MotoGP 2005
Wednesday, July 20th, 2005Today started of pretty well, met the guys at Daz’s house for 8:00am, as usual we had to wait for Rob, then set off to Donnington to see the MotoGP.
The ride down wasn’t too bad, we stopped at the gas station and then later at services to grab some breakfast (only time I get to eat McD’s these days), boring stint on the m’way to get to the track, but the fun didn’t start till we got there. It turns out that the guy who was arranging the tickets couldn’t get them in time so we had to find touts and get tickets off them.
When we parked up and found the touts (all of whom seemed to be Scousers) they told us what to do (this is good) they gave us some vip passes from 2003 and said to only show the face of it, not the back where it said 2003, I really didn’t think this was gonna work. Off we trotted tothe gate where the security guy check the pass and even looked at the back, and let us in (must have been in on it) once inside that was it, pay the man £30 each and enjoy the race.
Managed to catch a bit of the 125’s & 250’s, then it started to piss it down, it wasn’t bad at first ‘cos I had just cleaned my leathers with dubbing to make them waterproof, for some reason I didn’t even consider the fact that it might rain so I never bought a rainsuite. It didn’t take long to get right through my leathers and down to the skin, this made watching the race pretty miserable, so I set off for a wonder round the shops (maybe see if I could buy a rainsuite), absolutely bugger-all there, I was much better when we went to WSBK, there were loads more stalls, this time every 5 stalls repeated themselves over and over, same old crap in all of them.
After the race it was time to set off back, 30min hike back to the carpark then it took almost an hour to filter through all the traffic to get to the m’way. Rob and me seemed to get through the traffic st a reasonably steady pace, we waited half an hour for the others to catch up before setting out and the long drag home.
I have ridden in the wet a little before, I even originally learned to ride in winter with snow and ice on the ground, but nothing prepared me for what was to come, 3 solid hours of hard, wet, cold, miserable, and down right shitty riding back home. By the time I got back I could hardly walk, Kate helped me off the bike, and then my leathers needed a little persuading to come off, stright into the shower (oh how I ached).
Lesson learned: Don’t forget to look at the weather forcast before setting out, and next time buy a rainsuite before you need it.
