I dunno where to even start ... OMG (should be OMFG) what an amazing day I’ve had, I couldn’t have asked for more.
Woke up at 5ish after a good night sleep, I was pleased to be up early as meant I could get sorted and moving early. Had breakfast and headed out at about 8;15am. Bought some rolls (5 for E1) and some apples (3 for E1.20) from stalls in the Vismarkt (ooo see on their site they have a webcam … never knew that before otherwise would have added it to my list I check out) and then 2 * 1l bottles of water from Albert Heijn for E1.70.
Got the train to Assen easily and then bought a bus ticket for E5 for transport to & from the circuit. Was a bit too far too way to walk that’s for sure. Wasn’t clear where to pick up the tickets from so stood in one queue and then met an Aussie family (parents and 2 daughters – who are on an 8 week EU trip) and we decided to all bail on that queue after a few minutes as we found out it was wrong. I ended up being with them all day which was cool as was nice to have someone to chat to and someone to look after my bag when I went for a wander. Took us a little while to get to the place we had to be and then even we were in the wrong place, was just 10m away. Got sorted eventually and I had my tickets and was ready to get into the circuit. I could hear the bikes by then as MotoGP FP3 had just started. The guy at the gate didn’t want to let us in there initially as his bar code scanner machine wasn’t working but we managed to get in there as he kinda just gave up trying to scan stuff and just looked to see people had tickets. Wasn’t quite where I wanted to sit but we could make our way to the other place easily.
(Bit of a pity the top of the sign is cut off a little, will try get a better one tomorrow)
Slight sidetrack on the order of stuff …. this is the only race that is held on a Saturday, so few people at work forgot to record the FP but they now know and will PVR/watch the race tomorrow. I wondered why this race is on a Saturday …. so read up on the MotoGP site here where it says:
“The reason why it was on the Saturday is that the church was near to the start/finish area. The town council didn’t want to have a situation in which people who wanted to go to church on a Sunday could not, as all of the roads were closed for the race. That is the reason the race was staged on the Saturday. That proved a success, so we continued to do it on the Saturday. It is now a real tradition to have the Grand Prix on the Saturday, but all other races at the circuit on a Sunday.”
Regarding where we sat and then the story that goes with it. We went in where the DARK BLUE dot is on the circuit diagram. We then made our way to the RED dot is. This is the place I had scoped out when I watched the Superbikes on TV and NL & RT both rekoned was the best place too (and will be there tomorrow). Stood there and watched for a while. It was drizzling a little bit so put on my rain jacket. Got some nice pics from there. I was trying to take a lot of pics today so I don’t have to necessarily take as many tomorrow in the race itself. We then decided to go for a walk. So headed off in an anticlockwise direction and walked along the side in front of the Ossebroeken and TT World Tribunes and then got to the Strubben Tribune (this is the best place and sells out without hours of coming on the market always). We thought “lets go up and see what we can see”. There was noone checking tickets anywhere on the stands ANYWHERE – score !!!! So we got a good spot and sat and watched loads from there. We were right across from the pit exit.
Taken from our “adopted new seats” & where we were sitting, the pits are the red bit just to the left of the big screen and then you can see the Hoofd Tribune in the center and the right the Haarbocht Tribune.
I then took a wander with Nick, we lost each other at one stage but I knew where his wife and kids were so wasn’t a problem really. I wandered all the way along and went up onto the Haarbocht & Hoofdt Tribunes. I was therefore able to get some STUNNING pics of the bikes etc. It is hard to explain how quick the bikes really are, when you see them on TV you can’t get a sense of the speed.
Qualifying was exciting. There was a little bit of light rain which caused a bit of a niggle for some and quite surprisingly Aleix Espargaro got pole position in front of Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa. I left the circuit after all the qualifying was done and got back to Groningen quickly and easily, did a bit of shopping and then headed home and typed this up and looked over my pics. I have over 2.5GB of pics/vids from today alone !!! Cool !!! I’ll be able to bin some of those as they aren’t any good or were the ones I took in Sport mode and they are either before or after the good shots.
Now for a selection of general pics …. and of course followed by a few video clips. Enjoy.
Marc Marquez
Marc Marquez
Valentino Rossi
Valentino Rossi practice start
Me at the Finish line
Bike parking
BMW M Series Safety Cars
Merchandise to buy
Hard working marshalls (not so hard working in pic as was between sessions)
Worker abseiling down front of big screen TV to maybe fix something, wasn’t anything visibly wrong
Team GO & FUN Honda Gresini encouraging their rider to Want It!!!
Marc Marquez at end of qualifying
Aleix Espargaro wheelie at end of qualifying
Marc Marquez interview
Marc Marquez (2nd place, on Left), Aleix Espargaro (1st place, center), Dani Pedrosa (3rd place, on Right)
Between sessions there was this rabbit that was running all over the track at the one section. He was going back and forward and the marshalls couldn’t catch it, eventually it pushed off somewhere into the middle, luckily wasn’t while bikes were anywhere near. One of the Safety cars almost hit it when doing a sighting lap though.
And now for a few videos ...
Looking forward to Warm Up and the Main Races tomorrow !!!!!