Sachsenring 2012

where was I, Oh yeah UBTA finds us a spot to move into if we can in the morning.

The rain continued so we ate in the RV and sank some beers watching the crazyness of Ankerberg.

We crashed to the humming of rain, fireworks, engines and damn awful techno at 150dbl



Friday morning and the rain had stopped sun in the sky and all was good. except the campsite the RV was going nowhere

Had a brew and gets a call from Cliche "Hey Phill half hour away which campsite are you on?" I give him the directions we followed and set off to the entrance to meet him. 30meters from the entrance a green beemer approaches and I finally meet him and his cousin. I jump in beer comes out and now the group is complete. We get onto site with much slipping and sliding managed to get to where we were parked, sorry dumped .

No sooner had he stopped than security was there and couldn't park there??? So we get him to our previously arranged place to park there and planned to put the tent in front of the RV. Introductions over beer in hand we wander to the track with the sound track of moto3 in the distance.



Back soon!

cliché guevara said:

haha remember the security guy behind the fence who thought my cousin and me were english too because we weren't speaking german when we arrived?

"NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN!"

his complaining and sending me off almost ruined the introduction.only had a couple of seconds to tell mat "hey hang on to this, we'll be here in a sec"

Click to expand...

Yeah twas a tad funny!

Funny how easily the security guard was bought about us taking the fence down sunday for a cup of coffee

Friday the track,

As we arrive I tell the guys I'm going to go to the paddock to meet someone to collect a paddock pass and will come to meet them at the grandstand after first practice, Perhaps Cliche could fill in what they got up to here?

I walk round to the paddock and it nice warm and sunny, meet my friend and go in, he has to go as hes very busy so we arrange to meet later.

I get out the camera and go in search of a good spot as your coming up and out of omega just as motoGP starts their practice1.

Whilst shooting right beside me is a large flight case and a marshal post, I ask the marshal if I can stand on the flight case. He beckons me into the marshal post and to a place to shoot from. Cool as fcuk you would never get anything like that in England for sure!

I wandered round the paddock getting to know the lay out and finding photo oppertunity places throughout the rest of free practice1 then headed round to our grandstand to meet up with the guys.

I get there and eventually find where they are located.

First words out of my mouth, "one paddock pass, anyone want to use it this afternoon?"

No one rushes so Cliche says he wouldn't mind if no one else does. We have a winner, Cliche and his cousin get ready to go and I ask if he has a camera? no, I give him my smaller canon just in case,

They go and the rest of us go eat.

Now on the subject of food (Anyone from Silverstone peeking prick your fcuking ears up and read this)

It was sublime nothing we tried was anything but excellent! Very reasonably priced too!

Without a shadow of a doubt the best food I've ever eaten at any outdoor event worldwide!! Far far superior to that crap at Silvers. Barn door breaker burgers!

Practice2 starts and we take our places to watch. Its still okay weather wise but it cloudier now.

Moto3 come out and after 15mins Cliche is back!!?? with a Huge grin and I'm sure a white stain round his crotch

WTF man you've got it for the afternoon I say.

Nein nein I've got pics of me with Bradl and Cortese, how the fcuk do you get the pics on the screen, I didn't want to mess with your camera

I show him and sure enough hes there with his countrymen . That explains the stain

We watch the rest of practice2 and head of back to the campsite.



Quick break

Ankerberg! friday night!

Not a place for the faint hearted! For sure

We all get back to the RV and the heavens have opened. So we put out the awning a bit so we can still stand outside and drink, we did get breaks in the rain so ventured around the RV and sort of met our new neighbours a bit more. All around us crazy stuff was happening quads towing people around on plastic sheeting, and not holding back on the gas either, the guys on plastic looked like mud men from the spray off the back wheels.

Engines going ratingtingtingtingtingting BANG! Fireworks lit the sky constantly not to mention the fires themselves and sometimes thick black smoke Quickly followed by the siren of a fire engine, Music pumping from all different angles and all different styles of tunes. There was even a 6wheeled ex German army truck loaded to the rafters with people just driving up and down. Pure German craziness. Awesome I would even suggest you all add it to the bucket list

More rain so we set the RV out for us all to kip in, save Cliche setting the tent up in the rain and watch!? Erm what the fcuk did we watch? (I was quite drunk by now, we all were ) on the laptop from Cliche's hard drive he'd brought. And settled down for the night ready for Quallie tomorrow

Saturday morning!

We all sorta rose about the same time, slowly! turned the bed back to a table and got the coffee on.

I wandered round the front of the RV having a cig and the first thing I saw was a guy totally naked walking around their camp He just waved smiled and climbed in the back of one of their vans, His name was Sebastian we later found out, more about him later. Then you start to notice that loads of them are in t-shirts and budgie smugglers!? It aint a place for the faint hearted on a morning either

UBTA gives us a weather report and says we should get 4hrs sun and lots of rain, Its been sunny for about 20mins whilst we were getting ready then the clouds set in. Bye bye sunshine! so much for the 4hrs we say and he winked and shrugged his shoulders

We all spent the day at our grandstand, not just in our seats but from the other general viewing areas around the area, 3rd practice was better because the rain had not quite got there yet, But we could see it coming straight towards us big bands of the wet stuff at twelve o'clock coming in fast

We ate before it got to us and sank a few beers for medical reasons of course.

It hit us just before quallie so for the entire sessions we endured if sat in waterproofs and poncho's.

As soon as it started it just stopped as the last quallie session was running, would you believe it!

So we stuck around for the red bull rookies, the wind was in the right direction so a two stroke fix might be possible

Those kid are crazy, awesome to watch it must be great to not know the meaning of fear

Back to the campsite and as we approach the RV, enter Johan from the camp opposite.

He is stark bollock naked with a towel over his shoulder draping over, well sorta over his well "little" manhood WTF is it with Germans and nakedness???

He just wanders over and starts asking how come we were all travelling in a camper together, he thought we were fcuking ...!!!

He was soon put straight!!! TBH he was quite funny but everytime a quad or whatever went passed he ran out taunting them to spray him and the RV!

After half hour of this and after he had sat on UBTA's bench he went over to his group to ask them to sort him out!

The bench was set on fire and sent on a viking burial down UBTA's local canal on monday night

He said he would rather have a new one than the mental scars of Johan sat on it every time he looked at it

Enter Sebastian! thankfully clothed he comes over and after a few words Johan goes off to come back in budgie smugglers, Its an improvement

Sebastian was really funny Shouting Ankerberg is crazy let us out whilst rattling the fence to the chicks going by, and other stuff all in German but the girls reactions left nothing to the imagination. He spoke some English and was quite a cool guy, served in the army paratroopers in Croatia and Kosovo I'm sure he said,I must admit at first meeting him the first day I felt a little unsure, after an hour talking to him I was his first English friend I quoted the phrase "Your my brother from another mother" and a bond has been made. I ended up swapping my whore on tour shirt for his! Another friend made forever hopefully .



Another quick break,

BTW Guys I'm gonna do the photo's all at the end in one big folder in my photobucket account for ya all

cliché guevara said:

rainey vs schwantz but i think nobody could keep their eyes open for more than 15 minutes,except for poor cliché whos afraid gollum will jump on him while hes sleeping

Click to expand...

Nasty hobitsies steals my precious theys did nasty nasty hobitsies

Saturday Night continued!

So Sebastian is my newest German friend and UBTA is over with Sebastian's group of friends and is beckoning me over,

When I get there he explains the guys had asked him how come he was travelling with 3 English guys and he had told them of how we met at Silverstone and they could not believe the story. So I was called over because they all wanted to meet me, It was quite humbling TBH all these guys wanting to shake my hand and ..... beer bottles with them. So I got them all together and got a pic of them, swapped emails with a few that spoke a little English so everyone can have a copy

They I don't know what came over me but I got brave! The chaos from friday was nothing compared to Saturday night and I decided to take a wander round taking pictures on my own, TBH no dramas at all lots of crazy stuff going off and a few peeps asked where I was from but it was cool, crazy but nice people!

Some were supprised that I'd made the journey for a race meet so far from home

I get back to the group and a couple of us decide a kebab before bed would be good so off we wandered, Caught the end of the boxing in some guys marquee and got the kebab, again scrumdiddlyumptios I wanted to bring a couple home with me but there's laws about things like that

Back to the RV and time to crash,

Race day tomorrow!

cliché guevara said:

i hope you have the pictures to this quote

"hey phil,ever seen some half burned ....?"

Click to expand...

Refresh my memory,

That one seems to be eluding me

Race Day.



Up early to glorious sunshine and the usual race day stuff,

Campers packing away and the buzz in the air race day brings.

Things were looking good

I left the gang early arranging to meet up with them after warm up for the races as I had to thank people and say Hi to someone for Shovelhead that I didn't get the oppertunity to do at Silverstone,

Down in the paddock I saw a guy from Valencia last year that had asked me about doing some photo promo work for a series they run in the UK for kids on mini motos and 125's. I'd sent the an email but had no reply so went over to chat with him, he recognised me straight away and asked if I had sent them an email because after christmas they had some sort of comp virus and recieved no emails and he still wants me to do the work Result!!!

Warm up over and job list done I head back to the guys ready for moto2.

Moto 2 was good lots of action for us on turn 1-2 to have us ooh and ahhing or oi oi oi oi in UBTA's case

We all enjoyed it I think I know I did but was gutted for Scott really wanna see him and Marquez roughing it up together. Cleanly though.

Quick beer and GP

A bit of a tearaway for HRC really but some really good action further down the order kept us all well entertained,

Cal ran on right in front of us, I like him but he is making too many mistakes by himself and making Dovi's chances of the other Yam seat more and more realistic!

It was quite funny though me on my own screaming Cal WTF are you doing! then apologiseing to everyone around us for my out burst

Then the Stacey moment had us all up on our feet, And some had wry smiles too Race over!

What happened next was unbelievable out of nowhere in the distance a huge bolt of lightning split the sky in two.

At the drop of a hat the sun had disappeared the cool breeze jumped to force 5 maybe 6 and you could see the big black bands of rain heading straight for us! Within minutes it had covered from the horizon to us working on approx how high we were I'd estimate about 6miles

Dry to soaked in under 30 seconds I .... you not, proper mandrops of rain.

"I'm outa here" was all I said and was gone below the grandstand to get my kit covered safely.

20mins later and it was like it had never happened, the wind went the sun came out and all was good again, a little damp but still good.

During the rain and seeking cover somehow we got split from Cliche and his cousin and later found out hed run out of power for his phone.

We watched the moto3 race in glorious sunshine and watched how quickly the track was drying, supriseing how quick it did dry really.

Rookies race two was a blast and the wind gave us a lil sniff of two stroke every now and then just to make us feel complete.

3 English Guys and 1 Baverian make the trip to the campsite for the last time with huge smiles on our faces.

Our Sachsenrind Ankerberg adventure was over and a 5hr drive to UBTA's home awaited.

What a blast The people were great, the campsite was truely an experience not to be forgotten in an hurry,

The weather no matter how hard it tried didn't spoil it.

Why. because everyone there loves the sport and thats one thing we all have in common, or we wouldn't be there.

I hope we all agree on that



Hope you enjoyed!!!



Pics to follow later this eve

Some pic of to, through and out the other side of Ankerberg campsite!

And the crowd at the track.

http://s1120.photobucket.com/albums/l496/PhillGB69/Sachsenring%202012%20motoGP/Ankerberg%20campsite%202012/#!cpZZ1QQtppZZ24

cliché guevara said:

some brilliant pics right there

cheers mate



edit: whoa, i thought we agreed the "cliché falls asleep right before the race" pic wouldn't go online

Click to expand...

I lied