OK, what the entire trip to Portugal was about – World Superbike Racing!!! Well, maybe not the entire trip, but a sharp focus for some of our party. The lovely folks you see here are: Paulo, Maria, Joao, and Paula. They worked as track marshals at different locations around the course. We had a great time hanging out with them after the races, along with the deviants from Yorkshire of course.

Notice that I am sporting Kawasaki colors instead of Ducati. I made good on my promise to support our Tom, and I will continue to do so. I can’t speak highly enough of him – when everything was finished, and at least a couple of hours beyond the last races, Tom came out to the outdoor bar area where all the track marshals, staff, etc. were gathered around having some beer and relaxing. He hung out for a pretty good while and took photos with fans, etc. Out of ALL the riders there over the course of the weekend, he was the ONLY person I saw do anything like that. That goes a long way toward promoting the sport and just being a friendly guy. Oh, he scored a 2nd place in the first race which would have been a win except for a misfire that developed on the bike during the last lap. The second race was not quite as good as he was running a solid second again, but one of his tires developed  slow leak that dropped him back to 8th. That’s racing! Here’s some pics from todays events:

The cool thing about sitting along the front straight, just above the pit garages meant that we could watch the monitors on the Honda station and see what was going on around other parts of the track. Thanks to our Scottish pals, Kevin and Angela for pointing that out.

You know you’re in a proper city when they have bus service to the racing circuit.

OK, The Yorkshire lads confronted me about me lack of support for our Tom, so that’s settled.

Tom has support now from the American front. However, his brother, Anthony, and the Kwak crew chief, had to give the shirt vendor a proper seeing-to after he tried to charge me too much. Good to have new friends…

Here’s some action from todays qualifying and practices.

(Random shot outside the apartment last night)

(I’ll have a couple of videos posted to my Facebook page) Cheers!

(- By the way, Tom qualified 2nd, so things look decent for the race. Fingers crossed)

What should have been a day of reconnaissance for seating placement during the races turned into a day of socializing with folks from Scotland and Yorkshire. We met former World Champion, Kawasaki rider Tom Sykes and a bunch of his friends and ended up hanging around with them most of the day. Great fun ensued, however I had to promise support for Sykes on the Kawasaki instead of Ducati. There’s an inside story to that, but it will have to be explained over the exchange of adult beverages. Cheers!

Maggie says thumbs-up to VIP seating!
   

We’re finally hunkered down in our Portimao apartment with food and beverages. Lovely breeze on the balcony. First we eat, then we SLEEP. 

We’re just 7 days away from our departure date and I can’t think of much else. At this time next week we’ll be asleep (hopefully) in our Portimao apartment, resting up for our recon day at the race track.

If only we could take the Little Brown Dog (a.k.a LBD).

-Maggie

Image from Encyclopedia Britannica Kids