MGP Magazine 2008_Final 291008
Transcript
MGP Magazine 2008_Final 291008
TWOWHEEL HOT SPOTS BY INTERNATIONAL MOTORCYCLE JOURNALIST AND COMMENTATOR CHRIS CARTER For 42 years, the Guia circuit in Macau has thrilled millions of motorcycle fans, both trackside and watching at home on television. With a mixture of twisty, tricky corners and thrilling, super-fast sections the track has something for every spectator. B ut how do the riders themselves see the place? Just what are the favourite parts of the track for the road racing superstars of the past and the present? Perhaps, not surprisingly, the choice is wide and very varied. Ron Haslam, the British racer, has won the Macau GP six times. Now 52-years-old, Ron looks back on his Macau career with a great deal of fond memories. He has no doubt, though, which is the corner he liked the best: “The sharp righthander at Hotel Lisboa is my favourite part of the track. With a run-off available, should you make a mistake, you could really take a risk, without being punished for it. I was able to brake very hard here and make up a great deal of ground on any of my rivals, because I knew I could take to the slip road if I did get it wrong”, says Ron. 55TH MACAU GRAND PRIX It says a great deal about Haslam’s skill that he never once had to use that escape route. In more recent times Michael Rutter has been the dominant racer in the event. The 35-yearold British racer has also won six Macau GPs in the 14 visits he has made to the event: “I don’t even think it has a name, but the bend I like the most is the left hand kink immediately after the start-and-finish. It is very, very fast and on a flying lap your head is very close to the barrier. When you get it right it gives you a really good feeling”, says Michael. For Steve Plater, the 40-year-old British racer who won the race in both 2006 and 2007, his choice is different yet again: “The section from the Melco Hairpin to the start-and-finish line is the most important on the whole track. The hairpin is the slowest section on the entire circuit, but if you can come out of that right you get the drive on the run down to Reservoir and then Fishermans and on to the finishing line. “I know that if I can be in front by Melco and get round that tight corner right I can hold anybody Steve Plater (CGPM) 62 (Left to right) Michael Rutter, Ron Haslam, Kevin Schwantz, Mick Grant and John McGuinness celebrate the 40th Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix in 2006 (CGPM) off, just like I did with John McGuinness,” says Steve. Says John McGuinness, winner of the Grand Prix in 2001: “My favourite corner has to be Mandarin. Most of the circuit sees you constantly changing direction – left, right, left, right all the time – but the Mandarin is a full on, high-speed corner. “You approach it in 6th gear at 180mph, then go back two gears and just chuck it in, pretty similar to how you take Mather’s Cross at the North West 200. With all the hotels, skyscrapers, barriers and fences on either side, it feels like you’re going through a tunnel and doing about 300mph. You don’t really appreciate how fast it is, or how scary it is but it’s barrier to barrier through there and is simply a high speed corner that requires total commitment.” Australian Cameron Donald made his debut in Macau in 2001, winning the 600cc race and the 31-year-old has been a regular top three finisher in that class since then. Macau gave Cameron his first taste of real road racing and that led directly to him going on to a very successful career in both the Isle of Man TT races and top Irish meetings: “My favourite part of the circuit would have to be San Francisco, heading up the hill into the right-left bends before you make your way across the hillside. “Most people would not know that Macau was my first ever street race as a rider or even a spectator! And it has been a great event for me and the very reason I ended up trying the road races in the UK. After the streets of Macau I guess green hedges don’t seem so daunting! “The Macau circuit requires pin-point accuracy to ride a fast lap with little room for error and the riders are the best real road racers from all over the world, making it a great challenge.” says Cameron. Americans have made their mark at Macau, too. This year Mark Miller will be making his eighth appearance at the event. The 34-year-old has been in the top six four times and his best result was third in 2000. Hugging the walls is all part of the thrill of Macau (Steven Davison, Pacemaker Press International) racetrack, and am now rewarded with a moment of relaxation to regroup before starting yet another? It’s a cool feeling,” says Mark. “The other is exiting the corner at the bottom of San Francisco Hill and tearing up through the painted Armco at unthinkable speeds. Our 200+ horsepower Superbikes lay huge black stripes on the pavement exiting the corner, and because the bikes are only as wide as our shoulders, we can nearly thread a straight needle through this seemingly endless snake of corners, any of which you misjudge just a fraction, and you’ll ricochet off one protruding piece of Armco and slam ninety degrees into the next. Dead stop. “Another fascinating part of San Francisco Hill is that the organizers paint the Armco yellow and black, yellow and black, so for a rider accelerating from about 40 miles per hour to over 160 miles per hour up hill, it looks, nay, FEELS like you’ve hit the Hyperspace Button on the Millennium Falcon! It’s a rush,” he admits. “On the seven occasions American Mark Miller (CGPM) in the past I’ve received the magical phone call notifying me of my Kevin Schwantz is another American to have invitation to the Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix, made his mark at Macau. The former 500cc the two sections that most fondly floods into World Champion only raced once, in 1988, but my mind are, of course, first, exiting Fisherman’s produced a blistering display on his factory Bend and down the short straight towards the Suzuki that carried him to victory. final corner of the lap,” says Miller. Like all the riders from the USA, Kevin had “I’m not entirely certain why, but a surreal and never raced at a circuit like Macau and, for a top calming feeling envelops me each time I enter professional racer accustomed to run-off areas that particular stretch of road. Is it because I can at GP venues, it was something of a culture see the sea over the short wall that’s grazing shock: “There is a section of corners, left-right, my left elbow? Or, is it because I just survived at the top of San Francisco Hill, where you another violent lap around this magnificent almost lean against the wall on both sides. I don’t remember its name, but it was a really cool sequence of corners.” Looking back on his triumphant Macau appearance he also admits that one corner he remembers most of all to this day was the last corner, because that meant it was over and he had survived. In recent years the 41-year-old Austrian, Thomas Hinterreiter, has been an impressive front-runner in Macau. For him there is one place that stands out above all the rest: “It’s the Mandarin Bend. It is the most challenging and also the most beautiful. When you go through this bend, it’s like having a roller-coaster in your own living room,” says Thomas. Britain’s Mick Grant agrees with Thomas. The 64-year-old Yorkshire man won the Macau GP twice, in 1977 and 1984, but it was in the 1982 race, in which he finished second to Ron Haslam, that Grant had a moment that he will never forget: “I have some wonderful times in Macau and have some great memories of both the races and the people that I met there, but I will never forget one lap in that 1982 race, when I was racing the big four-stroke Suzuki 1023cc. There are some corners that as a rider you believe you can take them just a little faster than you normally do. “In those days the start and finish was in a different place to where it is now and the first corner, now known as the Mandarin Bend, was called the Yacht Club Bend. You took it in top gear, but not quite flat out. As the meeting went on I began to believe that it was possible, after all, to go through there with the throttle wide open. One lap I tried it, but at something like 160 mph I lost the front end. I thought that was my lot, but somehow I caught it and kept going safely. I did not try it again and afterwards it was a swift trip to the launderette to wash my underwear!” admits Mick. 55TH MACAU GRAND PRIX 63