ONLY a few riders globally have the financial backing to attend Macau and win it. The other teams/riders try their best to learn the circuit in the allocated few hours of practice, but it takes a few years of attending Macau to prepare the riders and bikes for full speed racing.
With zero room for passing or error, Macau is no place for mucking around. There is no room for passing under brakes and other short circuit tactics. There is no room for ego. Just Armco, miles of Armco.
So, whats’ it like to race the Macau GP?
I chose to ask #71 Davy Morgan this when I was there last year. Davy is more than qualified for this meeting as he is a well seasoned full-time Irish road racer.
He is a regular competitor at the Irish championship meetings as well as the Big Three which includes the Isle of Man TT.
It’s his 2nd time at Macau GP so his enthusiasm for the place is still genuine. We talked about the speed, the confusing reference points (or lack of them) and the sea of Armco that make the Macau GP a unique challenge.
“I’m born and bred in Northern Ireland, I live in a wee town called Saintfield. We used to have a local road race called the Temple 100 and I used to go there as a boy with my father and my grandfather, which is where the inspiration and the love of motorbikes came from. I used to go to all the races with my Dad and we’d follow them around the countryside and I always wanted to race motorcycles when I grew up, but never really thought it was going to be an option,” he said.
“I started off doing short circuits and at the start I was anti road racing. But as I got older road racing started to appeal to me more because of the value for money. Compared to short circuits, on the roads you were on the track for longer, it wasn’t as hard on tyres and it was just more enjoyable all around. It’s much more dangerous, but to a certain degree, any form of motorsport at all where speed is involved is dangerous because if it goes wrong, you know you’re going to hurt yourself.
Short circuits are dangerous as well, there’s just less furniture. So road racing’s a bit more dangerous in that respect, but it’s like a real bug. It’s very pleasing to go somewhere new, and have a look at it and put your wits against it. I started racing in 1994, but didn’t start racing roads seriously till ’99. Which led to the Manx GP. I first went to the Manx in 2000. I got a 2nd and a 7th on the 250.
I went with the ambition of getting a 100mph lap and I’d come away happy, but I did a 100mph lap the 2nd night of practice and was like “Oh Gosh, what am I gonna do now?” So it ended up being 110 mph. Martin Finnegan and I diced the whole race and he beat me by 4 seconds or something.
“I came back in 2002 and got two 2nd places, then I got a real good line up of bikes and the aim was to win the Manx Grand Prix in 2003, but I fell off at the Mid Antrim and broke my foot so that stopped me from coming. “So in 2004 I finished with a 2nd in the junior and won the senior Manx GP. 2004 was make or break year as I was making the step up to go to the TT, whether I got to the Manx again or not. Since then it’s been fulltime. “I do work during the winter but I race fulltime the rest of the year.
I began to take road racing very seriously around the time I was having a go at the Manx. I was getting obsessed with winning the Manx senior and it started to affect three or four of the other Irish meetings, so I decided to pull out of the Manx and focus on the TT which is included in the Irish championship. The Manx clashed with the Ulster GP and so forth, so it made sense to do the TT instead, and have been ever since.”
What inspired you to come to Macau?
“The reason I wanted to come to Macau was because I’d achieved a lot in my career and wanted to put Macau in my CV, to look at it and say I’d done it, and just to see it up close. Every circuit has its own difficulties and its own character. I’ve wanted since about 2006 to come here. It has no connection to the Irish season, it’s like a one-off race, but it holds a fair bit of prestige in the UK.
If you can win Macau or do well at Macau, you can put it in your CV and it can reflect well getting sponsorship and one thing or another.
At the end of the day it’s still a road race, a street circuit.”
Was there a stand out race that made you want to come to Macau?
“Not really. Just the hype, it’s always been there and I’ve always watched it on the TV. I loved the Irish guys that came here through the years and had been doing fairly well and me being one of the front runners at home I thought: well, I wonder how that circuit would treat me?
“I eventually got onto the ladder. It was a closed shop for a long time and was hard to get on, you had to be invited to come here and it was very difficult. I had tried endlessly to get onto the ladder to be in a position to come, but it was a closed shop for a good while.
Then some of the organisation changed and it became possible. Some of the organisers noticed me at the TT last year and asked me if I wanted to come? I told them I’d been trying to come for years! They told me to put an entry in and see, and I got the OK.
The lights were green!”
Is Macau one of your preferred races, or does it sit in between a few others?
“It’s one of the ones in between, but this has got so much going for me because of the weather conditions. I used to be really keen to race motorcycles in the rain and would bet my wets against any one, but as I get a little bit older, I suppose like everybody else that’s alive, you get a wee bit more sense and you don’t want to hurt as much as you can do, so racing in the wet doesn’t appeal to me as much as it used to. Here in Macau they don’t race in the wet and it’s on the other side of the world, so it’s a bit like a holiday, with some motorbikes in there as well, which makes it perfect.”
Could you compare it to the TT at all? Is Macau as intense?
“No it’s not as intense as the TT, but , it’s as physically demanding because of the heat involved. The circuit is a total contrast to the Isle of Man TT. Macau is fairly smooth. Whereas the TT has everything you would ever look at in a road race. If you took every road race you’ve ever done and put them together, there’s a wee bit of character from all of them at the TT. At Macau it’s really hard to learn the layout because all the Armco looks the same. It’s just totally different from everywhere else, everything looks similar.
I know there are markers above the Armco but when you are on the bike, you are pointing forward, you are looking forwards for the next corner not above the Armco for markers. Last year being a newcomer, I found it so difficult to learn that it was the different colours in the tarmac that helped me the most.
What was it like the first time at Macau?
“Intimidating… very, very scary. Make no mistake, they are all dangerous (road races) and it’s probably no more dangerous than anywhere else but it’s so, so in your face. There is no protection, it’s just Armco, like I mean if you fall off at the Isle of Man or anywhere else there’s a lot of furniture that you’re gonna hurt yourself with, but here all the furniture is painted red and black and it’s so in your face everywhere. It was just intimidation the first time.” ‘Cause you’re obviously used to changes in scenery and other landmarks?
“And colours, from grass to houses and stuff, here it’s just Armco… I suppose I was sort of gob-smacked. I’d watched it endlessly on TV, but no matter how much you watch it on TV and how many laps I had watched, when I got here, I was like oh my god this is so hard to learn. It didn’t give you a fair idea (TV) of how steep the inclines were and just how tight some of the hairpins are.
It was the lack of practice last year as a newcomer that was hard. I didn’t really get going till about the 6th lap of the race, so I really enjoyed the last four laps. But the heat was a major factor too, I had to take all that into consideration. It’s mild this year, but this morning for example, I got off the bike at 8am and was soaked with sweat. Up round the back you’re working very hard.”
Can you use Macau for bike set up or anything that would be of use next year?
“No, it’s the end of the year, you ship the bike out, and you don’t see it till after Christmas, it’s really a stand alone event, a holiday really.”
Is this more or less dangerous than the Irish stuff?
“They’re all the same, I don’t have a judgement on levels of dangers. If you fall off at a road race, you’ll more than likely hurt yourself. If you were to compare furniture though, this is more dangerous, there’s no grass, no run-off areas at all. Lisboa is the only road end that you’ve got, the rest of the place you’re hitting something. Like I said before it’s just so in your face, just Armco, there’s no chance of sliding off and not hitting something hard. Your eyes are like Bambi, they’re “this big” the whole way around, ha ha”
So then, what’s it like to race the Macau GP?
“Dangerous, Hot, Challenging. I’ve never raced motorbikes and not got that buzz of adrenalin, that fear and the nerves and stuff before a race, but I’m no more nervous at the start of a race here than I am at the Isle of Man. I think the heat is a big problem for the Irish riders here, we’re not used to racing in anything like it. A warm day in Ireland is still warm but nothing like this here. The heat is a major factor, with keeping yourself hydrated and what not. It gets to you after a while.
There is a lot more to remember here too. Unlike the Irish stuff it doesn’t have bumps and undulations that can help your memory.
They have the surface in such good condition here, I suppose because they have so much money here they don’t know what to do with it.”
For the record, Davy failed to finish the race, competing four laps.
Be the first to comment