There might not have been a home appearance by local hero Dani Pedrosa at MotoGP Catalunya, but Toby Moody discovered much else of interest behind the scenes besides.
Taking things to excess
Excess baggage is now the bane of most travellers on the kind of 'cheap' flights across Europe which charge an extra €50 if your bags are a gram overweight. One guy, who will remain nameless, found his bags were too heavy on the way out, so off he went out of the terminal, away from the prying view of airline staff, pulling large lumps of 125cc and Moto2 bikes out of his case and putting them into his pockets (for they never weigh you as a person). And it got better when he discovered his new jacket had a concealed 'poacher’s pocket' at the rear. In the parts went, he checked in his now underweight bag, they weighed his still-light carry-on bag for him to get his boarding pass… and off he went back outside to transfer the metal parts back into his carry-on bag and head on to departures!
Toby Moody
Toby Moody
Owners ditch their supercars
A brilliant sideshow event of motorsport past and present took place on Thursday night at a nearby hotel, with Nasser Al-Attiyah's Dakar 2011-winning VW Touraeg, Carlos Sainz's rally cars, a Markku Alen Lancia Stratos, Jochen Mass's McLaren that won the last Montjuïc Park F1 race and a 1982 JPS Lotus F1 car, alongside Marc Coma's 2011 Dakar-winning KTM and former KTM team-mate Nani Roma’s too – Coma was fresh from winning the Sardegna Rally only the day before. Alex Criville's 1989 125cc championship-winning JJ CObas was alongside an ex-works Carl Fogarty Ducati and a lovely Kocinski Cagiva 500. The car park was awash with Lambos and Porsches, as Ferraris and BMWs had to take to the fields and ditches, so popular was the event.
Recommended viewing
Catalunya is now a major date on the Spanish motorsport calendar with its 20th year of running celebrated over this weekend. A massive grandstand with enormous presence now towers over the main straight, big-screen TVs integrated into its very structure, with a total of 19 around the venue. The 81,000-crowd can watch the race on these seemingly HD-quality screens. Truly stunning.
Vale rallies around
Valentino Rossi has a few heroes, and one of them was the hero of all motorsport fans – Colin McRae. The former World Rally Champion was killed in a helicopter crash in 2007, but Rossi took time out to welcome McRae's wife Alison, who came along to Barcelona to have a look around.
'A massive streak of rubber from the locked-up front wheel will remain there for weeks…'
The name has a nice Ring to it
Former Red Bull KTM 125cc rider Gabor Talmasci appeared for the first time in 2011, looking fit and healthy. After a fallout with his manager, Gabor has turned to running a new race circuit near Budapest called the TalmasciRing, echoing other famous circuits named after people. Unlike Paul Ricard, however, it's just 400m long and serves as a kart/supermotard venue…
The Hoff hits the skids
German commentator Alex 'The Hoff' Hofmann did his usual blast around the track on Friday afternoon aboard the Aprilia RSV-4 for Sport 1 tv while all rigged up with cameras and microphones. Alex always finishes the lap off with a stoppie, but this time nearly got the 'biggest slow-speed crash' award in the pitlane. He thought a newly-painted area in front of the podium was similar to the grippy surface laid down in front of the garages. Er… no. A massive streak of rubber from the locked-up front wheel will remain there for weeks. It was a close one...
Speed camera
Meanwhile, a not-to-be-named American-based UK photographer found a wheeze at Jerez to avoid paying the €20-a-day fee for WiFi access in the press office, about a month's fee at home for just a day at the track. The solution? A Spanish 3G dongle on a pay-as-you-go tariff. Short of time and with a lot to discuss with his wife at home, he also found he could leave the laptop open on the dashboard, webcam on with Skype, and drive off to the hotel chatting away. Anything to save time, eh?
Toby Moody
Toby Moody
Classic headgear
Dani Pedrosa couldn't make an appearance at his home race, much to the dismay of his fans, but his bikes were there all laid out at Repsol Honda, and come Friday night Alex Criville had returned to a Repsol Honda garage for the first time since 2000 when HRC invited him to exhibit their new NSF 250R Moto3 bike for some laps. There was a delay while a pitlane walkabout was cleared, but Alex, already helmeted up and pacing around the garage, caught my eye and I mentioned all of his GP wins in silver lettering all over the top of his helmet. "Yes, Toby, this is the very helmet that I used to win my last GP back in 2000 at Le Mans." It looks as new now as it was on that hot and sunny afternoon over a decade ago.
'The Italians all said they'd wear kilts for Taylor Mackenzie's home race…'
Traditional Scottish weather in Catalunya
The weather for this coming weekend's British MotoGP at Silverstone owes me a debt after the cool, rainy, breezy conditions that ran through the Catalan paddock all weekend. If I’d had a euro for every time a mechanic said about the Spanish rain, "Ah, well, this is just a practice for your British GP," I’d be rich. If only they knew the extent of the warm, dry weather the UK has had over the past three months! One thing I will be looking forward to seeing is the Phonica Racing 125 team who run Taylor MacKenzie. The Italians all said they'd wear kilts for his home race, in homage to his Scottish parentage. Och aye the noo!
Elbow and The Seldom Seen Kid
Former Red Bull Rookies Cup champion Johan Zarco got the rough end of the stick after his elbow on Nico Terol on the last corner in Moto2, receiving a 20-second penalty before he'd even done the cooling-down lap. Looking back on it, the Frenchman was a little harsh with the elbow to Terol to push him grasswards, but the move itself into the final corner was fantastic. Another star for tomorrow – can't wait to see him win a race proper. It's always great to see a new winner…
Want more?
- MotoGP race report from Montmeló
- Official MotoGP website at motogp.com
- Check out the Red Bull Rookies Cup homepage
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