MotoGP '08 Night Race - MotoGP Under The Lights!

The multimillion-dollar lighting system designed and installed by U.S. firm Musco Lighting was judged a complete success by both the organizers and the racers, offering good visibility without glare or excessive shadows while allowing far more hospitable temperatures for the event. Officials from the Sepang circuit in Malaysia were at the Qatar race investigating the possibility of running their GP at night as well.

The MotoGP event in the tiny Arabian state of Qatar has always been tough on man and machine. Situated in the middle of the desert, ambient temperatures during the race two years ago at the newly built, $58 million Losail International Circuit reached nearly 120 degrees F during the day, cooking tires and already highly stressed engine coolant systems. In an effort to counter the heat issue the track organizers came up with a novel idea: Hold the Grand Prix races at night, when temperatures are much cooler.

The problem was that MotoGP bikes don't carry lights, and no one had ever tried to tackle the idea of completely lighting up an entire roadracing circuit for an event of this magnitude before. Illuminating an oval track where competitors are confined to a single arena is one thing, but lighting the complete 3.32-mile, 16-turn Losail circuit without blinding the competitors with glare or creating shadows is another task entirely. U.S.-based Musco Lighting was awarded the surely high-dollar contract to design and install the lighting system-and it had to do this in six months.

Although he failed to qualify on the front row, Ducati's Casey Stoner kept the lead group in sight and quickly made his way to the lead by the eighth lap, never to be headed.

Tech 3 Yamaha teammates (and former World Superbike champions) James Toseland (52) and Colin Edwards II (behind) surprised the pundits by qualifying on the front row and finishing sixth and seventh.

Former MotogP champion nicky hayden (69) couldn't get the new '08 model Rc212V to work and rode the '07 model in an attempt to stay competitive. he finished in a disillusioned 10th place.

Incredibly, everything was completed on schedule. The system boasts a total of 3600 lighting fixtures situated on a veritable forest of 1000 varied-height lamp standards, using bulbs of up to 2000 watts supported by 310 miles of wiring fed by 44 13-megawatt generators. The Losail circuit is now said to replace Daytona International Speedway as the "world's largest permanent-venue sports-lighting project in the world."

Kawasaki's John Hopkins was still recovering from abdominal injuries sustained in a preseason testing crash and finished 12th at Losail.

A special two-night test session for all the MotoGP teams was held the week before the race to get the participants' impressions of the lighting system. The vast majority gave it a thumbs-up, paving the way for the first nighttime MotoGP race.

The success of the Losail night Grand Prix event has generated interest from the organizers of the Malaysian GP at Sepang, who also struggle with high temperatures and humidity at the Southeast Asian circuit. Who knows? Perhaps this will lead some racetracks in the U.S. to entertain the possibility of night races. -K.K.