OFFICIAL PROGRAMME
Everything is time controlled over the weekend , including a riders briefing for all first time riders in all classes and the Supersport 300 teams collecting their Panta race fuel . With all these flammables about their is - from Monday evening until Sunday - a fully on-site / on-call firefighting and medical service to keep everybody secure in the workplace . Which remember , the paddock is at all times from when it first opens - a workplace . A fun factory , but a factory all the same . Come the end of the final race on Sunday , all the portable and specialised equipment that has been brought along and carefully put into place is quickly and efficiently loaded back into the service trucks and packing cases , to go back to home base or move on to the next race if it follows closely in the same part of the world . The three consecutive races in Iberia this year - Catalunya , Jerez and Portimao - will be a particularly busy time for all the above mentioned staff and teams , but remember it ’ s the combined pre-planning and shared experience that makes this kind of logistical and manpower feat possible even for just one weekend in the first place . Three is just more of the same closer together . It will be tough but it will happen . Who , or what , is the last to leave after race weekend concludes , you may be asking ?
Well , the first people to leave - depending on the track ’ s schedule of use - are the teams that occupy paddock areas or pit garages that will be used by another race series , a Pirelli track day , or for some other purpose . I am tempted to say that the last members of the print / online media are absolutely the last ones to leave on Sunday nights - into Monday mornings sometimes . I have left racetracks at 2am without seeing another soul but most often the ‘ shift ’ workers for the bigger hospitalities / Paddock Show , or another commercial edifices , are still busy dismantling the tents , stages and floors of one or other unit that just hours earlier looked as permanent , comfortable and impressive as a modernist royal palace . The contrast between the WorldSBK race paddock on a Sunday afternoon during Race Two ’ s thrills ’ n ’ spills and the eerie silence that cloaks the shockingly empty expanse of asphalt and concrete at 2am on Monday morning never ceases to impress and unsettle me . But then I remember that we will be back again next year , to rebuild our noisy , bustling and colourful weekend empire just once more . Our very own WorldSBK pop up shop . They say Rome was not built in a day , and we know exactly what ‘ they ’ mean by that . But in terms of WorldSBK ’ s eternally moving city , it is built , lived in and then fallen over the space of an entire week
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