First Time in Italy...
Author: Wes Williams	Wes Williams | Friday, 02 October 2009 06:37

It's 12:30am on Friday here in Italy.  I've gotten approximately 4 hours of sleep since I left Atlanta, GA on Tuesday afternoon at 5pm.  The time changes, coupled with the mass amounts of exploration in Venice and beyond, added with the drive to and from the practice tracks today..err yesterday, is the main reason there is no rest for the weary.

Why am I still awake?  Currently, I'm rendering out the first video from what will be a slew of more video content to come.  Thursday I had the pleasure of driving a lightyear away to join up with Team USA for a little afternoon practice session to break in the bikes and get some time in on the Italian soil.  I must admit, we look good...we look really, really good.

Someone here in Italy must've gotten on the Vitalmx.com of this country and spilled the beans on the practice location; by 2 in the afternoon I thought I was at a James Stewart Ride Day with the amount of fans that had commuted to the track.  It was really cool to see the hundreds of people that couldn't speak a lick of English try to communicate with the gang.  Nonetheless, the riders took their due time in signing autographs and taking photos with all of the fans, something which I thought was extremely cool.  Seems as if Team USA has quite the amount of fans here in Italia.

Team Australia certainly looked really good, too.  I was able to catch a few laps of Reedy, Byrner, and Metcalfe as we pulled out to drive the lightyear back to our hotel.  Tyla Rattray also looked blazingly fast. 

There is one thing I will put my money on.  Not a team or rider, but the fact that I think this will be the best MXoN in the past decade.  It's going to be good.