One of the first race weekends of the season to have consistent weather, race fans seemed all set for some fine MotoGP racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this Sunday. The positive vibe would be stricken though, as three riders hit the tarmac hard during Saturday’s qualifying. Out for his home Grand Prix, Nicky Hayden would have to watch the race from the Ducati garage, while Ben Spies and Casey Stoner overcame injuries to brave the breach once more.

With Rossi continuing to struggle on the Ducati, Dovizioso (the man tipped to replace Rossi at Ducati Corse) sitting on the front row with a satellite bike, and Dani Pedrosa topping the time sheets at the pole-position, eager to claw some points back in the Championship from Jorge Lorenzo, the Indianapolis GP at least sounded interesting on paper, though was quite the opposite once it came to actuality.

Dani Pedrosa said it best during Saturday’s press conference when he told the assembled press that Casey Stoner is one tough racer, and if he was able to ride on Sunday, he would be fast. Seen in the pit box this morning hobbling on crutches to and fro, Stoner was sixth quickest in the warm-up session — Dani might just be right.

Over half a second back from the injured Ben Spies, who lead the session, Stoner’s position may not reflect the blistering pace we are accustomed to seeing from the reigning-World Champion, but considering the Australian tore a number of ligaments, along with a series of fractures in his ankle, tibia, and fibula, we would say that we are fairly impressed with Casey’s pace so far today.

After getting cleared by MotoGP medical staff this morning, Stoner’s warm-up session also confirmed his personal desire to race in the Indianapolis GP. The Repsol Honda team has now issued a press release starting Stoner’s official participation in Red Bull Indianapolis GP. Read it after the jump.

UPDATE: The news unfortunately seems to be official. Hayden will miss racing in the Indy GP.

One of three riders to crash hard in Saturday’s MotoGP qualifying session, Nicky Hayden’s participation in his home Grand Prix seems very unlikely after his high-side in the final turn at the IMS road course. Flying high and landing hard, Hayden was knocked unconscious by the crash, and was said to be incoherent after the crash.

Suffering an injury to his hand as well as his head, Hayden’s arm was x-rayed and his head was CAT scanned. While the CAT scan came back negative, the x-rays showed Hayden had suffered two small fractures to his right hand. Because of those injuries he has been ruled unfit to ride in tomorrow’s race.

UPDATE: An MRI has confirmed the ligament damage to Stoner’s ankle, but has also determined that his foot and leg is not fractured. He will undergo further tests before he is to be declared fit, or unfit, to race.

With only eight minutes on the clock for MotoGP’s qualifying session at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Casey Stoner found himself on the wrong side of a nasty high-side crash, which ultimately sent the Repsol Honda rider into Indy’s medical center. Stretchered off the red-flagged track, Stoner has a suspected torn ligament in his right foot, which will surely dash his hopes for competing at the Indianapolis GP.

MotoGP has a love-hate relationship with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway: most of the paddock love the place, the rest hate it. The way those feelings are divided is what is really interesting, though: the admirers of the track include most of the media, the teams and many, many fans. Those that hate the track are a small but well-defined group: anyone either wielding a camera or a racing a motorcycle have very few kind words for IMS.

So why the schism? It really depends on what you are doing at the track: the circuit has some of the best facilities of any circuit the MotoGP circus goes to all year, making the life of the media, the teams and the fans exceptionally easy. The photographers, on the other hand, hate the track because of the fences. As a circuit that mainly hosts car races, there are high chain-link fences all around the circuit, to prevent debris from wrecked four-wheelers from flying into the spectators.

At a few selected spots on the circuit, there are openings in the fences for photographers to poke their lenses through, giving them an unobstructed view of the circuit. There are lots of photographers and relatively few camera holes, leaving gaggles of photographers gathered around the available shooting spots like narwhals around a breathing hole in the arctic icesheet.

For the Indianapolis GP, race fans will delighted to see two American wild card entries on the grid, as both Attack Performance and GP Tech will likely be racing CRT bikes come Sunday afternoon. We have already gotten a chance to see Attack’s bike, as Steve Rapp piloted it around Laguna Seca for MotoGP’s first stop on American soil this season. Unfortunately for Rapp & Attack, they failed to qualify for the Red Bull US GP at Laguna Seca, missing the cut-off by just under seven-tenths of a second.

Meanwhile GP Tech, a veteran to wild cards at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, has stepped up to the big show this year, with Aaron Yates on board the team’s Suzuki-powered CRT bike. Getting a chance to try the road course at Indy during the AMA tire test, GP Tech put some cameras on its roided-out GSX-R, and today brings us a lap of IMS from the perspective of a CRT. With both Attack and GP Tech expected to qualify later today, Sunday’s race fans should have a couple more familiar names to follow during the race. Check the lap out after the jump.

Hector Barbera will be forced to miss the Red Bull Indianapolis GP, after suffering a back injury during the morning session of Friday’s free practice for the MotoGP class. Barbera suffered a nasty highside at Turn 16, his rear wheel appearing to catch on a section of track which appeared still to be dirty, and in the ensuing crash, Barbera landed on his neck and fractured three dorsal vertebrae, D5, D6 and D8. He was taken to the local Indianapolis Methodist Hospital, and has been ruled unfit to race.

Talking to journalists for the first time since the announcements that he would be leaving Ducati and joining Yamaha, Valentino Rossi provided some interesting insights today at the Indianapolis GP pre-even press conference, which showed his reasoning for the switch in teams, as well as how Rossi views his future in MotoGP. Perhaps the most interesting remark from The Doctor was his own questioning of his alien status, saying that he no longer knew whether he was a top rider in the sport.

Beyond the opportunity to question Rossi over his decision to move back to Yamaha, there was ample build-up, by both fans and journalists. The build-up of course pertained to seeing Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi in the same room with each other, as highly critical statements by Stoner were made this week in the media over Rossi’s tenure at Ducati. Putting the kibosh on the expected fight between the two riders, Stoner made it clear that the article in question was a composite of statements he has said in the press over the pass one and a half years, and that he made none of those statements in the past week.

Another interesting point included Rossi conceding that rival Jorge Lorenzo would be the #1 rider in the factory Yamaha team, though Lorenzo admitted later in the press conference that the distinction carried little weight when it came to parts and development, as Yamaha supplied riders equally within the team. Unwilling to talk money figures with his contract, Rossi would also not speculate on whether he and Lorenzo would share the same livery, i.e. sponsors, for next season.

With the atmosphere in the room palpable, Rossi fans will be interested in hearing The Doctor talk about his career with new uncertainty, and dwell on the possibility that the best of his motorcycle racing years might be behind him. A selected portion of the press conference transcript is after the jump.