AP Photo/Michael Conroy

Indianapolis GP winner Valentino Rossi, left, leads Ben Spies in the opening laps of Sunday's race.

MotoGP: Spies continues to impress with sixth-place run at Indy

With another AMA Superbike title wrapped up, Ben Spies looked forward to a pressure-free weekend at the inaugural Indianapolis Grand Prix as a wild-card MotoGP rider.

"Just going to have fun," he said Saturday.

On Sunday, the word "fun" didn't exactly come to mind as the field of 19 riders tried to negotiate the 2.621-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in conditions that regressed from dreary to dangerous by the 20-lap mark. Rain and 40 mph winds battered the course and the competitors. Colin Edwards said he saw a Styrofoam cooler lid, among other debris, blow across the track. Another American, John Hopkins, could see tents blowing apart and grass ripping out of the ground.

Spies said his most fun part of the day was seeing the red flag because his visibility was so limited. Like everyone else, he was thrilled not to have to go out and complete the scheduled 28 laps.

But unlike most, Spies left pleased with his results in the trying conditions. He finished sixth in the Indy GP on his Rizla Suzuki in just his third MotoGP start.

"I think we can do this, we can run with these guys," Spies said. "Now we've went to a track where at the end of the day, they're as comfortable on it as I am. We were right there on the brink of finishing in the top five."

Spies is hoping to crack the full-time MotoGP ranks next season, the logical next step for an incredibly talented 25-year-old who has won the past three AMA Superbike titles. The learning curve from the top American series to the pinnacle of worldwide cycling is substantial, but Spies isn't giving any impression he can't handle it.

In three MotoGP starts, he has finished 14th in June at Donington Park in Great Britain, eighth in July at Laguna Seca, Calif., and sixth at Indy. Sunday's race was a different beast because its first-year status as a race helped even the field for a rookie. But Spies rode like anyone but a rookie.

"It's good, sixth place for us is good," he said. "I wish we could have done a little better, but every time we've got on the bike, we've got better results."

He's not used to anything less. His season in Superbike was another for the record books, with seven consecutive wins setting a mark and propelling him to the top of the points standings. He already has clinched a third consecutive title with one weekend of racing remaining.

The season wasn't without adversity, either, as he had knee surgery before the season opener and his appendix removed two days after the Laguna Seca MotoGP race.

"For coming through all that stuff, all the hardships, I think we did a pretty good job," Spies said. "Three titles in a row, you can't really ask for a whole lot more."

With that, the Longview, Texas, resident is trying to squeeze into the MotoGP paddock for next season. Nothing is signed yet and there are no guarantees, given the limited number of seats and a sponsorship climate that can make it hard for an outsider, even one of Spies' caliber. But he's exploring multiple options, even perhaps leaving Suzuki after a decade to run for another manufacturer.

"Hopefully we'll know something in a couple weeks," Spies said. "I always want to do something better and definitely want to be in the GP paddock, but there's so many guys out here that already had rides or had switched earlier or whatever.

"It's just hard to get in there, but I think we're proving to ourselves that we can run with those guys when we're comfortable on the tracks. These guys live on these bikes, and they're comfortable with them. It takes a while to adapt into that whole element, but we're moving right along."

Even when the elements were terrible at Indy, Spies showed he belonged.

John Schwarb is a freelance journalist covering motorsports and a contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at johnschwarb@yahoo.com.