December 2019 new e-mails arrive with Trackdays in my inbox and the need to book something fast is high! Alcarràs here we COME 😎
It has been a while since I have written a blog about my trackday but at work it was to busy and did not find the motivation to write. Now this was still on by bucket list for quite some time and I decided that 2020 will be the year that I will check this item. It did not went completely as expected but it was a very nice experience.
Preparation
The bike was almost ready but not quite yet. Bought new tires, new body work and some other minor parts that I could fit during the winter time when there is no race action. I also went with Peter to the MotorBeurs to look for new things and I bought a new helmet. The old one was already 5 years old and therefore it needed to be replaced by a new one. A lot of promotions and I bought a new helmet that gave a new look from Red to Yellow.
At 7 march 2020 we need to bring our bikes to the pickup point and wrap it into a crate 
. Had some good help from the people on site and it took me only about 30 minutes to get ready. What I did was I took everything from the car that I wanted to bring with me and placed it all around the bike. Once I did this I started to pack piece by piece. It is like Tetris so if you are good in that game you will be fine. In the end wrapped it in plastic to keep everything in place and ✅.
The bike is now ready to travel and I had one week to prepare for my flight 🛫
Corona
Right now everyone knows what Corona (COVID-19) is but when we started to travel it was not that severe. Spain was the 5th most infected country in the world but most of them where in Madrid and we where not traveling to there. Also Racecracs informed us that we should apply some distance to each other during the days and we could race. More about this later.
Day 1
The flight went well and we where at the track for our first session. I shared the pitbox with 4 other riders so we had something good talks before we started. All nice guys and 2 where in my group and 2 in the other so it was not so crowded during the day.
The first session did not go as expected, in the second lap on the back straight my drive chain snapped and suddenly I was halted at the last corner (14) of the track 😕 and caused for many riders to stop the session sooner because of the position I was. The resque car came fast and they still had time to go our on the track but I had to check the damage. The chain did break some parts of my engine block but did not break essential parts that prevented me to put on a new chain and drive again.
Once fixed I could participate the second session and could really start to learn the track. When you look at the layout you notice that turn 6 is quite a sharp turn but what made this turn challenging was the drop of altitude together with the speed you picked up dropping in altitude. But after some laps the corner became quite fun and was getting faster and faster every time I did a lap though that corner.
I was putting in some good laps but my lap times where all over the place. I was finding the right lines to corner and finding my brake markers and turn in positions. I was in the fastest group and there where quite some guys/girls that knew the track better then me and quite some people passed me during the day but I was learning a lot from them on how to enter the corner and which lines they where riding.
The last session of the day and in turn 9 to 10 my bike electrics go wild and the bike went dark. This time I could push my bike behind the fence and the other riders could continue to ride. But what a luck right?
Day 2
Put my bike to charge during the night and when I came into the pit box I tried to fire up the bike but nothing. The battery was dead… The local part support store on the paddock did not have the battery I needed and searching online found a local bike shop that did had the battery. Drove back and put the battery into the bike and it came to live 🤗
The rest of the day went smooth and was putting in more consistent lap times near 1:52 ~ 1:54. Ending the day only 8 seconds off the fastest rider of my group. So quite satisfied with the result for the first visit to this track.
But like the first day we could not end the day normally but now the reason was quite different. All riders where ready to go out but the lights in the pitlane stayed red 🚦 and suddenly we hear a siren sound. The local mayor and the police where in the paddock and we all where requested to join. Earlier that day we got the news that we could keep continuing to race but we needed to finish sooner on sunday and the time schedule was slightly changed. Now the mayor and the police came to tell us we had to stop immediately because Spain would lock down the country at 23:59 sunday. So besides the good news that I was only planing to fly back home the next Friday a lot of people needed to find a new flight to travel away from Spain.
Many of us though why not wait 30 minutes to let us finish the last session of the day but we needed to pack all bikes asap for the truck to get them out of Spain and France before the lock down.
Panic, how to het home?
Then the challenge to get home, all flights we tried to book gave an error when you wanted to pay for it and resulted in calling the railway station (all booked), looked at car rental but they charged upto 2000 euros for another return location of the car. We ended up booking a flight from Madrid (4 hour drive from where we are) to Lisbon Portugal. And then back to Eindhoven where we started our journey. Because it was 22:00 on a Saturday and the flight was at 06:00 with a 4 hour drive we had to hurry. Took a shower and started driving to the airport, had dinner in a restaurant at 23:00 and took a one hour sleep next to a truck stop for one hour because I could not keep my eyes open anymore.
Arrived at the airport which was almost empty and we got our flight to Lisbon. Once in Lisbon everything was “normal” and no panic for the virus. Of course people where talking about it and some people used masks but it looked like a normal day. Slept for some hours in a hotel because I skipped a night driving after a day racing and had dinner to charge up for the next flight.
One back in Eindhoven all went smoothly and I got home on Monday 00:30. Quite exhausted but happy to be home again and not trapped in Spain.
Pick up the bike
I got an email on sunday telling I had to pick up the bike on that monday in the evening so no resting in the night but picking up the bike that was a 2 hour drive to get there and 2 hour drive back. Picking up the bike went smooth and without any issues.
The end
The trip did not go completely as expected but it was fun while it lasted. Will I do this again? Hell yes I would. Riding multiple days made it easier to get into the rhythm and you could really learn and improve your riding skills. Learned a lot on the breaking, tyre pressure and a new track. Would loved to rode also the sunday but unfortunately this was not possible. But will have some good memories. Now we can only wait for the virus to flyover and we can all get to normal work and fun stuff. Hope to pickup the track days asap again because the bike felt good and will to a new check up to see if all is fine.
Hope you enjoyed by store and cain’t wait for the next one. Stay healthy and see you on the track!
