Apparently I’m in what used to be East Germany. One of the veteran MotoGP photographers was telling me last night about the huge crowds they used to have here at the Sachsenring, until one year’s result had 300,000 fans singing the anthem of West Germany, which the powers that used to be did not find amusing, and which put the kibosh on GP racing for a while.
GP is back now, with smaller crowds than the old days, but compared to the other races I’ve attended, the crowd here is fantastic. Most of them seem to be camping around the track, and their enthusiasm for MotoGP is almost tangible as I walk around the circuit. Of course there are the large hordes of Rossi fans, as wel as those who have come to support other riders. There are three young German riders in the 125s, Sandro Cortese, Jonas Folger, and Stefan Bradl, and they must be loving being at their home race among so many exuberant fans. There are also some local wild card riders getting their chance at GP racing—what an opportunity!
This week I’ve often been struck by how similar Germany seems to France in terms of how it looks around Chemnitz, the town where my hotel is. The drive from Frankfurt really reminded me of driving from Paris to Lyon, as we did so many times. And I LOVE how organized driving on the freeway is. Driving in California has become a free-for-all, passing on the right, slower traffic going right to the fast lane and staying there until their exits come up, etc. Here, as in France, slower traffic stay to the right, and for good reason. There are some really fast drivers, here! If you want to pass another car and must venture into the left lane, you need to look waaaaaaay back there in your mirror to see if it’s clear, because there might be a mad BMW going 120 miles an hour coming up. The poor old Opal Corsa pretty much stars to the right where it belongs. But that’s okay, because when it does come time to pass a slower big rig or something, the German drivers are very courteous about seeing what’s about to happen and making room if needed. I’ve never seen a culture so attentive on the highway, not only to what each is doing but also to what other cars are about to do. Many times I’ve come up on a slow truck and wanted to pass, only to look in my mirror and see a faster car coming up behind me, and then watched as that faster car moved left a lane to give me room to go around the truck. It’s so courteous compared to California drivers it still amazes me.
As I move from the hotel to the track, it’s strange to this of this having been East Germany at one point, which I think of as grey and grim, probably from spy movies and novels. Chemintz is a nice city, and while there remain some of those stereotypical concrete clock buildings that summon thought s of sneaking across the border in the middle of the night, much of the city is also green and lush. The most depressing thing about it is the ubiquity of McDonalds and Burger Kings among the traditional beer gardens. We had dinner at one of those last night and it was beautiful, a terraced garden with table sand gravel paths overlooking a city lake. The tree cover was so thick that when it started to rain, very little got through to the tables. Germany is definitely onto something with the beer garden, and I can’t figure why it hasn’t caught on like this elsewhere that I’ve seen.
And yet, as thoroughly as this area has thrown off its time behind the wall and blossomed into a modern European city, there remains at the track something I just can’t for the life of me sort out. I’ve often wondered why Dorna hard card credentials have bar codes on the back, and now I know. If some local organizer wants to be able to track the movements of credentialed personnel, the bar codes can be used for that purpose. On the ride in from the media parking area, a grassy lot half a mile from the media center, we get checked twice, first in a visual inspection of credentials by a team of youngsters at one of those old hinged metal bars that swings up to open, then a second time by the A team, who are armed with semi-functional electronic wireless scanners. They open the doors of the vehicle again, and everyone presents, so that we can all roll our eyes at how long it takes the stupid scanners to work. (Following the Dunlop man’s lead, I have tried sitting up straighter, but to no effect.) Yesterday I rode in with a veteran Italian journalist who griped to the driver about how the German round is the only one where that barcode is used and what an inconvenience it is. As I said, I just cant figure out why those who put on this race feel they need to scan us everywhere we go, or why they don’t have more efficient technology to do so. Still, it does lead to a kind of camaraderie, as most checkers and checkees seem to view the process as a giant pain in the neck. There is lots of shrugging of shoulders in that universal gesture of trying to make the best of it.
Different from Qatar and Laguna Seca, and perhaps from all flyaway races due to the expense of transporting the large and elaborate facilities, is the team hospitality area. There are two paddocks here in Germany, one behind the row of garages where teams park their supply rigs, usually two per team and containing the bikes, parts, tools, and so on. The other is across the track, with everything else the teams bring, such a their hospitality suites, rider motor homes, etc. (The Grand Prix doesn’t exactly travel light. The pollution generated on track is nothing compared to the pollution generated to make the race happen in the first place, given the over the road miles of trucks carrying equipment and the flights for personnel to travel to each event. Then there are all those cars and in some cases, ahem, planes, to get the spectators and media to the races. So again I will state that it is long past time for racing in general to think a bit more about how it can offset all of this environmental impact by incorporating fuel economy into the racing, which would then trickle down to production and save many litres of gas around the world.)
Where was I? Oh, right, the hospitality section. It’s about 100 meters long, lined by the teams’ and a few higher profile vendors’ such as Bridgestone, Alpinestars, etc. rolling luxury suites. I passed through yesterday on my way back to the media center and was scanned in and out for that 100 meter walk; the two scans took longer than the walking from one checkpoint to the other. As efficient as Germany is in so many ways, these scanners clearly come from some other place. And now I know to avoid that area so I just go around.
On the other side of the hospitality area, which is only for those with special paddock access, is one of the public food areas, and man does that place hop! I’ve never been to Oktoberfest, but I imagine this area is something like it in spirit if much smaller. Beer is one of the defining elements of this culture, and every time I’ve passed by this little food court, it’s been full of people drinking beer and munching sausages, laughing, just enjoying the heck out of the race weekend.
There are also more marshals trackside then anywhere else I’ve visited. Experienced with the local weather, which as I found out, can change very suddenly, most of the marshals have erected tarps for shelter from sun and sometimes, torrential downpours. Midway through the 125 practice yesterday, it started to rain. I’d expected rain sometime during the weekend, but the forecast didn’t call for rain until Saturday. I put little faith in weather forecasts, but for some reason still decided to leave all my rain gear in the car. I started back to the media center at the first few drops, and didn’t get far before it really started raining. A scowling Dorna worker bee on a scooter ignored my outstretched thumb as he passed, and I will not comment beyond stating that fact. A moment later, thunder and lightning, a real downpour. I scurried into one of the marshals’ shelters, barely squeezing my gear underneath as my shoulder remained in the rain.
As we huddled under the tarp, the mood was genial in spite of the language barrier. (I’ve also be surprised by how easy it is to find people here who don’t speak more than a few words of English. For some reason I figured Germany would be flush with English speakers, but in fact you needn’t look too hard to find even young people who appear to have little or no English at all.) As the rain continued coming down in buckets, it puddled in low spots of the overhead tarp. A little game ensued of pushing up on the puddles to send them moving laterally and eventually onto fellow humans at the edges of the tarp. This frivolity was much enjoyed by those toward the center of the shelter, and not so much by those getting dumped on. Even I thought it was amusing until the guy next to me pushed a puddle the wrong way and it splashed on my gear.
I thought it might be letting up, so I took my chances and moved on. But I got more and more soaked as I walked, because at each marshal’s shelter I found other photographers, marshals, medical workers, etc., already there and vying for limited space. Before long I was so wet I could not get any wetter. I had my floppy hat over one camera and my soaking shirt draped over the other, wondering if the legendary Nikon durability would stand up to this exposure. I’m happy to say that it did, and that I noticed no ill effects as the day progressed. VERY impressed by that, Nikon!
The punch line to this debacle came when I reached the frontier checkpoint and a fellow in a cozy poncho tried to scan my credential with a device that barely worked in ideal conditions, let alone in the rain. But by that time I literally could not have been any wetter from the waist up if I’d been swimming, so I could only smile and vow to keep my rain gear with me the rest of the weekend.
I dripped back into the media center to snickers and sympathetic smiles in turn, concerned about my gear. I cleaned up and dried off best I could, took a short trip back to the car for my rain parka and umbrella, then went back out on track having missed only about 10 minutes of the first MotoGP practice. It only took a moment of being back at trackside, close to the bikes and their legendary riders, to forget all of the previous hour’s discomfort, and I was very relived to find both cameras and the lenses working just fine. I felt so lucky to be where I was and so pleased to be doing something I enjoy so much that I wasn’t even mad at that Dorna guy anymore. Well, hardly at all, anyway. I was pleased with the pictures I got, especially for my first time at a new track.
I finished my work for the night at around 9:30, then had two little detours on the way back to the hotel that only cost me about 10 minutes. After a hot shower, I deleted a bunch of photos but gave up before getting to the end of the day’s collection. Last night I was awakened by heavy rain, and my thought was that whatever rubber had managed to stick to the track yesterday would be gone today.
It’s not raining now, but it’s still wet outside. I have all my rain gear ready, so let it pour if it wants. I’ll be happy either way.
