I knew this was going to be one of the highlights of the vacation, a chance to see a MotoGP race in Italy. I've been to the MotoGP in Indianapolis for the last 3 years (and going this year), and have always had a blast - even during Hurricane Ike the first year. This Mugello race would mark Valentino Rossi's first appearance in Italy on a Ducati, and European fans are more enthusiastic then their American counterparts, so I was confident this would be quite an event.
Since I had the family with me we were only going to attend on race day and skipping Friday and Saturday's practice and qualifying sessions. I had bought 2 general admission tickets for Sunday (children get in free to GA with adults) over the internet prior to leaving for the trip, and made sure we worked our travel plans to keep us near Mugello for the night before the race. We wound up staying in Bologna, about an hour north of the circuit. Florence is closer, but much pricier to stay in. There are also a few hotels in the town next to the track that would have enabled us to walk to the race, but they were long since sold out.
On race day morning I hustled the family out of the Holiday Inn Express bright and early for the ride down to Mugello. I had read many reports about how the traffic getting to the circuit could be bumper to bumper so I wanted to allow as much time as possible. By 7:15am we were on the Autostrada heading south. Things got tense for me when we split off the Autostrada on the GPS's say-so. There really weren't any signs for the track at this point, and the road we turned onto was a narrow two-lane twisting country lane. I was very stressed that we were on the wrong road as it took around 20 minutes before we saw the first sign for Autodromo Mugello. We started passing people parked on the roadside, but the GPS said we were still 5 miles from the track. Being a rule-abiding law-fearing American I waited until we found an organized parking lot (albeit a grass field with a guy taking 10 euro notes) a few miles further.
It was still a long, long walk to the circuit, first down a road, then up a steep grassy hill, then across a grass lot, then down a wooded lane, then finally the short road to the circuit entrance. If there were no crowds to follow there's no way we would have known where to go.
When I said before that I got tickets, that turned out to not actually be the case - I got vouchers for tickets. The instructions on the vouchers were vague, in one part saying "you must exchange these at the venue for tickets" and in another saying "not good at venue". I guess in the excitement of being on vacation I forgot about that part, and when I presented them to the lady at the ticket booth all I got was a head shake. "No good". I would need to walk back to the car, leave the parking lot and drive 7 kilometers to another town to get to the place where I should exchange them. Then drive back in ever-increasing traffic, find another place to park and hoof it back to the track. Sigh. "I'd like $120 general admission tickets please". Normally this would have pretty much ruined my day, but this time I just let it go - I'm not going to have my one day at a European MotoGP round ruined by my own stupidity.
We begin the long way to the track
Not too crazy on the road
<<INSERT MUGELLO WALKING IN VIDEO>>
One of the prettiest parking lots I've seen
Steep hill, where the "are we there yet" starts to surface
Cool
Ah, finally, the track
Very neat helmet ticket scanner
Once we got inside the gates it became obvious just how crazy busy this place was. Masses of people everywhere, motorcycles and scooters moving in both directions on the same paths everyone was walking, tent villages setup on prime viewing locations, trash everywhere, etc. At Indianapolis everything is very well organized, everyone doing what they're supposed to, lots of open space, tons of staff on hand, etc. This, in comparison, was anarchy. And I loved it!
Where we first walked in we had a pretty good view of turn 12, but there were so many tents there you would have to stand the whole day to see what was happening on the track. We watched some of the warmups from this spot, then decided to try to find someplace better. It was not at all obvious how to get to the other side of the track so we just started walking the side we were on. We eventually settled on a nice spot on a hillside that gave us a great view of turns 8,9, and 15, as well as a distant but decent view of turns 6 and 7. With the exception of getting lucnh we pretty much planted ourselves on that section of hill for the day.
OK we're in the gate, busy but not crazy
Motorcycles and scooters mixed in with crowded pedestrian areas really kept your attention
Our first view of action on the track
Ducati grandstand
Marco passes by
Working our way to a better viewing spot
This is pretty crazy
Sweet!
Interesting paint job
My view for the race
Panorama of the view from our spot in the grass
I want to apologize to any readers hoping for good shots of racing action. Normally at Indy I can get close enough to produce some decent photos, but that was clearly not possible at Mugello. As thrilled as I was to be at a European round of MotoGP, for the actual viewing experience Indy does it much better. There are a lot more giant video screens in Indy (didn't see any at Mugello), far more food and drink vendors, vastly superior restroom facilities (both permanent and portable), and the elbow room and general organization enabling you to get around easily. Don't get me wrong, I loved Mugello, and would do it again in a heartbeat, but Indy is a much "nicer" experience.
A distant but decent view of turns 6 and 7
125 race perhaps?
I could get some decent (if distant) panning shots
Check out all the people on that far hill
After the 125 race my family decided they were hungry so we set off to find some food - as did thousands of others. Just walking on the path was taking forever, as it was jammed with people and bikes. The large food tent was packed to overflowing, and the heat was starting to get the better of us. We ended up with some hot dogs from a cart and worked out way back to our hillside seats. Fortunately for my wife and son there was a nice shady tree a little higher on the hillside for them to hang out under and escape the sun, although you couldn't see the track from there. I braved the heat for the Moto2 race, and summoned them when it was time for MotoGP.
Making the trek to get some lunch
Holy Woodstock Batman!
Great seats above the bathroom - this kind of stuff would never fly at Indy
Tasty yellow Hypermotard
I'm guessing they were Italian
OK...
The Kawasaki VStrom
Cool looking scooter
Not too crowded here, but they had no real view of the track
Bet they've been there a couple days
The food tent was packed. First you waited on the line in the foreground to pay, then you took your receipt and waited in the line in the background to get your food.
Different way of preparing hot dogs. The rolls are impaled on one of the metal spikes in the right of the picture, which toast them from the inside. When ready, the hot dog is inserted into the hole in the bun from the spike. Every parent of a toddler in the US would appreciate this method - no more hot dogs rolling away.
The Paddock was not as impressive as I'd hoped
Moto2
Moto2
Rossi!
All together for the MotoGP race
It's the end of the world
Here they come on the first lap
Lap 1
Rossi!
Colorful Varadero
Nice VIP Village perk is getting a ride around the tire wall for photo-ops
Rossi!
A non-zoomed-in view of the action from our location
Rossi waves to the crowd. He only managed a distant 6th place, nearly 17 seconds behind 5th-place Marco Simoncelli and 26.4 seconds behind race winner Jorge Lorenzo
It was great to watch Valentino work his way up a few positions during the race, even if he did only end up in 6th. I had read that you should not even think about trying to leave the circuit right after the race as you'd spend hours just sitting in traffic. I'd also read that things get pretty crazy on the track, so we figured we'd hang around a while and see what develops.
What I didn't expect was that the next hour was going to be one of the absolute highlights of the whole trip, both for me and my son.
As we started slowly walking to the exit it was obvious that people were lining up (well, lining up implies some kind of organization, let's say they were massing) at the certain places along the fence. From what I had read I was expecting there would be a few crazy folks that rushed the track against the rules, but there were hundreds of people just at this spot. Figured we'd watch and see how this plays out. After 10 minutes or so the crowd started surging forward - someone opened a gate in the fence. Suddenly everyone was storming past us, with plenty of motorcycles, scooters and bicycles mixed. People were climbing over the Armco and tire wall, and running onto the track. I took a minute to survey the situation, and figured "when in Rome...". I motioned to my wife, who was hanging far back from the throng at the fence, that we were going in. I grabbed my son and in a minute we were getting filthy climbing the tire wall. We made our way across the gravel trap and finally onto the track, with my son absolutely in disbelief the whole time.
The action on the track was pure (delightful) chaos. Motorcycles zooming in every direction, people running around, guys riding their bicycles around the circuit, burnouts, wheelies, you name it. There were literally thousands of people all over the track. Man oh this was fun.
After a while my wife even came out to join us, smartly finding a place where you didn't have to climb through tires. We hung out for a while watching the zaniness before finding a gate to exit through. In retrospect I really wish we had walked a lap of the track, that would have been fantastic.
What have we here?
Everyone's waiting for something
<<insert video of waiting>>
And they're off!
<<insert video of rushing>>
My son Michael having just climbed the tire wall. That's a big smile.
"Are we allowed to do this?" "Sure!"
"Where Rossi rode"
<<insert mike video>>
A very happy kid
What a blast
2-up on a CB1000R
That's going to be quite the cleanup job
Scooters ahoy!
<<insert track antics video>>
Why stick to the track?
This corner is starting to fill up
Looking down the track
Yikes
We'll remember this day for quite a while
On the track
Overall view
Some folks having fun
Very secure in their manhood
Very stylish
Look at me! Look at me!
2-up scooter wheelies
All kinds of vehicles on the track
The walk out was a challenge, every square inch of space was jammed with pedestrians, bikes and cars and the heat was pretty intense. I think we bought 4 bottles of water just in that walk. Once we got to the car it actually wasn't too bad getting out of the lot (out the back entrance anyway, the line for the front exit never really moved) and while the roads were busy it did move along pretty well. It was fun watching all the bikes passing everyone, even if some of the moves looked risky. On a normal day Italian bikers ride like men possessed, after spending a day at the racetrack, well, it certainly got their blood flowing even more.
Beginning the walk out of Mugello
Certainly colorful
Cool Lucky Strike livery on this Busa
Citroen 2CV
The girls dancing on tables got people's attention
Mike and the track map
Getting tight through here
<<insert heading to exit video>>
Make way, coming through
Pedestrians, cars, bikes, you name it
Looking back at the exit
Can't imagine how long it's going to take those campers to get out
<<insert heading to exit 2 video>>
Finally free of the congestion on the wooded path
Mmm, OK
So much for pedestrians only on the path
Still a ways to walk
The road to our parking featured as many lanes of traffic as people could make
<<insert walking out video>>
Almost to the car
<<walking out 2 video>>
<<walking out 3 video>>
<<riding out 2 video>>
<<riding out 3 video>>
The only big delay was the last mile or so before the Autostrada entrance. It could have been even worse, but they had workers stationed at the tolls helping everyone get through - impressive! One more slowdown on the Autostrada at the scene of a motorcycle accident, and finally we collapsed back at the hotel, exhausted.
I can't emphasize strongly enough how much fun I had at Mugello. Yes, it was hot. Yes, it was very crowded. Certainly unorganized. Pitiful facilities for food and bathrooms. Plus it cost me nearly $400 for general admission tickets. Knowing all that, I'd go again in a heartbeat. Everyone there was having such a great time, the chaos and excitement was addictive. I know I will do another European MotoGP round one day, perhaps Jerez or LeMans. Have to start saving some more pennies...