Valencia GP, Cheste - any help or advice on best stand/seats?

The wind felt good around noon. Picked up quite a bit and I was wearing a jacket while watching FP2.

Looks quite warm now. Saying 20c air temp. Only 5c where i am :-(

bit more sun than yesterday, and less windy. track temps were rising constantly for sure. don't know exactly about quali times, were they even faster than fp3/4? btw the info you get at the track is a joke. on the screens only p1-12, times shown only for a few seconds right when they are set, no gaps, no table at the end, nada. results are given by the track announcer in spanish only, so i could figure about half of the bottom results. there is a big need for improvement in this regard. already pissed me off at brno that ihad to call my brother at home to learn about exact results, same again here.

anyways, many more spectators today, better atmosphere, can' wait for tomorrow..

I thought I would beat the lines by getting up early lol I was wrong. Got up at 6am and joined the crowded lines at the train.

Got into the track at 8am and there more people here than during peak on Friday. More energy too!

If you came on Friday, you could sit on all the Ducati bikes including the new 899 and Monster. Today it's roped off so pictures only.

MotoGP and Moto3 races should be great today! Whoooohoooo!

That was the most enjoyable Moto3 race I've ever seen!

How was your race weekend? Please share pics

barbedwirebiker

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How was your race weekend? Please share pics

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Yup, we expect detailed storys and pictures. It's how us powersliders roll.

Yea!!  Pics and stores.  Or you will be seen as one of them ....... jerk ..... that uses us for all our insight and first hand knowledge and then ..... off.  Whittey ....... Blighty....

Yesterday, I was up at 6am to avoid the crowds heading into Cheste for the final championship round of MotoGP. And I was up again at 6am this morning to board the high-speed rail line to Seville, which is where I write this.

My flight touched down in Madrid on Wednesday. Going through customs and finding a bathroom to change clothes was the easy part. Thing were a bit overwhelming trying to get out of the airport, but I started figuring things out. Thankfully, I know just enough a Spanish to barely get by.

Took the subway to Sol, the major city center of Madrid. Purchased a SIM card so I could access Google Maps on my phone, stopped at a local bank to convert my currency, and found a great hostel for the night, only a couple blocks from Sol. From there, I simply walked and walked. After going in one direction, I would walk another direction. Madrid is beautiful and full of history and culture. In some ways, it reminds of NYC. The tapas food scene is unique and cool. I find the historic statues and plazas and market and cars and motorcycles all equally interesting.

Got a good night sleep and found the train station in time to take the high speed rail to Valencia. Unfortunate for me, spending the long weekend in Valencia meant everything was booked up because of MotoGP. I was preparing myself to camp, and thankfully, I heard back from someone on Airbnb who had a room for rent, and I couldn’t have asked for anything better - great location, comfortable place, quiet and clean. That evening, I walked around Valencia, taking it all in. Compared to Madrid, the city was incredibly clean, and the people in the shops were much friendlier too, smiling and helping best they could with the language barrier.

Friday morning, I took the train to the track in Cheste to watch the MotoGP practice sessions. With MotoGP being as popular in Europe as the NFL in the United States, I was expecting a much larger crowd. The sun was out and the wind was strong, and I was looking forward to seeing the big race on Sunday. After getting back into Valencia, I explored the Old Town, a part of Valencia that had been around since the days of the Roman Empire.

My Saturday was spent exploring as much of Valencia as I could see, from the Royal Gardens to an old riverbed that had been converted into a park going around the city. The farmer’s market and the various plazas were all unique and interesting, and I had an opportunity to go inside the famous cathedral. That evening, as I finished grocery shopping for the next day, a huge protest with several hundreds of people was walking through the city’s main street, taking up many blocks as they marched through with their megaphones and signs. The protest had something to do with not wanting the government to close Canal 9.

Sunday morning, I was up at 6am expecting to beat the crowd into Cheste. I was wrong. There were so many people packed onto the train leaving Valencia, I wasn’t sure if the train was overweight as it slowly crept off from the train station. I was inside the track at 8am, and there were more people there that morning than at peak time on Friday. As race time approached, the track was packed with people waiving their flags wearing anything and everything related to their favorite rider. I’ve been to MotoGP races before, but had never seen anything like this. The energy and enthusiasm was insane! The entire Moto3 race and the first half of the MotoGP race did not disappoint. I was seated in the Yellow section, between Turns 1 and 2, and had a great vantage point to see the bikes passing one another. The crowd and the rider’s interaction with the crowd and the entire event in general was an amazing experience! Leaving the track with everyone else to take the train back to Valencia was not an amazing experience.

I’m as calm as a fruit stand in New York and maybe that’s strange.

Nice one Duc'


Were the seats okay?


The dried river bed you spoke of, me and my two sons were there in 2010 and had 10 days, so one day we walked from Turo all the way to the F1 street circuit,


Little did we know but it was 8 km it didn't look it on the map lol, when we got there we were fcuked and still had to walk back because we didn't know the metro system then, Should have seen us, we walked back into the hotel like someone who had been on a horse for ten hours, funny as fcuk! I think it was just after we met Shovelhead in the bar washing our pain away :lol:


Glad you had a great time

Nice one duc. I told you to set off early as the place goes mental. I was told when i went that most there don't speak spanish. The speak Valentican and would rather you spoke to them in English than spanish lol. Glad you had a great time, you sure got to see an historical race.

I'll add some photos and stuff when I've just got a load of important but neglected things caught up with.  My wife took about 63 million photos but at first glance I would say only half a dozen are any good.  I see loads of photos with just empty track as the bikes were going so fast that she missed them altogether.


 


Where do you guys host photos for sharing with a URL?


 


Nice to meet Duc btw.


 


Regards,


Chris

Thnx Chris, can't wait to see your photos.


 


Perhaps lil red can help with your request, he seems to know about posting photos via link and stuff.


 


Nice write up Duc.

panoalto

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I'll add some photos and stuff when I've just got a load of important but neglected things caught up with.  My wife took about 63 million photos but at first glance I would say only half a dozen are any good.  I see loads of photos with just empty track as the bikes were going so fast that she missed them altogether.


 


Where do you guys host photos for sharing with a URL?


 


Nice to meet Duc btw.


 


Regards,


Chris

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Hi Pan,


Glad you had a good time, and met the elusive Duc, we missed him at Guna.


I opened a photobucket account, sorted my pics into folders and posted a link to the relevant folder so peeps got the full album to view.


It saves server space on here,


This thread shows what I mean, and I must say my favorite adventure to date


http://powerslide.net/forum/index.php?/topic/15642-orkney-wsbk-2012/page-1


 


Looking forward to the pic's mate

I'll post some pics as well. Currently traveling in Europe so haven't had a chance.

And please no worries on storage space. The server has more than enough room since I moved us to a dedicated server a few months ago.

And now that we are in the offseason, I plan on working through some updates to the site and server. I get back to the US next week.

I like to see not just photo's of the bikes and track, but also pics of the venue, people ect. Gives a real flavour of the experience.

So, here's a brief account of our MotoGP experience at Cheste...

 

Having arrived on Friday morning with our new tent and just about everything else you could imagine just chucked in the back of our estate car, we found the camping ground and set about the supposedly easy task of putting the tent up.  'Easy Camp' says the tent.  No such luck!  The ground was full of rocks or concrete, bent pegs barely a couple of inches in the ground, Spanish borrowing my mallet and hammer every couple of minutes.  I just about gave up after approximately two hours.  Off to Cheste by train in the evening and came back with twenty 100mm screws and washers.  Tent now well and truly fastened to the ground in an almost semi permanent fashion.  I'll just remember to pack a battery drill next time out.
 

 
Pre town centre lunacy we went to the track to discover our seats and take in a bit of the practice sessions.  The track and stands were fairly quiet but there was a sense that something big was about to happen in the coming days.  Duc turned up and introduced himself.  The afternoon was pleasant but slightly breezy and the seats were in a good spot with most of the track visible (the point of the OP).
 
After the bikes finished we headed to the local train for the one stop ride into Cheste.  The train was reasonably busy but nothing compared to the complete chaos we were to be faced with the following evening.  Cheste town centre was completely mad and filled with nutters who's idea of fun was all about chucking their baffles in the nearest skip and hitting the ignition rev limiter for as long as the surrounding crowd applauded.  There were people and bikes everywhere, deafening music, nice ladies dancing on outside bars without much for the imagination to be concerned about.  The whole place was one big party and the surprise to me was that the locals were not only on board with all this but in fact the MotoGP has become a major event on the town's cultural calendar.
 

 
Saturday qualifying was all pretty standard stuff and the results were unsurprising.  The place was now filling up and the atmosphere was building.  Everything about Saturday night in Cheste town was OTT.  The train was probably the most ridiculous piece of organisation known to man.  Hundreds of people going in two completely opposite directions (Valencia & Cheste) were herded onto one slightly bouncy platform to await their fate.  When the Cheste bound train eventually turned up we were literally pushed into the train by the shear force of people behind.  How nobody fell through the gap is a complete mystery!  The train just about got moving with about fifty tonnes of human cargo and then similar scenes of chaos at Cheste when the same amount of people tried to get off the train and out of the station through a couple of ticket barriers which eventually broke down.


The town centre was many times more mad than the previous evening.  I'm not sure how to describe this to someone who hasn't been in the situation.  You fill a space to bursting point with humans, in this case a large network of local streets.  The people can hardly move in any direction because of each other.  Then, just for good measure, you force a dozen 1000cc bikes though the crowd while testing the functionality of their rev limiters.  It was fun for about the first fifteen minutes but somewhere in the last forty five years I must have become old and the relative sanctuary of a typically crappy Chinese restaurant seemed like a very good alternative.
 

This shot was outside of the war zone.
 

 
Sunday!!!  As a veteran of UK events such as the HA 'Bulldog Bash' and various prestigious drag racing rounds at Santa Pod, I thought I was prepared.  In reality I can't begin to describe the overall sense of awesomeness.  This event was truly huge!  The atmosphere was electric, everything was full to bursting and the enthusiasm was unimaginable.  The Moto3 race was particularly competitive.  Moto2 was very good even if it was a bit of a formality.  The GP bikes and riders stole the show in the end and I was nothing short of impressed with the whole thing.  There's no point for me to try and commentate on the racing as I'm no expert and everyone has seen it on TV anyway.  All I can do is offer this small selection of images as a reflection of the day.
 

If we had a wide angle lens with us, there's more!  Bikes as far as the eye could see.
 

 

 

Everyone's a winner.
 

 

 

 

The wife had already won before the bikes had even started.
 
MotoGP 2013.
AMEN!

Top weekend by the sound of it. Thanks for sharing

Great pics and story panoalto :thumbs:

great post! I really should of gone. its a definite next year.


do you arrange weekends away to gp's ?