Track Day Tales: Three Days At Andalucia Circuit

Andalucia Circuit Track Day Key Details

The Circuito de Andalucia in Almería, Spain, is one of the most popular destinations for UK riders looking for motorcycle track days in Spain. This article reviews a three-day No Limits Trackdays event, covering the circuit layout, riding experience, costs and whether it’s worth the trip.

Lessons Learnt

The first lesson I learnt on the No Limits Track Day at Andalucia is not to fly into Malaga. It is a three-and-a-half-hour drive to the hotel, during which you will drive past the Andalucia circuit.

Alicante is the better option, or even Mercia if you can get a flight from a nearby airport.

The second lesson on the Andalucia track day was to make sure your car hire company is based at the airport and not a shuttle bus ride away. Having found the pickup point, waited for the minibus, and then formed a queue to book in and get a car, another couple of hours had gone by, and I still had the three-and-a-half-hour drive.

And with the public service announcements out of the way, three days on track with No Limits at the Andalucia Circuit … What happened and was it worth it? There is a lot to get through … you might want to grab a mug of tea.

Day Zero

Having found the hotel, and as it is part of the No Limits overall package, all I had to say at reception was “I’m with No Limits,” and my room key appeared.

No Limits uses Telegram to communicate, and shortly after arriving, I received a message letting me know I could sign on from 6pm.

Having shown my repatriation insurance (medical) and my passport to prove I was actually me, I was asked which group I wanted to be in. Considering it is my first time at the Andalucia Circuit, I’m on a road bike with Dunlop Roadsmart IV tyres, standard suspension, and the optimistic hope that not too many of the 80HP the GSX650F had when it left the factory 18 years ago had evaporated, “as low as I can go, please” seemed the best answer.

As part of the hotel deal, No Limits had arranged for early breakfasts each morning. Normally, the restaurant opened at 8:00, but for those keen to get to the circuit each morning, breakfast was available from 6:15.

At this point, you might be wondering when I’ll actually get to the track time. I promise it is coming soon, but I wanted to point out just how well organised the No Limits European Track Days are. Everything ran like clockwork, and No Limits has been doing this long enough to know what is important.

That 6:15 breakfast – a few rolls, stewed coffee, and have a nice day? Not a chance. Full-on menu that could easily add at least 2 seconds to your lap time.

First Day On Track

Suitably fed, and having driven to the circuit, there was Screamer on the Silage/Stillage (pick your preferred spelling ), but not the one I had loaded it onto.

At the Mallory loading, they had ended up with two solo bikes, and No Limits had combined them. Slightly disconcerting to see everything packed a little differently, but it was all there, apart from the giant roll of cling film.

Finding space in the garages is simple enough, and everyone is polite. A team of three started to unload in the same space as I’d picked, thinking that my stuff was some of theirs. Once the mistake became obvious, they were very apologetic, way more than was needed, for such a simple misunderstanding.

I took the part of the garage that no one wanted because there were no electrical outlets. As I’m running Dunlop Roadsmart IV road tyres, I don’t need tyre warmers. That said, getting ridden around on the first lap and a half of every session, while my road tyres warmed up, rather than being on slicks fresh out of the blankets, was slightly frustrating.

Following my colleague Richard’s advice (AKA Dr Doughnuts), I parked Screamer in the Spanish sunshine, or as he calls it, the eco-friendly tyre warmer.

But who was I kidding? I was up against some fast bikes and more experienced track riders, so I wasn’t losing anything, with “cold tyres”.

With the briefing complete and the sessions for the two faster groups finished, I dutifully followed the instructor out of the pit lane for the two sighting laps, when a lot happened at once.

It turned out that watching numerous onboards without having first ridden the circuit had given me nothing. I had no idea where I was going. Next, I noticed the instructor looking back a lot, as if he was wondering if I’d got lost. I did what I could to up the pace, but with no idea what corner came next, I was a little hesitant to trust to luck.

Once on the long back straight, life got a little easier, as the straight ends with a hairpin, followed, a respectable distance later, by a right-angle left, and on to the pit straight, which has a slight kink in it.

However, breaking for the right-hander, where the pitlane exit is (watch any of the Andalucia YouTube videos, and you’ll know where I am), I found a bump while still on the rear brake.

The resulting moment, according to the accelerometer in my bum, was cataclysmic; in reality, nothing more than a slight twitch, but the thought of failing to finish a single lap before I threw it at the scenery flashed through my mind. Thankfully, I made it through the first session of the day without any serious problems and kept it upright.

Riding The Andalucia Circuit

In racing speak, the circuit would be described as technical. There are a lot of blind crests and corners where you can’t quite see the exit until you are pitching into the corner.

Reference points around the circuit are difficult to spot, and relying on a single point, such as a Marshal Hut, works only if you are on the right line, and on day one, I had little idea if I was.

Thankfully, the circuit is wide, and there is space to run deep into a lot of the corners if you get it wrong.

I did get it so wrong on that first morning that, trying to make turn 4, the downhill right-hander, that a trip across the Andalucian countryside was the best option. No harm done, and I spent the rest of the day treating my ability to get that corner right with a healthy degree of scepticism.

Instruction

Deciding that I needed help from someone who knew what they were doing, I booked in with John Wells. Oh, what an education.

John is too polite to use such language, but the summary of my performance around Andalucia is best described as crap. There was nothing but things for me to improve in the feedback, and even some fundamentals of track riding that I was missing.

I was approaching the circuit as a competent road rider who had had all the speeding restrictions lifted, which, it turns out, is completely different from track riding. [Surprise ~ Ed.]

The biggest issue was my body positioning. Yes, I was sticking a knee out and even looking through the corner, but getting my body into the right position to lean off the bike effectively wasn’t happening. I was on a spirited Sunday ride, fixed in the saddle with my head on a swivel.

Back in the garage, John worked me through the basics of locking my boot, bracing with my leg and getting half my arse off the seat, so my head was looking through the corners, and my elbow was out.

If you want to know how to do this stuff, then proper instruction is the key. Don’t ask me because I will still be doing something wrong, but the difference this made to my track riding was immense. Everything John said – very politely – was right on the money.

Now that the bike was turning faster, I was able to get onto some of the lines John had shown me. As it is easier to shift your weight between the corners, I was quickly learning the track, rather than waiting for the corner to arrive and then sorting things out.

The process is called “kinaesthetic encoding”; The pairing of information with a physical action, which strengthens memory and learning abilities.

Track Time Day Two

At the end of the first day, my tyres looked impressively chewed up. The amount of “bubble gum” on the edge of the rear and the way the front was wearing were everything you could wish for if I were looking to impress people at the local bike night.

I wasn’t overly happy with the amount of “gum” and checked with a few people who really understand tyres at a technical level, and back came the strong suggestion that I was running the pressures too low.

There is a lot spoken about tyre pressures and track days, but the advice from Mike Abbott – he of the British Superbike School – was that a few pounds is all I needed to lower the pressures by, and I’d gone too far.

The majority of the second day was me putting into practice everything John had given me the day before. Some of it came easily, and other parts were harder to get right consistently, but by the end of the day, I’d taken a big chunk out of my lap time.

As for the hero blobs on the bottom of the footrests, they were half the size they had been at the start of the day. Body position does more than help the bike turn; it also helps balance some of the forces acting on the bike and makes it easier to hold the bike cranked over in longer corners.

Back To Onboards

Turns 9 and 10 look like three right-handers when you first see them, but are taken as one, something I couldn’t get right. (The middle of the three is more an apex than a corner.)

Now that I had a fair idea of which part of the circuit was which, I returned to watching onboards repeatedly that night until I figured out where I was going wrong.

And the Dunlop Roadsmart IVs, now I had put more pressure in them? Still chewed on the edges, but not nearly as badly. On the first few laps, I wondered if the extra pressure would make them slide, but nothing of the sort happened, and by lap three I’d forgotten about changing them.

The Roadsmart IVs just stuck, no matter how much abuse I was giving them.

Riding – Day Three

By the time day three dawned, the routine for the day was very familiar. Sleep later than the first day, as the blue group were not on track until 10:40. No need for the early breakfast, but it is available for those who prefer it.

Arrive at the circuit around 9:30, check over the bike and then park it in the sunshine. Leathers on, have the 2^nd nervous wee of the day, and wait to be called to the end of the pit lane.

After a full-on day two, I now had some spare brain space to start looking around. I spotted a weed growing at the very edge of the track, lining up with the end of the tyre wall. I now had a three-way fix on the turn-in point for turn 4, the one that had me grass tracking on day one.

Coming out of turn three, still accelerating, I could line up the weed and the end of the tyre wall. When the time came to brake, shift my arse off the seat, lock my left leg into the tank, and as I passed the marshal post on the right, turn in, looking for the apex on the right, which until I’d turned was hidden in the dip.

Essentially, I was no longer in panic mode, but had some spare brain space to think. I’d started talking to myself and could feel the difference between a hooked-up lap and when I’d made mistakes.

The “three” right-hand turns (9 and 10), I could now work on getting right. Carrying more speed into the first, slowing towards the middle apex, shuffle down a gear or two, and then into the last of the three.

I was still getting murdered on the straight, but there was nothing to be done about that. No matter how hard I came out of turn 12 onto the straight, eventually those with way more power would pass me.

But all was not lost.

As I’m not going as fast when it comes time to brake, I’m braking later, and potentially I weigh less than the litre bikes do. Thanks to John’s instruction, coupled with time on the straight to get everything set up, I was hanging off the bike and driving like hell out of the hairpin.

I could stick with the faster bikes through the corners, and eventually, the chance to pass someone in a corner presented itself. His tricked-out litre bike went past me on the straight, but for a few corners, I wasn’t the slowest. Happy days.

Time to Stop

During the last session of the morning (day three), I was grinding the foot pegs so much that I could feel the rear starting to unload in long corners. John (the instructor) told me that this was unlikely, and what I was experiencing was the rear starting to spin when accelerating while still cranked over.

That was the point at which I opted to stop. Either answer was enough for me. I’d arrived, discovered I was approaching track riding like a road rider, despite several track days last year, and if I was now getting the rear end to squirm, it was time to stop.

The bike was in one piece and had been faultless – unlike some of the race bikes, which appeared to need constant fettling. I was also in one piece with no lumps, bumps or bruises. My boots had taken some abuse on day one, but now I was tucking them out of the way.

It was time to load the silage/stillage, cover Screamer and my gear in cling film and go drink a beer in the sunshine.