Whit Bazemore snapped this shot of MotoGP's Dani Pedrosa during Friday's practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The former drag racer marvels at the motorcycle racing series' elite riders.(Photo: Provided by Whit Bazemore / Whit Bazemore Photography)
How crazy is crazy?
Wheeling a dragster down a quarter-mile strip at Lucas Oil Raceway or leaning a MotoGP bike to 64 degrees into a fast left-hander at Indianapolis Motor Speedway?
Whit Bazemore thinks the latter is the most extreme, and he has something to measure it against.
Bazemore won 20 events in NHRA's Funny Car division, including two U.S. Nationals, and he raced in Top Fuel. He has traveled 333 mph and according to NHRA's website, he still holds drag racing's all-time quarter-mile record with an elapsed time of 4.498 seconds.
Bazemore also road raced a motorcycle for a year, in 1987.
"Very amateur," he said of his experiences on a production GSX-R750 Suzuki, "but I did nine races and loved it."
Bazemore, who last drag raced in 2007, is at IMS this weekend as a professional photographer (www.whitbazemorephotography.com). The camera lens brings him as close to MotoGP champions Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez as anyone can get, and he's blown away by their skill set and the danger they apply it to.
"What impresses me about this sport is how they trust the front tire," Bazemore said. "They don't even trail brake; they're hard on the brake with the (bike) leaned over, and that's just against physics. You study Mark Donohue's (theory on) traction circle and these guys are outside the traction circle, which is pretty impressive.
'They're going really fast. They have 170 mph turns. They're fast."
And high-side motorcycle crashes?
"Those might be the worst (in racing)," he said.
Bazemore has watched how smooth IndyCar drivers are at IMS, and he said the top MotoGP riders are every bit of that. Drag racers can't relate.
"Funny Cars are really violent," he said. "These (motorcycles) are fast and they turn quickly, but you actually ride them smoothly. Even when Marquez has the back wheel off the ground, he's still really smooth.
"But this is nuts, no question. The top guys are, shall we say, different (laughing)."
Surprisingly, Bazemore said high-level drag racing isn't all that crazy. However, there's one daunting aspect.
"Holding your foot down to the finish line takes a different thought process than most people possess," he said "I'm not going to say it's stupid, but you have to convince yourself it's the right thing to do because your instinct is telling you it's not the right thing to do.
"I'm sure going into Turn 1 here is the same, then you get used to it."
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