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SILVERSTONE MOTOGP SWITCH: MORE CHICANERY?

Donington Park bought the rights to host FIM World Road Racing Championship (MotoGP) for a quid about 22 years ago. Silverstone decided in 1986 it didn't want to be mucking about with the low-rent motorcycles and parked its cucumber sandwiches firmly in the car racing paddock.

Donington has put on a pretty good show during its time hosting MotoGP. The atmosphere at the track, especially if you sit halfway down Craner Curves, can be electrifying (even more so when 500cc two-strokes were heading at you).

OK, compared to newer tracks, the facilities aren't great. The hoof'n'ringpiece burgers are undernice and overgreasy. The campsite, apparently, isn't much to write home about and the actual pit and paddock complex isn't a great deal better than Snetterton. And don't get me started on access.

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However, all this is changing. There is a lot of doom and gloom about Donington's revamp. A lot of people think it will never happen, or that it will ruin a perfectly good track, blah blah.

I understand from the powers that be Donington wasn't even given the chance to host MotoGP after it contract runs out. I also understand that Dorna got fed up with the facilities being sub-standard. As I said up there a bit, this is all changing.

Dorna, for some reason, just doesn't like Donington Park. They might find, however, that British fans like Silverstone even less. But the Northamptonshire track is also going to make some changes, apparently. And it needs to.

The track's big selling points, so it says, are heritage and ease of access. Great. "I can't see anything because of this bloody great fence set back 100 yards from the track. But I will be able to get out, and doesn't the heritage smell lovely?" Except, if you've ever tried to get out of Silverstone after a BSB round, it isn't as easy as they make out. Unless you have a helicopter.

Silverstone's biggest problems are atmosphere and viewing. The first one is difficult as you can't buy it in. The second, however, is a case of grandstands in the right places. The track is an old airfield so is flat, which never makes for great spectacting.

In the 70s, when the thing was effectively four straights and four corners, it was easy to watch. But, with the addition of nannying chicanes, it doesn't flow and stuff gets in the way. The track used to have big earth banks to stand on, which were levelled to make way for, er, erm...

So, Mr Hill, more and higher grandstands required then and the judicious use of a JCB and several hundred tons of muck.

Speaking of chicanes, there's the Woodcote problem. Back in the day, when men were men and women were grateful as my old dad used to say, bikes used the full GP track.

Of course, Silverstone was responsible for some great races. The 1979 Sheene/Roberts battle being the most memorable. And it was the site of Sheene's second most remembered crash, in 1982.

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However, in those days, there wasn't the amount of white paint on the corner there is now, which is not a good thing when it's wet. The paint/precipiation combination would undoubtedly cause a 140mph rider/concrete wall interface. To prevent that, the track's bosses must have stayed up all night to come up with the most Mickey Mouse chicane in Christendom to which BSB and WSB riders are/were treated.

Silverstone cannot expect Dorna, IRTA or the FIM (as toothless as it is) to accept the Woodcote chicane as it sits, so it's is going to have to remodel the track. But they can't bugger about with the section from Luffield Out to Woodcote as that will cause car racing wallahs to spit their respective dummies out of their respective cots.

So, the chicane is going to have its general wankiness scaled down. I would suggest canning it altogether and making the track flow from Luffield In onto the apex of the existing Woodcote corner. But no-one will listen to me.

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