Thoughts by Kate Adams
It's been a week since I was at the track enjoying the atmosphere, the excitement and thrilling races that we were treated too at the Spanish Grand Prix. This was the first race I'd attended in far too many years as living in New Zealand means it's much more inconvenient to get out to races.
The Spanish GP was always on my bucket list, it's always looked so much fun with the way the circuit has an amphitheater style set up to amplify the sound of the crowd so much they can drown out the sounds of the bikes, no easy feat. The trip lived up to every expectation. It was thrilling, a little challenging and I learnt a lot about many different types of fans who attended. Below are some things I learnt, some things I'd do differently and some areas that could use all around improvement (in my opinion)
Picking a grandstand
When I first decided to send it and attend the Jerez GP I greatly considered going for general admission. It was cheap at 45 euros for the weekend, I knew that there was an abundance of seating and that general admission offered excellent seating options. In the end I opted for grandstand XO. This was possibly the smartest decision I made. The reason for this? I attended this Grand Prix solo. I wasn't in the situation of attending with multiple people so others could keep my seat when I went to get drinks or to the bathroom. Having assigned seating took a lot of stress off finding a seat and meaning I knew I'd be able to see the action without worry.
XO Grandstand is at turn 11 and you get a great view of the straight between turns 7 and 8 as well as almost unobstructed views of turns 9, 10, 11 and 12. Which given the Sunday racing was where the action between Pecco Bagnaia and Marc Marquez was, it was an ideal grandstand to be in.
Trackside facilities
Food and drink was remarkably expensive as with any event. I spent far too much on hot dogs than I'd like to admit, the reason being that hot dogs seemed like the only warm food option that I could find in my general area. If you walked to the fan zone (15-20 minute walk when bikes were on track, 30-45 if it was between sessions) there was a good amount of food trucks. However you would have to miss out on bikes on track and that wasn't something I was willing to do.
Bathrooms. Another big advantage to having a grandstand was the bathrooms. Well portaloos. Our grandstand had ones that only our grandstand could use, XO is on the smaller side and the ques for these were much smaller than for general admission. Overall the wait time was never long.
Merch. If you know me you will know I am a sucker for merch. My 1:18 dicast collection is always growing and I own enough lanyards to fill a backpack. I was reasonably impressed with the selection of merch that could be bought, all MotoGP riders had merch that you could get at many different points inside and outside of the circuit. By Sunday afternoon all but one selection of the Pedro Acosta merchandise had sold out, quite an impressive feat. My only gripe would be that there is a remarkable lack of merch availible for Moto2 and Moto3, I understand that these are not nearly as popular, but I sure would love to rock a speed up hat.
Camping
I chose to stay at the track in the official camp site. They offered a glamping selection where you could just show up and a tent was assigned to you with an airbed, bedding, torch and padlock. Once I'd figured out how to change the combination on my padlock I did feel a lot more comfortable leaving my items in my tent, and overall the campsite felt plenty safe.
The total cost of the camping/glamping came to 160 euros, this would allow you to sleep Thursday night through to Monday morning. I chose to leave on the Sunday after the race as I knew by the time Sunday arrived I would have been over sleeping on a partially deflated air mattress. Cost wise, for the fact I showed up in a taxi, could walk 15 minutes to the track and have a mostly warm shower and cleanish bathrooms it was well worth the money.
What it almost wasn't worth was the noise. Personally I don't think this is the fault of the official campsite, but the glamping was set up on the edge of the official site and just on the other side of the fence was unofficial camping, which didn't have rules regarding noise. While I do love the sound of a two stroke getting thrashed, I didn't want to wake up to it at 4am every morning when I was wearing earplugs and noise cancelling headphones on top. I certainly didn't want to get woken up like that when I'd only gotten to sleep at 2am for the same reason. That aside, I think if I had been in a campervan or caravan it wouldn't have been an issue.
Thursday night was quite peaceful considering the chaos to come.
Transport
This was perhaps the biggest fault I could find with my weekend. Fortunately I had picked camping at the track as it meant I did not need to find a way to and from the circuit each day as my feet could carry me. Getting from the train station to the camping had proved to be easy enough, I had picked up a taxi and although the driver didn't speak English, I didn't speak Spanish we had enough Italian between us to get to the location without too much stress. A thing I am very glad for as I haven't taken a taxi since Uber came into the market.
It was leaving the circuit where it fell down. The website had said the council were putting on busses but no-one seemed to be able to tell me where these were, the official bus time table didn't have any additions to the schedule published for the racing and overall like I had so many times over the weekend I relied on my own two feet. Well that and google maps. It only took me 2 hours to get from the circuit to central Jerez and a well deserved shower and an actual bed.
Overall, this weekend was wonderful. So wonderful that halfway through I'd checked the dates and decided that while I am in the UK and just a stones throw away from Europe it would be rude not to attend Le Mans. So that is where I will be in a weeks time. Doing a Moto3 experience and in an air b n b so that I can get some sleep and enjoy the racing just as much as I did in Jerez.
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