years with Suzuki. This is his home track, his brother will be racing in a support race and he seems out to prove why he was once a champion. Don’t count him out, now that he’s got a good bike.

• John Hopkins. 23 from San Diego. A talented youngster who’s long overdue for a good result. The Suzuki gets better all the time and if his tires hold out, he’s definitely a threat.

≈≈≈

Coming into this race, my ambivalence remains. On the one hand, I would dearly love to see Nicky win another one at home on his way to becoming the forst American to win the championship in six years.

On the other hand, Valentino is the underdog and I have a sad history of rooting for underdogs.  

It’s the age-old Gilligan’s Island dilemma: Ginger or Maryanne? No matter which one you end up with, you’re gonna end up lusting after the other eventually. So whoever wins, I’ll be happy, and I’ll wish the other guy won.

Even if Nicky crashes out of the race and Rossi wins, Hayden still maintains the lead in the championship. But Valentino needs to beat Nicky. The race at Laguna Seca has taken on an importance that was never contemplated at the beginning of the season.

My wife’s out of town and I think I might just crack open that bottle of absinthe I brought back and dream of Spain as I wait for Sunday. I know a group of British sport-bike hooligans who have a good campsite.