Saturday, October 01, 2011

A goat track-riding

That's a typo, of course. It should be 'a go at', and anyway it's not going to happen immediately. If it happens at all, it's contingent on the Goat finding some proper motorcycle leathers to cover his rather unorthodox shape.

There's been something of a development in track days in recent years. Instead of risking life and limb among the rest of the traffic, the potholes, the manhole covers and pedestrians, drivers and riders can now turn up at a proper race circuit and ride or drive as fast as they can/like/dare in the company of other consenting adults, all of whom are doing the same thing in the same direction. Added to this are the wide run-off areas in case of an, erm, excursion, and marshals and medical facilities are on standby in case of a major incident.

Rules are basically simple. Proper gear, a decent machine and the willingness to stick to some simple regulations.

The Goat found out about where bikers meet in Doha on Friday mornings purely by accident on Thursday night. And then, having turned up for breakfast at Starbucks, he learned that there was a track day at Lusail International Circuit that very evening. Bikes from 6pm to 9pm, then cars from 9pm to midnight.

He arrived at Lusail by car just before sunset, and eventually got the details of when, how and how much.

One of the riders pointed out that QR400 (around £70) for three hours on an international-quality racetrack was astonishingly good value, compared with the UK where, apparently, £300 buys three 20-minute sessions. Daytime sessions don't require floodlights and are a mere QR200 for three hours.

Most of the bikes are, of course, race replicas, crotch-rockets, or whatever you call them, so if the Goat ever happens to venture on to the track aboard his sports-tourer he'll be horribly outclassed by everybody. Must remember to remove the hero blobs and panniers, and tape up the mirrors. "The first rule of Italian driving: What's-a behind is not important." 

In the absence of leathers and indeed a motorcycle, the Goat simply satisfied himself last evening with taking photographs under the floodlighting. Any reader who is interested may care to check out the album of 139 pictures of high-speed antics.

The Goat has, incidentally, migrated to Picasa. This is after learning that Flickr ceases to be free once more than 200 images have been uploaded.

]}:-{>

2 comments:

Martín said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Martín said...

seem like a Nikon on high ISO. Nice job!
I've been myself in Italy and Croatia last weekend trying to drag pegs (and pegs only). My survival instinct just kept kicking in, so my pegs are still virgin. I'll keep working on it as long as weather allows. (check my blog for an interesting picture in the next days).

 

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