Soooooo my long report...
The Portimao trip had been booked for since WSB last year and it was my birthday and Christmas pressie off Lily, thanks hun. Then with days to go Lily goes and busts her wrist the whole trip was thrown up in the air and my enthusiasm was failing as I knew I wouldn't want to be there with a injury that "should" prevent me from riding whilst watching everyone else have fun.
We arrived on Thursday late afternoon to see a few familiar faces at a few local bars, good to catch up with Spliffy, Jimbers, Rattler, Chaz, Couchie, Lucie, Pete, Dave Reilly and meet the likes of Chef, Harry, RSVMan, fed and watered we all went to bed but we were expecting rain, ha... rain it was clear skies when we headed back to the hotel.
Friday morning and the skies were black, the rain was pouring down and it was freezing cold, I was more than a little p%ssed off lets say, I could of been at Mallory or Pembrey in this! We all headed off to the circuit and it was no better. The usual hour of located all of your gear (bike, paddock stands, gear, spare tyres etc) ensued then signing on and the briefing. Kevin's briefing was good and with James Whitham, James Haydon and Adrian Coates it promised to improve, Kevin explained they had 2 spaces left on the riders clinic on Friday if anyone was interested and straight after the briefing Claire and I asked about them, they had already been filled??!?! but if anyone dropped out we would have first refusal.
The wet paddock :-(
As the track was soaking and it was everyone's first time there Kevin had a great idea, everyone could do some sighting laps in the car to get a rough idea of the circuit so we all set off, I'm so glad we did this.... the circuit is big over 4.5Km's in length and the turns and elevation changes are nothing like I've ever seen, one turn sticks out now where you enter on a really tight right hander up hill blind crest then plummits probably 3 stories before a left hand uphill sweeper. After 4 laps in the car I still had no idea where we were going. The only way I can describe it is like Oulton/Cadwell but bigger and on steroids!
Waiting to go out in the cars
It continued to rain and rain and a few people ventured out, I hadn't taken any wets (it's Portugal!) and had to sit it out, Claire did have wets and she desperately wanted to go out but I really wasn't confortable with that on a new bike, broken wrist and a circuit that wanted to bite you. In the afternoon I grabbed 40 winks in the car only to wake up and see an orange KTM SUperDuke being trailered back to the paddock, what had Pete done?
His bike was a mess, subframe bent, cans wrecked, levers, rearsets etc, but he was OK.... he'd come off braking into turn one at somewhere between 100-120mph and slid for over 250 meters, the bike had flipped when it dug in and the subframe took the brunt of things, several of us set about fixing the bike and after some ingenious work with a Seat Ibiza car jack the subframe was slightly more respectable and he managed to ride on days 2 and 3.
I'd grabbed a jerry can of fuel off Focused and put it in the book as requested in anticipation of dry weather but it didn't come....
Day 2, Saturday after another night out in the rain we awoke hoping for sunnier skies, it was still wet but the rain had stopped everyone drove over to the circuit and it was still wet, several of us opted for a coffee whilst we waited for Mr Sun to appear only to find out we'd missed the briefing? What briefing? No-one had mentioned anything about a briefing on days 2 and 3???!?! So we had to have a seperate briefing which wasn't too bad and it wasn't like we were in a rush to get out it was just something else that hadn't been communicated, then I got a b*llocking off one of FE's staff for taking the fuel and not leaving any card details?!?!?! What? We were told to put it in the book that we had taken fuel, which I did... turns out you need to leave card details, again something else that hadn't been communicated, my already tainted view of FE was getting more tainted.
But I digress, the sun came out and myself, Claire, Spliffy and Danny had opted to follow and instructor as quite a few people had ventured out yesterday and we hadn't, it also meant we had to wear lovely yellow bibs LOL, the track is simply amazing, I hadn't ridden the R1 since Anglesey back in March and I'd fitted Dunlop NTec slicks, I'd never ridden with slicks so I was nervous to say the least and was soon dropping off the back of the instructor led group, I was scared of the bike and the slicks?!?! We came in at the end of the session and immediately went back out on the next one just before lunch and that session I concentrated much more on the track and forgot the R1 and the slicks and started to enjoy myself. The afternoons were open pit lane so many like us were trying to claw back the wet day so you had to queue for a few minutes to get out but I had some great sessions out there seeing 165+ on the straight was cool but braking for turn one became interesting! There was also a brief few drops of rain the afternoon but the track was hot so it was nothing to worry about but it still plays on your mind here and there LOL!
Day 3, Sunday and we awoke to sunny skies, yes! finally!! The track had a few damp patches but was drying quickly Claire and I didn't go out though until the afternoon I'd had quite an upset stomach and her wrist was aching badly by now, eventually we ventured out and I had the best afternoon on track in a long while, the R1 is awesome it still shakes it's head a little bit, it's impossible for it not to here but you just ride through it, and the slicks were just amazing lap after lap the confidence grew and I was trying in Bongo style for an elbow down but couldn't manage it... Hmmmm.
For information - A lap of the circuit goes down the start/finish flat out keeping left to avoid a large bump (which sets the bike off into a mild tank slapper the full length), the start/finish straight is elevated and the braking area drops away probably 30-40 ft by the turn in point, turn 1 and 2 are 4th gear pinned running from the outside to apex and back out but there are some unsettling bumps at the apexes of both, turn 3 is a right hand uphill hairpin into a sweeping left blind crest - turn 4 (elbow down territory) I struggled here for a few laps using second gear into turn 3 but needed to short shift on the uphill blind left, in the end I stuck with 3rd, then onto the short back straight into 4th then back to 2nd for turn 5, another hairpin now left but drops mid corner, uphill and accelerating hard there's a left hand kink (turn 6) and soon into turns 7 and 8 which flow nicely but 8 is a 2nd/3rd gear hairpin uphill over a blind crest (mentioned earlier in the car) snick 4th before the crest and hold on as the front goes airborn, bars frantically waggle as you plummit (literally) back towards the ground, imagine doing the mountain at Cadwell backwards but add another 30 feet! then you're into a fast 4th gear positive cambered uphill corner as fast as you dare as turns 10 and 11 approach from nowhere, totally blind entry and the trick seems to be to miss all the apexes and head out ridiculously wide to drag in back for a late apex and turn 11 where you plummit again but have to change direction (right to left) quickly for turn 12, this sends the bike skywards again and the bars let you know this, and fast downhill then rising corner into the final hairpin hard on the brakes turning left (turn 13) then accelerate hard towards turn 14 a kind of double right hander then a short straight and a blind entry fast super fast 4th gear right hander (reminds me of a bigger clearways) downhill onto the start finish straight, snick 5th before you rise onto the s/f straight to keep the bike settled then into 6th for your 160-170mph straight!
Finally, a few of us decided to go out and have a play late on the final day and because of the open pit lane a few got on track before me, so I spent a good 20 minutes thrashing the R1 taking some real liberties with the throttle and the slicks catching everyone, there's some video somewhere so hopefully someone will get that up at some point, need to speak to Wafty to get some memories I think Claire is on the case with that one.
Excellent trip and well organised apart from a few communication issues and some customer service skills, but Kevin, the track, the instructors and the company more than made up for it, looking forward to the next one now.
P.S. - Photos courtesy of Spliffy ;-)