So BSB is kicking off...
And I can sum BSB at Brand’s Hatch up pretty much in two words…
…HOLY ****.
Haha
So amazing. To the guys here it’s just their domestic league and local circuits. But the sheer scale combined with the outstanding quality of it all….it just boggles the mind. Seriously. From trackdays to club level racing through the various groupings you progress through to get to the BSB race teams and league… the whole thing is just one big, giant community that is extremely well organized and run.
It’s massive, well-organized, and the quality is just spectacular. It is a testament to what is possible when people work to build something and keep at it for a really long time. I mean, Brand’s Hatch opened in 1929…haha that’s mental. The British brought a great many things to the world. And motorsports is one of them. This place is pretty ridiculous. The accessibility alone really shows you how good it can get. If you look up the various trackday companies and start plotting a list of what tracks you can haul a bike to and start turning laps (for a surprisingly reasonable price) it’s pretty wild.
Anyway… On to the purpose of this thread.
Race season 2013 is kicking off in clubs and leagues around the world. Appetites have been building over the off-season…but it’s all here now, finally.
Good times.
Thought I'd throw up some pictures and relive the magic.
Circuit info:
Brands Hatch - Circuit Information
They ran the “indy circuit” for round 1:
Don't have a copy of the schedule I can throw up, but it's a really full day from 10am till about 5:30 or thereabouts. LOTS of racing.
Get there and check out what’s going on:
Coming round the front straight…
They get up to a pretty good pace, as is quite clearly shown here:
I’m not sure if the bigger venues for the MotoGP races around the world give you the same level of access, but with this place you really feel like you are in your own backyard. You can drive all the way up to the circuit in some places, and walk around wherever you want. Everyone just kind of sets up in a really laid back way and nobody is really that bothered about anything. The organizers are really laissez-faire with just about everything but they run everything like clockwork and you don’t see anyone really break a sweat while managing and running a ridiculous number of machines. Everything runs RIGHT on time. Crashes are cleared out instantly. Potentially VERY dangerous situations are dealt with without any hoopla and with staggeringly quick response times. I’ll explain that one a bit later.
So anyway, you can pretty much walk around the circuit and go anywhere you want except the main central hot-pit area which also has the top BSB riders set up nearby in the built-in facilities. All the other riders (in a giant maze of caravans, vans, and tents haha) set up in the lower paddock. You can buy passes to the individual grandstands as well. The views are better from the grandstands, but the ones closer to the end of the circuit and the front straight are a bit too far from where most of the action takes place between paddock hill and cooper straight. But since there’s so many races and the track’s so big, having the ability to go wherever you want is nice. You have just enough time between the races to go get set up somewhere else. There’s a lot of angles you can watch the race from and you can literally walk right up to the track surface in most places. It’s pretty damn sweet. Some of those corners are fast as hell. And these guys really want to win. So intense.
You can get some special packages for £50-75 on top of the admission cost of £31. But I just went with getting access to a couple grandstands for £10-15 each. In the end this seems like the best way to do it. You wouldn’t get much better views from being inside the buildings, and being in the open air picking up the smell of the race gas and the noise of the machines is way better than being tucked away behind glass. If it was raining though…
They do have a package which lets you go into the director’s tower though. THAT would have been sweet. But I didn’t realize you could do that until after the races were over.
View from the best grandstand imo…Paddock Hill. You get to see the most action from here and can still see the rest of the circuit as well. Good seats:
And I can sum BSB at Brand’s Hatch up pretty much in two words…
…HOLY ****.
Haha
So amazing. To the guys here it’s just their domestic league and local circuits. But the sheer scale combined with the outstanding quality of it all….it just boggles the mind. Seriously. From trackdays to club level racing through the various groupings you progress through to get to the BSB race teams and league… the whole thing is just one big, giant community that is extremely well organized and run.
It’s massive, well-organized, and the quality is just spectacular. It is a testament to what is possible when people work to build something and keep at it for a really long time. I mean, Brand’s Hatch opened in 1929…haha that’s mental. The British brought a great many things to the world. And motorsports is one of them. This place is pretty ridiculous. The accessibility alone really shows you how good it can get. If you look up the various trackday companies and start plotting a list of what tracks you can haul a bike to and start turning laps (for a surprisingly reasonable price) it’s pretty wild.
Anyway… On to the purpose of this thread.
Race season 2013 is kicking off in clubs and leagues around the world. Appetites have been building over the off-season…but it’s all here now, finally.
Good times.
Thought I'd throw up some pictures and relive the magic.
Circuit info:
Brands Hatch - Circuit Information
They ran the “indy circuit” for round 1:
Don't have a copy of the schedule I can throw up, but it's a really full day from 10am till about 5:30 or thereabouts. LOTS of racing.
Get there and check out what’s going on:
Coming round the front straight…
They get up to a pretty good pace, as is quite clearly shown here:
I’m not sure if the bigger venues for the MotoGP races around the world give you the same level of access, but with this place you really feel like you are in your own backyard. You can drive all the way up to the circuit in some places, and walk around wherever you want. Everyone just kind of sets up in a really laid back way and nobody is really that bothered about anything. The organizers are really laissez-faire with just about everything but they run everything like clockwork and you don’t see anyone really break a sweat while managing and running a ridiculous number of machines. Everything runs RIGHT on time. Crashes are cleared out instantly. Potentially VERY dangerous situations are dealt with without any hoopla and with staggeringly quick response times. I’ll explain that one a bit later.
So anyway, you can pretty much walk around the circuit and go anywhere you want except the main central hot-pit area which also has the top BSB riders set up nearby in the built-in facilities. All the other riders (in a giant maze of caravans, vans, and tents haha) set up in the lower paddock. You can buy passes to the individual grandstands as well. The views are better from the grandstands, but the ones closer to the end of the circuit and the front straight are a bit too far from where most of the action takes place between paddock hill and cooper straight. But since there’s so many races and the track’s so big, having the ability to go wherever you want is nice. You have just enough time between the races to go get set up somewhere else. There’s a lot of angles you can watch the race from and you can literally walk right up to the track surface in most places. It’s pretty damn sweet. Some of those corners are fast as hell. And these guys really want to win. So intense.
You can get some special packages for £50-75 on top of the admission cost of £31. But I just went with getting access to a couple grandstands for £10-15 each. In the end this seems like the best way to do it. You wouldn’t get much better views from being inside the buildings, and being in the open air picking up the smell of the race gas and the noise of the machines is way better than being tucked away behind glass. If it was raining though…
They do have a package which lets you go into the director’s tower though. THAT would have been sweet. But I didn’t realize you could do that until after the races were over.
View from the best grandstand imo…Paddock Hill. You get to see the most action from here and can still see the rest of the circuit as well. Good seats:
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