I sure did, done bit of a write up below for anyone interested. Videos coming shortly!
Travel:
As I’m based in Devon I chose to fly from Bristol which meant I had to land in Alicante (or pay £800 for a connecting flight to Almeria). In order to get to Bristol we booked a 1 way hire car to get there which cost £70 from Newquay. The flight itself took off at 6:30 and we were landing by 10:15 local time. We booked a hire car from Goldcar for 4 days which cost £140 including fuel with a full to empty policy and we never had to refill the car.
Travelling to and from the track took about 35-40mins depending on traffic, there seemed to be a lot of lorries driving from the motorway towards the track so it was luck of the draw if you got stuck or not. The track itself was very easy to find with the directions they provided.
The way back was the same above in reverse. Unfortunately Focused Events don’t seem willing to try and put you in touch with other people doing the same journey to try and split the hire car costs/driving.
Hotel:
The hotel (located in Mojocar) which is included in the track day price was great, no complaints here. As I was with my Dad we had a double room so a living room, bedroom and bathroom with a view overlooking the beach and sea side. My only complaint with the room was the shower, it went from cold to burning and back rather frequently but this seemed to be the case everywhere. I guess Spanish plumbers are just no good!
The hotel has the usual features, bar, pool, hot tub and massage service. Unfortunately we didn’t even get time to use these facilities as the days passed by incredibly quickly.
The food was great, breakfast is included in the package and it’s an open buffet with plenty of choice from bacon, sausage, egg, cereal, fruit, bread, ham and cheese etc. You will find it very difficult to not find something you like. Dinner at the hotel costs 14 euros and is an all you can eat buffet with a selection of meat, fish, salad etc. I must say though if you don’t like fish (like me) the choice was a little limited. On the last night at the hotel we went out to an Argentinian steak house which was excellent, I certainly recommend giving it a visit!
One other thing to note is that you have to pay for parking in the underground car park it costs 8 euros a night. The hotel we were in had 2 separate buildings and the one opposite had free parking in their car park so look out for that.
The Track:
I can’t express how much fun this track is to ride, lots of corners that flow into one another. The first day I tried to attack the track and failed miserably, got really have to be patient and let it come to you. You spend a lot of time on the side of the tyres, there’re off camber corners going over blind crests that lead into another. It takes a bit of time to learn and find reference points, even after 3 days I felt I still had areas to improve on.
The track is rather grippy but it is quite dusty if you wonder off line. There’re 0 tarmac run offs so if you do make any mistakes you have to run through deep gravel as I did (didn’t come off luckily) so there’s little room for error.
The facilities at the track were fine, pit garages were spacious (was only 10 of us though), toilets close by and the restaurant was surprisingly good. It’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere so noise isn’t an issue either which is great!
Open Pit Lane:
This was an exclusive open pit lane event which meant as much track time as you wanted with a few riders, as it happened there were only 10 people there which meant you hardly saw another bike on track. I believe they normally aim for 30 people but this time it didn’t happen. The atmosphere was incredibly relaxed, the day pretty much ran itself and you just rode as and when you felt you wanted to. I certainly recommend this over the groups if you can afford the difference, in all honesty I didn’t ride much more than I would have with groups due to the heat and how tiring it was but the quality of the track time was much higher. Pretty cool having a race track to yourself!
The other benefit was there were no ignorant people there, you pretty much spoke to everyone and we all went to dinner and such together. Everyone had their own story and it was pretty interesting getting to know them. One guy sponsors Guy Martin and was riding one of his race bikes from 2 years ago, Mark Higgins (British rally champion) was there and there were also some people that have instructed in the past and such.
Of course it does come at a premium at £689 for 3 days rather than £400 for 4 days, but based on my experience of group sessions I can’t recommend it enough. It was great that Kevin (Focused Events owner) wasn’t there, everyone seemed to dislike him and the way he talks to people, if you’ve ever done a track day with Focused Events you will know what I’m on about. Barry who was running the day is a really nice guy and easy to talk to.
General Feedback:
I was quite nervous about this trip, planning everything to get myself and my bike there. Everything went to plan, bike was faultless all 3 days and everything went smoothly. I would recommend protecting your bike well as they did seem to drop a few, one couple there covered them in duvets and shrink wrapped them which looked like a good idea.
I managed to lap consistently at 1:52 during day 3, I know I’m capable of more but I was quite tired by the 3rd day and given that it was 33C-35C every day it was hard going. I certainly learnt a lot about improving my riding technique and what I need to work on, I’m already itching to go back and go faster. To put it into perspective, a decent fast group track day lap time is high 1:40's, club racers do low-mid 1:40's, BSB teams are doing 1:36-1:40 in testing and Esteve Rabat does 1:35's for breakfast every morning. Considering this was my 5th time on track and first time at Almeria I came away believing I could break into the 1:40's with practice and improving my fitness!
I took a spare set of Supercorsa's with me which I ended up putting on at the end of day 1. The Bridgestone S20's I had on the bike just didn't feel good, I don't know if it was due to the heat but they were moving about a lot and the front even locked up when braking at the end of the long straight. The Supercorsa's though were brilliant but they're past the legal limit after 2 days on track.
I’m seriously considering turning the R6 into a full time track bike as the thrill of chasing lap times was such good fun, but I always had it in my mind I was on my road bike. There’s also the fact that riding on the road seems less fun on a sportsbike because you just can’t use it safely. Decision to be made over winter!
If anyone has any questions feel free to ask, if there is interest in an OCUK European track day count me in!
