Branded for Life

So yesterday my brother Sam and I went to Brands Hatch to see the last Super Bike races of the season. Earlier this year I won two gold VIP tickets from Honda in a raffle (of sorts) and Sam played the brotherly-new-biker-take-pity-on-a-poor-farmer game to tag along... well really he drove us there in the car so how could I say no anyway?

And god damn are those bikes fast. I've never been interested in watching the races on the television (or watching much at all on TV. If it was up to me there wouldn't be one in the house), but seeing the bikes in person is completely different. I can only describe it as "WOOAAAAAHH!"

If you try and watch a stationary point as the bikes speed past then all you see is a blur, no joke. Trying to track them around the course gives you a headache. The speed and torque of those bikes is pure, unadulterated madness. The corners are taken so low you can see sparks from the pegs and flames from the exhausts, friction burns increasing in intensity on the riders' kneepads... and when they accelerate out of those corners they almost always end up having the front wheel off the ground for at least forty meters because of the sheer increase in speed they are putting those machines through.

And for the more aggressive observers (like Sam), yes there was one crash. The guy is fine as far as I know, I read on the Brands Hatch website that he was uninjured but disappointed. I'll bet he was dizzy after all that rolling though.

I got to sit on (but not ride) many big bikes (most 1000cc or more) and those tanks are truly intimidating, not to mention uncomfortable. We stayed clear of the foul smelling burgers; the fake tan, fake blonde, fake god-knows-what "bike babes"; and the over priced merchandise but otherwise everything was really cool. Especially the free buffet.