So last weekend I went to the MotoGP at Montmeló, just North East of Barcelona. The circuit is easy enough to get to and a top tip is to look up before hand, which parking area is suitable for your grandstand. Don't assume, like I might have, that the parking areas correspond to the grandstand. So areas A & C serve grandstand G, for example. There is no car park G. Don't assume that you can go past 2 signs for the circuit and continue on without hitting a toll booth. Also don't assume that the police directing traffic care about anything else apart from keeping the traffic moving. I asked one helpful officer which parking area was best for my grandstand. The succint and amusing reply was: "Don't know. First park, then walk". So that's what I did. At the other end of the circuit as it turned out, but for my first time there, it turned out to be quite good, as we could walk around the circuit and get to know the layout. Stuff inside is a little pricey. Duh! Coffee (small) is 2€, small beer 3.50€, large beer 7€, and a huge beer 9€. Food (hot dogs, bacon baguettes, pizza, pasta) ranged from 5-10€. Take your own, like the locals mostly do. Favourite are "pipas", which I think are sunflower seeds. You can tell where the Spanish sit, by the pile of discarded shells on the floor. Several tonnes of these are eaten each day. Tickets are bar-coded and scanned. Don't forget to get scanned out if you leave the grandstand, so that you can get back in (on the same day). This can save embarrasing discussions in a foreign language. They don't seem to care if you take an SLR with a fuck-off lens, unlike other circuits where photography is "banned". Sitting next to the fan club of a rising star is a lot of fun. How a 16 year-old like Viñales handles a sudden rise to stardom, I've no idea. Contact Domenec beforehand if you want to meet up in the evening. It saves last minute emails and text messages.
