Back in the sixties, Daytona hosted a couple of Grand Prix but the United States Grand Prix finally established itself at Laguna Seca in California and how we loved it. Who would not enjoy staying on the Monterrey peninsula jutting out into the Pacific Ocean? Sometimes the fog would roll in to engulf the circuit in the hills some 15 kms inland but usually the sun never stopped shining and then there was the Corkscrew. The likes of Kenny Roberts had been telling us about the Corkscrew for many years in his own bombastic style. When we arrived there for the first time in 1988, I rushed up to the Corkscrew for the first practice session and I had to admit to Kenny, which was never easy, he was right. Surely one of the most iconic strips of tarmac in the history of Grand Prix racing which gained legendary status thanks to a certain battle between Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner in 2008. I can still visualise them side by side on the brakes before plunging down the step and then off the edge of the World into the Corkscrew. Rossi was forced onto the outside and then onto the dirt and dust of the inside as they switched left to right coming out of the bottom, but he was still leading, with Stoner having to run wide to avoid a massive coming together.

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