Dan's Blog: Motorcycle Trip to Sonoma, Ca, Infineon Raceway-Part 1 The Ride There

Somewhat on a whim, I decided to go to the Westcoast Moto Jam at Infineon Raceway. This was three days of AMA Pro motorcycle races, May 14-16. The new Erik Buell Racing Team was putting up an entry in the AMA Superbike class, and since I am a Buell rider, I should be there to see what happens.

I watched the weather and decided it was stable enough, so decided to ride the motorcycle. I left on Thursday. The weather was good and I had a nice ride down I5 to Valley of the Rogue State Park. It was a little cool when I started and the traffic through Portland was slow. It has been a long time since I have taken I5 that far south and I forgot how southern Oregon is really quite scenic. By the time I got to Valley of the Rogue in the late afternoon, the temp was quite comfortable in the 70's.

I was up early on Friday and underway by 0630. Stopped for fuel in Medford and then breakfast in Ashland before heading south over the mountains. The weather was clear and cool and the riding in the mountains was excellant. I stopped for fuel in Redding. This was when things started getting bad. The highway was flat, it started getting hot and cruising at 70mph in a straight line was just BORING. Furthermore, my knees hurt and I was getting sore from sitting. When I exited to highway 505, the scenary was better, but by the time I got to Vacaville, the traffic was getting heavy. I stopped at Fairfield for gas and got to Infineon at about 1430. I checked in and was escorted to my camping spot on the grasy hill.

I set up camp before heading down to the race track.

Continued in Part 2.