mcatrophy
Privileged to ride a 2018 FJR1300AS
This is very much a good and bad story, hence the somewhat uninformative title. But I'll leave the reader to decide which parts are which.
Three weeks ago was my birthday. Seventy-six.
My kids decided to give me a bit of a birthday treat, they bought tickets for the British MotoGP race.
Daughter isn't really interested in bikes, but Son is, so he and I went to Silverstone yesterday.
Rain was forecast, Son's Monster gives no protection from the elements, so he decided we were going in his car, not by bike.
Couple of days before we go, he finds out that the company he works for provides some sponsorship for the Silverstone racing circuit, he can get entrance to a hospitality suite, also to one of the grandstands.
The view from their grandstand is nothing like as good as from the one our tickets were for (son made quite a considered choice, taking into account their limited budget and stand positions).
(Click on image for larger view)
View from Wellington (sponsor's stand), Wellington Straight and towards Brooklands.
Fence reduces visibility, makes camera focusing very difficult. At least, that's my excuse for some pretty poor photos.
It's a twenty minute walk between the two stands, another ten minutes to the hospitality suite. About half that time for Son, but then he regularly goes on 7-mile runs, and is very happy doing half-marathons (has tried for several full marathons, but has only been accepted once, couldn't do it because of a skiing accident - or was this the snowboarding one?) No idea where he gets his stupidity from, his mother certainly wasn't stupid.
The organisers decided to bring the main race forward from its original 1:00 pm start to 11:30, heavy rain was forecast, seemed reasonable. So we walked round to "our" stand, ready for the race.
The bikes came round on their sighting/warmup lap, our view included quite an interesting 'S' bend.
Sighting lap tip-toeing
(View from Becketts stand, Becketts and Chapel)
As you can see in the above picture, the rain had started. There was great cheering and laughter from the crowd when the big TV screens announced it would be "A Wet Race".
Meanwhile, the riders went into a huddle, the result was that they agreed it was unsafe to race. I can't blame them, there was standing water in many parts of the track.
So, for quite some time we were entertained by the safety cars running round. I'm not sure whether they were finding out how slippery it was (they were sometimes exploring the limits of adhesion to the crowd's amusement), or trying to disperse some of the water - this would have been a lost cause, the rain kept coming down heavily.
Safety cars "playing"
Over the next couple of hours, they kept postponing the race start while the rain continued to fall. We went back to the hospitality suite where it was warm and dry, and food and warm drinks were on offer. I was very grateful for this, it was quite cold out, and inevitably we'd got wet. (Should have come by bike, riding suits keep you dry and warm.)
The hospitality suite organisers offered us a paddock tour, we did this to pass the time. Our guide pointed out all the motorhomes, also some of the people of some note - "He's the one who always passes Lorenzo his helmet and gloves". It continued to rain heavily so I didn't take many pictures (my camera is not waterproof), but a couple of snaps:
The Suzuki set-up, and guess whose somewhat battered leathers are displayed by Yamaha.
One more pathetic picture, they do have some vehicles used for sweeping up debris and mopping up water.
I think this one has just given up.
(View from hospitality suite)
As time went on, there were rumours of a reduced-distance race, but about 4:00 pm it was announced all racing was abandoned. Everyone was disappointed, but I think fully understanding. Racing these bikes would be criminally stupid when aquaplaning was very likely.
As some form of compensation, the hospitality suite people gave us each two tickets for the full three days of the Superbike Championship in a fortnight's time at Silverstone, a national series of somewhat modified production bikes that have almost the performance of the MotoGP bikes. Unfortunately (?) , we'll be on our way to Scotland on the Saturday for the week, so won't be able to use them.
Such is life.
Note to Admins: Decided I couldn't put this in the Racing section because there wasn't any.
Three weeks ago was my birthday. Seventy-six.
My kids decided to give me a bit of a birthday treat, they bought tickets for the British MotoGP race.
Daughter isn't really interested in bikes, but Son is, so he and I went to Silverstone yesterday.
Rain was forecast, Son's Monster gives no protection from the elements, so he decided we were going in his car, not by bike.
Couple of days before we go, he finds out that the company he works for provides some sponsorship for the Silverstone racing circuit, he can get entrance to a hospitality suite, also to one of the grandstands.
The view from their grandstand is nothing like as good as from the one our tickets were for (son made quite a considered choice, taking into account their limited budget and stand positions).
(Click on image for larger view)
View from Wellington (sponsor's stand), Wellington Straight and towards Brooklands.
Fence reduces visibility, makes camera focusing very difficult. At least, that's my excuse for some pretty poor photos.
It's a twenty minute walk between the two stands, another ten minutes to the hospitality suite. About half that time for Son, but then he regularly goes on 7-mile runs, and is very happy doing half-marathons (has tried for several full marathons, but has only been accepted once, couldn't do it because of a skiing accident - or was this the snowboarding one?) No idea where he gets his stupidity from, his mother certainly wasn't stupid.
The organisers decided to bring the main race forward from its original 1:00 pm start to 11:30, heavy rain was forecast, seemed reasonable. So we walked round to "our" stand, ready for the race.
The bikes came round on their sighting/warmup lap, our view included quite an interesting 'S' bend.
Sighting lap tip-toeing
(View from Becketts stand, Becketts and Chapel)
As you can see in the above picture, the rain had started. There was great cheering and laughter from the crowd when the big TV screens announced it would be "A Wet Race".
Meanwhile, the riders went into a huddle, the result was that they agreed it was unsafe to race. I can't blame them, there was standing water in many parts of the track.
So, for quite some time we were entertained by the safety cars running round. I'm not sure whether they were finding out how slippery it was (they were sometimes exploring the limits of adhesion to the crowd's amusement), or trying to disperse some of the water - this would have been a lost cause, the rain kept coming down heavily.
Safety cars "playing"
Over the next couple of hours, they kept postponing the race start while the rain continued to fall. We went back to the hospitality suite where it was warm and dry, and food and warm drinks were on offer. I was very grateful for this, it was quite cold out, and inevitably we'd got wet. (Should have come by bike, riding suits keep you dry and warm.)
The hospitality suite organisers offered us a paddock tour, we did this to pass the time. Our guide pointed out all the motorhomes, also some of the people of some note - "He's the one who always passes Lorenzo his helmet and gloves". It continued to rain heavily so I didn't take many pictures (my camera is not waterproof), but a couple of snaps:
The Suzuki set-up, and guess whose somewhat battered leathers are displayed by Yamaha.
One more pathetic picture, they do have some vehicles used for sweeping up debris and mopping up water.
I think this one has just given up.
(View from hospitality suite)
As time went on, there were rumours of a reduced-distance race, but about 4:00 pm it was announced all racing was abandoned. Everyone was disappointed, but I think fully understanding. Racing these bikes would be criminally stupid when aquaplaning was very likely.
As some form of compensation, the hospitality suite people gave us each two tickets for the full three days of the Superbike Championship in a fortnight's time at Silverstone, a national series of somewhat modified production bikes that have almost the performance of the MotoGP bikes. Unfortunately (?) , we'll be on our way to Scotland on the Saturday for the week, so won't be able to use them.
Such is life.
Note to Admins: Decided I couldn't put this in the Racing section because there wasn't any.
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