MGP Magazine 2008_Final 291008

TWOWHEEL 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)
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(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
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