First Ever MotoGP night race Qatar 2008

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Motominded

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The first round of this year Motogp Championship in Qatar will hold the first ever night race for a motorcycle grand prix. The track is very close to completion and the event has had mixed preview from the riders: Marco Milandri is thrilled while his Ducati teammate and current world champion Casey Stoner ( :goodjob: ) isnt as such even though he raced dirt bikes under the lights at the age of ten!

What do you guys think about a night race? My biggest thrill is that we might get Speedtv :fire: (NascrapTV) to show both events Live. They do a horrible job doing motogp broadcasts as when i was in italy earlier this year, italian tv had 2 hours of Mugello GP without commercials!

Qatar%20night%20test%202006.jpg


Singapore will follow suit in the F1 circus on sept 28

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A question comes to my mind for the MotoGP race that you're talking about. For the race, will the bikes have headlights and taillights on them? I don't know what the course will be like when it's light up at night, but I imagine there might be a few dimly lit spots on the track that might have some problems occur should there be a accident or when the racing is very close.

As for SPEED TV's coverage of MotoGP, for the non-US rounds they usually air it later on the same day of the race. What happenes is they get the English language version of the world feed of the race and then they have to edit it so it can fit the one hour broadcast window they have allocated in their schedule.
 
CAMikaze
A question comes to my mind for the MotoGP race that you're talking about. For the race, will the bikes have headlights and taillights on them? I don't know what the course will be like when it's light up at night, but I imagine there might be a few dimly lit spots on the track that might have some problems occur should there be a accident or when the racing is very close.

As for SPEED TV's coverage of MotoGP, for the non-US rounds they usually air it later on the same day of the race. What happenes is they get the English language version of the world feed of the race and then they have to edit it so it can fit the one hour broadcast window they have allocated in their schedule.
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no no headlight on the bikes just well lit race track and dimmed runoff areas... some of the riders have said visability is better than day time runs!

bout speed coverage... it seems to me like a highlight film and not a proper way to cover a world championship event with us riders to add to that.
 
A thing I've never understood about works motorcycles is why they don't have lights anyways. I remembered watching events from the inaugural season of Moto-ST Endurance Racing. Some works motorcycles have had some tacked-on headlights to see in darker conditions. I don't think the headlights will put too much weight on an already lightweight sport bike. Maybe they aren't used in grand prix motorbike racing, but I always wanted to question why most grand prix motorcycles don't have headlights.

As far as this race goes, I played this track in "MotoGP 4" for the PS2. The track is pretty long, maybe longer than the awesome Bahrain circuit. The thing I fear about this is that the for racing machines that do road racing in very dark conditions, and don't normally use lights... the circuit in Qatar (pronounced like "cutter") will need to have sufficient lighting around even though the motorcycles will be equipped with lights.

Let me provide prespective here. The Moto-ST series is a production-based racing series that competes in endurance racing. As some examples of race-prepared motorcycles with some sort of headlights, take a look at these pictures of motorcycles racing in the Moto-ST Series:

* http://www.moto-st.com/Photos/Galle..../CONTENT/Photos/Galleries/2007_Round6/14.jpg (at the 8 Hours of Daytona which kicked off the 2007 season of Moto-ST racing)
* http://www.moto-st.com/Photos/Galle...../CONTENT/Photos/Galleries/2007_Round6/6.jpg (short brake lights, you can see them better if you zoom in on the picture)
* http://www.moto-st.com/Photos/Galle...../CONTENT/Photos/Galleries/2007_Round6/7.jpg (more like a production bike with racing livery)
* http://www.moto-st.com/Photos/Galle..../CONTENT/Photos/Galleries/2007_Round6/16.jpg (more lights in darker settings)
* http://www.moto-st.com/Photos/Galle..../CONTENT/Photos/Galleries/2007_Round6/13.jpg (one headlight used)

So are the MotoGP bikes going to have some tacked-on headlights or something? Something that COULD be done is to offer headlights for the bikes. Look at how these bikes have their headlights arranged from the 2007 24 Hours of Le Mans Moto: < http://www.race24.com/07lemans/lemansracereport.html >. Having lights on race bikes are possible, but I'm not sure how MotoGP is going to pull this off. I think it's cool they are even doing this. Same goes for Formula 1. I always equate MotoGP as the Formula 1 of Grand Prix motorcycle racing because of the high-class motorcycles raced in this series. Just be interesting as to how this all unfolds when this race finally happens.
 
Racing cars (and bikes) don&#8217;t need headlights. They&#8217;re generally going too fast for headlights to be of any use. If the track isn&#8217;t sufficiently lit then they shouldn&#8217;t be racing on it.

Tail lights on the other hand are a different story, and in poor visibility I think cars should have a high-intensity light at the rear so that other drivers can see them.
 
Blake
Racing cars (and bikes) don’t need headlights. They’re generally going too fast for headlights to be of any use. If the track isn’t sufficiently lit then they shouldn’t be racing on it.

Tail lights on the other hand are a different story, and in poor visibility I think cars should have a high-intensity light at the rear so that other drivers can see them.
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Totally agree.

When you're traveling 100m/s, and a headlight only illuminates 30m (tops!) in front of you, a headlight is of virtually no use at all.
 
Thanks for the little lesson. My motorcycle racing knowledge isn't as good as my automobile knowledge. So thanks for the answer. Don't want to make this any sort of "let's bash on John" deal.

[UPDATE] By the way, do you think other motorcycle road racing series not accustomed to racing at night will try this? I've played Losail (the track on the outskirts of Doha, Qatar) in MotoGP 4. I tend to think so much about Bahrain in terms of the environment because both Losail and the Bahrain circuit are in desert climates. I could remember that All-Star race in FIA GT at Bahrain, which was held heading into total darkness. Think about other cars and racing machines that would compete in a nighttime road race. Imagine if NASCAR wanted to race Sears Point/Infineon Raceway at night. The track would need sufficient lighting to see around the course. The key point of emphasis would be to at least illuminate the corners and crucial sections. You want to be able to illuminate as much of the track as possible so that racing in darkness doesn't become a serious problem. Or think about when the Champ Car World Series raced around the parking lot area of Reliant Park (Houston, TX, USA) or the Cleveland Grand Prix around Burke Lakefront Airport at night. Both of those tracks needed sufficient lighting all the way around. Only lights on Champ Cars on the outside is that lone taillight at the back of the cars. Burke Lakefront Airport is an airport runway course, so as much of the track needs to be illuminated as possible to see the whole way around. It will be very interesting to see how these night races get pulled off.
 

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