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Flights have been buzzing in and out of Austin for the better part of a week now. Mid-March is the city’s Golden Week when the confluence of spring break and South-by-Southwest (or SXSW, or just “South By”) means thousands of party-starved students from the University of Texas vacate to South Padre Island, freeing up space for thousands of aspiring musicians, filmmakers and digital mavens to crowd sponsored parties while pitching each other on their latest projects.

Amidst this year’s annual festival of creativity, a new type of visitor has filtered in to town. Their attire is adorned with sponsors unfamiliar to your typical angel-headed hipster. Their first order of business is not to find good wi-fi. They are not hawking free tacos or Nike Fuelbands to garner attention. They do not sport ironic moustaches.

Theirs is a different festival, held at a new venue southeast of town. In just over a month’s time, the fastest men will launch the fastest motorcycles headlong into the Circuit of the Americas’ intimidating layout, vying for crucial points early in the 2013 MotoGP season. Five of these riders will have a critical advantage after sampling the track and their machines over three days of private testing.

It's a calm morning at the Circuit of the Americas, with Yamaha having shipped up yesterday. Honda is not relaxing, of course. Marquez logged 25 laps in total, splitting time between bikes and notably putting both within 0.1 seconds of one another atop the timesheets. Pedrosa edged down his time from yesterday on his 4th lap, and Bradl also improved his time early on. The teams will likely be searching through settings for some of the afternoon before putting their final assault on the Austin circuit near the end of day.

Off the track, things are even more exciting. Speedweek.de is reporting that Kevin Schwantz was prevented from entering the circuit yesterday. Schwantz had attended the previous CRT test at COTA as an advisor to Attack rider Blake Young, and was presumably going to serve in that role again. With the higher profile surrounding the factory test and presence of Schwantz fan Valentino Rossi, it would appear that the COTA management were wary of any controversy Schwantz's presence might generate. The lawsuit between the two parties is still pending for a hearing in Travis County court.

The second day of testing ended very similarly to the first, with Hondas leading the way.  Bradl spent much of the day running amongst the factory bikes, although he didn't make the leap into the 2:03's alongside Marquez and Pedrosa.

The Yamaha riders logged over 60 laps each, making the most of their last day of testing. Rossi is now jetting off to Brazil for a prior engagement, while Lorenzo is presumably preparing to be hung tomorrow over after cruising SXSW with X-Games stars and Jesse James.

Grip was less of an issue by the end of the day, although still short of ideal. Pedrosa experimented with the asymmetric Bridgestones, flipping the medium left/soft right to a soft left/medium right configuration (don't try this with your BT-003's) to help solve some of the front-end grip issues he was experiencing. It's hard to say if anything particular about the track is to Pedrosa's liking, but he seemed more comfortable with his results from today.

The Honda riders, including Bradl, will remain on track for one more day of testing. Gearing will likely be an area of focus as the riders try to find the best compromise among the technical combinations of slow corners, flowing chicanes and high speed straights.

The riders testing in Austin will have several advantages when the MotoGP race is held here in April. Track knowledge and baseline setups alone must be worth the expense to ship bikes and crew halfway around the world to this new circuit. But grip remains elusive, despite elevated temperatures from yesterday, holding times to within a few tenths of yesterday's best.

With only a handful of bikes circulating, the riders to a man are acknowledging that lack of grip is holding them back. For the Yamahas, both Lorenzo and Rossi are particularly concerned with exit grip from the circuit's multiple hairpins. For his part, Lorenzo is relatively pleased with a setup breakthrough near the end of yesterday and continues to make progress. Rossi continues to enjoy the circuit, but that has yet to get him into the 2:04's.

The factory Honda riders both noted the slippery track, but their bikes seem to get better acceleration out of the corners, and Marquez continues to work through elbow protectors the way most people use up chewing gum. Pedrosa seemed less than enthused with the morning work, and continues to search for gearbox and suspension issues that will serve as a reference point. Working alone, Bradl is churning through productive laps and he is progressing along with, and sometimes in front of, the HRC machinery.

On a breezy morning in Austin, riders logged tentative laps to get a feel for the layout at Circuit of the Americas. Until the sun does more work to counteract the brisk wind, the morning track has been slippery.  The riders all seem guardedly positive about the track.  Comments range from Jorge's "all the track is tricky" to Marquez's note that the post T1 series of flip-flops are quite challenging. Pedrosa reserved commentary on the layout until he gets more time on a warmer track.

In the midst of motorcycle racing's launch season comes an interesting project. The CAME IODA Racing team was launched last night in Rome - featuring a night-time ride by Danilo Petrucci on the IODA TR003 bike used last year through the streets of the Eternal City, as part of the three-day Moto Days exhbition in Rome - at which the MotoGP pairing of Petrucci and Lukas Pesek were presented, along with Johann Zarco, will be riding the team's Suter Moto2 bike this season.

At the same time, an interesting project to try to leverage the team's fan base was also presented. Team boss Giampiero Sacchi - formerly of Aprilia - presented the IODA Your Racing project, an idea to try to raise funds through fans of the team. The idea is that everyone who wanted to contribute to the team can chip in a small amount - the current level of contribution is set at 10 euros - to help fund the team. For that amount, you get your name or nickname - to a maximum of 12 letters - on the fairing of Danilo Petrucci's Suter BMW MotoGP bike. Clearly, the 10 euros does not buy you a lot of real estate: the twelve characters of your nickname will take up an area just 0.5mm high and 10mm wide, but it will be displayed for the full length of the season.

With the 2013 MotoGP season due to start in just four weeks' time, it's time to take a trip down memory lane and get ourselves excited about this season's racing. To do so, over the next few weeks, we will be running an occasional series of shots by MotoMatters.com star shooter Scott Jones, taken at some of the rounds he attended last season. His stunning photos are a reminder of why we love motorcycle racing so much. Remember also to check out the special offers Scott has on signed photos, including riders such as Casey Stoner, Cal Crutchlow and Nicky Hayden. Not long to go now...

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