Superbike World Championship 2008 - Portugal
The last time that I went to a Superbike championship was at Silverstone about ten years ago. I remember being so filled with the enthusiasm as a result of watching the racing that on the way home to where I was living in Wales, riding though Shropshire on my BMW K100 RS, I started to attempt to slide out of my seat and get my knee down near the road on some of the more exciting corners.
Having built up a bit of confidence on several corners I managed to give myself a fright as a result of almost not being able to get back on my seat as I came out of a corner with a great amount of style and panache! This was the last occasion that I tried to ‘get my knee down’ To quote a good friend on this subject ‘why get off a perfectly comfortable seat’!
The second corner of the first lap
When I heard that the first event to be held at the brand new Autódromo International near Portimão in the Algarve on November 2nd was going to be the 2008 Superbike World Championship we decided that this was the perfect opportunity to see the new racetrack. It is only 30 minutes drive from where we live but I was not sure exactly where it was, expecting to see it signposted off the A22 we rode west down to the Portimao / Monchique turn, where there was no sign to the track, but we came off there anyway, still no sign so we got back onto the A22 again and rode down to the Alvor turn off where there was still no sign, so back to the first turn off where we found several lost bikers one of which was sensibly using his mobile telephone to find out how to get to the race track. His information was that we should go down to the turn after the one at Alvor, which we all did and there we found a sign for the race track.
Clearly a new road had been built and mostly with two lanes going towards the circuit and one coming back, traffic was solid and at jogging speed for about 7 kilometers. Fortunately being on the bike we were able pass all the slow moving traffic by riding on the wrong side of the road.
A wonderful view of the track
Arriving at the circuit parking even for a bike was difficult, queuing up for tickets took a long time because they were selling t-shirts etc at the same desk, clearly we should have bought tickets in advance.
This new track is just wonderful and the stands have comfortable plastic seats with a wonderful view of the track. We arrived at about midday, behind where we were sitting their was a snack bar with a queue about 100 meters long of people waiting to buy what looked like very indifferent food, I think almost entirely hot dogs and cheese sandwiches. An hour and a half later the queue was still 100 meters long and no where else to buy food. Showing our tickets at the gate we went outside where we found a mobile snack bar selling equally awful food, twenty minutes later we walked back into the circuit armed with a sufficient supply of hot dogs and a cheese sandwich.
THE WINNER!
The racing was great to watch, we had a brilliant view of the first corner, only one rider dropped his bike on our side of the track and slid off apparently completely unhurt. The precision with which they all rode was just amazing.
At the end of the big race there was a mad rush by everyone to get away quickly so as not to get held up by the inevitable traffic jam. On the way home it was not hard to resist the temptation to get my knee down on the corners, I feel that being 64 instead of 54 probably had something to do with it, although I should have known better at 54!
