Sunday began with a rude - but very necessary - 7am awakening. It’s difficult to reconcile the very late nights that the Spanish insist upon, with the early Sunday morning rush to the track. Even moreso with a Cava induced hangover.

A train line runs from the historic center of Valencia to Cheste (the village around the Circut Ricardo Tormo) and takes only 30 minutes. It’s a far cry from the lone 140km freeway joining Melbourne to Phillip Island, and saw me at the circuit by 8am and in time for the morning warmups.

Airhorns & Euros

The Spanish love for making noise - and lots of it - is no better exemplified by the airhorns they bring by the thousands to just about any sporting event. My seat in the grandstand opposite Curva Doohan saw me smack in the middle of hundreds of airhorn-toting Pedrosa-mad Spanish fans. I meekly sat there with my Australian flag thinking that if Casey won the 250s, I might well get lynched.

The 125 and 250 races are followed with more interest by the Spanish than perhaps any other nation, undoubtedly because the classes are dominated by their riders. Having spent the week prior familiarising myself with the various household brand names that sponsor these teams, it became apparent that bikes are big business in Spain.

Imagine Amex sponsoring Edwards’ MotoGP campaign? Or even better - Telstra putting up the funds to back Stoner on a Yamaha MotoGP.

The Cauldron

Valencia is - to me - a go-kart track surrounded by towering concrete grandstands. Even in November, with the northern hemisphere winter approaching - my “non-olive” skin succumbed to the relentless Spanish sunshine. It couldn’t be more different to the windswept - and generally very cold Phillip Island. The upside of course is that from just about any seat, one can view the entire track, due to the flat, compact nature of the circuit. But it’s clear to me now why most riders don’t hold the Valencia circuit in particularly high esteem.

It’s obviously too small and tight for such powerful bikes, so there aren’t many overtaking opportunities. The lack of topography changes wouldn’t contribute much excitement from the riders’ perspective. It is most definitely a circuit built for spectators. And with some 120,000 people present on Sunday, that’s clearly quite a drawcard.

A minor disappointment for me was the lack of “super-screens” - as we call them in Australia - to watch the action once the riders have howled past and are negotiating the far corners of the circuit. As such, I found it quite difficult to keep track of what precisely was happening during the MotoGP race.

The away team again

Luckily when Gibernau’s engine expired in the opening laps, the knee punching and swearing of the fans surrounding me combined with the enormous reduction in airhorn usage signalled that it was in fact piloto 15 who had retired. I honestly tried hard, but could not keep the smile from spreading across my face. And so the curse continues.

The rest of the race was largely without incident and, on the whole, not especially exciting. Numerous Italian fans had made the trip across the pond and were plenty pleased with yet another Italian domination of the podium. A Spanish win was most definitely not required to trigger the requisuite display of firecrackers from the crowd.

Indeed, even mid race a number of incendios were let loose, and kudos to the riders for not batting an eyelid at the vast plumes of smoke emanating just metres from the racing line.

Vamos

I had envisaged all varities of chaos involved in escaping from the track post-race, particularly in terms of making a flight out of Valencia that evening (which got cancelled anyway). However I was most impressed and found myself back in town and walking home by 4pm. Admittedly I had almost sprinted from the grandstands, hopped on the waiting train and just generally gotten-the-hell-out of there. But it was an order of magnitude faster than retreating from Phillip Island on the narrow road that joins the Island to the mainland.

In summary, it was great to finally experience a Spanish MotoGP event. While the food was (rather surprisingly) awful and the circuit facilities / exhibitions not up to the same standard of Phillip Island (also surprisingly), it’s an experience well worth the (very reasonable) price of admission.

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