This weekend I attended the Weston Beach Race. I didn't go on purpose, but if UK's biggest off track motorcycle event is held on your doorstep plus I can use my volunteer privilege to get on the See Monster and see it from a birds eye view I'm not going to turn down the opportunity right?
The Beach Race is in it's 39th year and is held on our beach along a 6km long race track for motorcycles and quads. It starts off with a 2km long straight stretch along the seafront where hundreds of bikes roar ahead trying to gain advantage position. I live 10 minutes walk away from the beach, and yesterday I heard the roars at home that went on for ages so I was really looking forward to see it live. The main motor cycle race, the adult solo, was on Sunday afternoon and there were over 730 contestants. I arrived at the top of the See Monster in time to see the start of the race. It was an amazing sight hearing and smelling so many motor cycles come out from the parc ferme to the starting line, revving their engines like a pack of wasps. From the moment the gates opened it was absolute carnage! Check out my video below.
The riders does a sprint about 100m followed by a hairpin bend, either over the sand dunes or further towards the end for a smooth turn and avoid crashing into one another. Most opted to turn over the sand dunes and in my video below you will see a bit of the carnage on the bottom right of the screen. It was absolute madness!!
From there on, it s a 2km sprint along the sea front which I'm told is what makes this whole race so exicting.
The remaining part of the track goes up and down along the beach. One section has 10 massive sand dunes which have been piled up purposely over the past couple of weeks. Then the contestants do a hairpin turn (more carnage) and the next section consists of many smaller sand dunes. And finally they reach the large sand dune to arrive back at the starting point to complete a lap. Each lap takes around 10 to 15 minutes for the pros, with the best rider taking 8 minutes only, and they race non stop for 3 hours.
I hanged around for about half an hour and headed back down to ground level to check out the rest of the venue. The venue and camp site takes up the entire seafront and sadly it was ticket only. The ticket price was £25 which I found rather expensive. I get it there's a lot going on and logistic wise it's a very big event, but since I got some awesome footage already, I wasn't going to pay £25 to take some photos of food stalls, and people enjoying themselves.
I took a video of the start of the race, hopefully you will find it as exciting as I did watching it live.
And if you're interested to see what the track is like, here's a video of it from the organizers. It's introduced by Todd Kellett, five times winner of this event, the last win being this afternoon!! Congrats Todd!
