Assen calls itself the Cathedral of Speed, a somewhat pretentious title in a staunchly Calvinist country. It is, however, without doubt one of the best race-tracks in the world, despite the recent “improvements” required to bring it up to higher safety standards.
It’s the national circuit of the Netherlands and I guess I’ve wanted to go there since the great days when Carl Fogarty was king of Assen winning the double victory year after year in the 1990s. He seemed unbeatable on the Ducati at Assen, but there were exceptions - John Kocinski in 1997 (that must have really galled) and Frankie Chili the following year. Chili was on a Ducati (like Fogarty) and seemed a real threat to his championship title that year. Chili won the first race and took the lead from Foggy on the last lap of the second.
He was leading into the last corner - the famous chicane before the start/finish straight - but Fogarty dived up the inside, out-braked him, Chili grabbed too much front brake, lost the front and crashed. Foggy took the victory.
It was brilliant to watch on Sky Sports, but how much better would it have been to be there?
World Superbikes hasn’t quite been the same since Fogarty retired, but it’s had some great action all the same and, last year, there was a fantastic finish to the season when Max Biaggi took the title by half a point from Tom Sykes.
This year, Tom and I decided we’d do Assen, the TT and the German round of WSB at the Nurburgring (which we planned to ride to). We’ll not do Germany now, but Assen and the TT are on.
So on Friday, I set off for Brussels, the idea being to spend Friday with Tom and Lucia, hire a car to drive to Assen on the Saturday, back to Brussels on Sunday evening and home on Monday.
Tom is now teaching English classes in the evening at a language school in Brussels; fortunately, he doesn’t have classes on a Friday, so we were able to plan an evening out. My Eurostar train put a bit of a damper on things by being over an hour late thanks to a problem in the Channel Tunnel, which meant that I had to forego a visit to the military museum near Tom’s apartment. I was able to stay over with him as there was a spare room, so that helped keep the cost down.
On Friday evening, we took a bus across town to a restaurant called Bugatti. The bus trip took ages to get through the Brussels traffic (far worse than London) but what is good is that there’s an app which tells you how long you’ll have to wait for a bus. This meant that instead of standing in the cold rain for 15 minutes, we could pop inside a bar and have a quick Chimay Blue. It also meant that, on the way home, we could linger inside the warm restaurant and then nip out a minute before the bus was there. Some things in Brussels work well - that’s one and I’ve found one other. On the metro, they have vertical handrails which branch into three. It means that more people can easily hold on. In London, the underground trains have single rails and, when it’s crowded, there’s not enough rail for all the hands that want to grab it. Also, if you get someone leaning against the rail (which happens all the time) no-one can hold on unless you force your fingers between body and rail. I’ve done that a few times; oh yes - and dug my knuckles into their back. The Brussels metro could accommodate one leaner and still have plenty of room for others to hold on.
Bugatti came highly recommended by Tom and it was very good. We drank beer, not wine, a Triple Carmelite and I have to say, I’m becoming a fan of Belgian beer. Before going to Brussels to see Tom, my view of Belgian beer was based on some awful wheat beer and stuff flavoured with cherries, which made lager and lime seem like a tasty treat.
I like the idea of drinking stronger beer in smaller quantities and I like the ceremony attached to each beer having its own glass. I also like the complexity of taste in Belgian beer.
In Bugatti, I had Belgian asparagus with parmesan shavings. Unlike English asparagus, which is picked and cooked as a young green shoot, the Belgians do theirs the French way - it’s thicker and is blanched white. For my main course, I had steak with pepper sauce. It was tender, juicy and perfectly cooked (one of the best steaks I’ve ever had). We had a much quicker bus journey home and I went straight to bed with the prospect of a fairly early start next day.
I’m not sure if it’s unfamiliarity, bad signposting, the fact that I don’t have to think for myself, or the speed that Tom strides around, but I do struggle to find my way about the metro and places like the Gare du Midi. Getting from Tom’s flat to our hire car deep in an underground car park in the Gare du Midi would have taken me twice as long and nothing seems to work in a logical way. For example, to get out of the car park we needed two tickets (given to us as the Hertz desk with instructions to put one in first and then the other - they even wrote on them 1 and 2 so we’d be sure). When we reached the first barrier, we put in ticket no 1 and it said incorrect ticket. Not sure what to do (as we were expecting another barrier) we decided to put in the second ticket and the barrier lifted. We then drove to the exit (there wasn't a second barrier). The exit was closed by a roller shutter but had a green light in front of it. As we approached the green light turned red and then the shutter started to rise to let us out.
Hertz, like every hire company I’ve ever used, didn’t have the car that they’d promised us. we’d booked a Ford Ka, but there were no Kas so were were “upgraded” to a FIAT Cinquecento Cabrio for another €5 per day. Oddly, Tom seemed quite pleased and it took him a full day to realise we were driving around in a girls’ car. Despite the image problem, it did the job fairly well and I had plenty of legroom as a two-seater with the front seats pushed well back.
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| Our girly hire car - Tom liked to call it Black Beauty |
Once we were out of Brussels, we made pretty good time and got to Assen in about four hours. We went straight to the circuit and were parked up behind the main stand on the start/finish straight. Tom had done a baguette with cheese and we had a huge slice of chocolate cake each, courtesy of Lucia, who is a pretty good baker.
We sat in the public banking to eat our lunch and were able to see the last sessions of morning warm-up. There was a massive TV screen in front of us and we wondered if that might be a good place to watch on race day. We could see the first corner and the start, while that big screen gave a great view. The difference between Assen and somewhere like Donington Park is massive. Assen (like all of the Netherlands) is immaculate and well organised. Everything is well-kept and well laid-out, In Donington, there are a few banks, but they’re all cinder and no seats (and the toilets are a nightmare). Assen is surrounded by high grass banks and purpose-built stands and many of the grass banks have proper tiers and plastic seats screwed into stainless-steel frames. There are good facilities, the toilets are clean (although they charge you 50 cents a time) and chaps can also go in one of many portable latrines dotted around the perimeter. These are plastic structures in pods of four with each urinal facing into a central spine. You’re weeing in full view of the public (they don’t bother with screens) but they don’t worry about such things on the Continent.
After lunch, it was a pit lane walk, so we had an hour before there was any more action. We strolled around the back of the stand and grabbed a couple of beers. Almost everyone speaks good English (which is just as well because my Dutch is limited to danke vell). The barmaid, who realised we were English, immediately racially stereotyped us by asking if the frothy beer was all right. Tom said it was fine and she said most English people moaned that it was all froth - just the northern ones, we told her.
The afternoon programme was qualifying sessions with one race - the Superstock 600 - thrown in. It was a good afternoon, with Superbikes having and all British front row and Sam Lowes taking pole in Supersport. It had been cold and wet on Friday, but Saturday improved to “cold but sunny” and we were just about warm enough provided we could stay in the sun and keep out of the wind. When the Superstock 600 race was red-flagged on the first lap, we were tempted to call it a day, but we stuck with it and there was some good racing.
Tom had booked us in to a hotel called the Golden Tulip in Westerbork, which is just a few miles from the circuit. Westerbork was the site of a large concentration camp during the Second World War and parts of it have been preserved. It’s now the major attraction if you look for tourist sites in the areas. Sat-nav (as usual) took us via a strange route to the hotel and when we got there, it was a little confusing because the Golden Tulip had become the Ruyghe Venne - there had been a rebrand. It was a nice, comfortable hotel and was only 15 minutes walk from the centre of town.
I would have happily eaten in the hotel, but Tom was keen to walk into town and in the end I was pleased that we did. It was a brisk 15 minutes walk through woods and the outskirts of the town. The Netherlands is so neat and smart. The country always looks as if it has had a new haircut, Belgium looks as if it’s not been to the barber for years and England hasn’t shaved for a couple of days.
We found a small bar/restaurant and managed to get some Belgian beer (a triple Carmelite) and I had fried calves’ liver. Tom said he could translate the menu, but it turns out he knew little more than meat or fish - I had meat and he had fish. The waiter spoke good English and the food was very good.
Next day promised to be sunny and not so windy and the early morning saw a white frost over the cars, including our little black friend. It was going to burn off quickly and we were able to set off for the track at about 8.30 with plans to grab a seat in the stand by the chicane. Plans went a little awry - once we got back on the main road heading for Assen, we saw signs for the circuit much earlier than before and (like good citizens) decided to follow those. The route took us through various back roads out into the countryside and brought us to the track without hitting any traffic jams, but at the opposite side to where we wanted to be - exactly opposite as it happens. There was nothing for it but to enjoy an early morning walk of a couple of miles. It gave us chance to look around the west side of the track and, with bikes warming up, to see how fast some of the corners were over that side. The Netherlands, as you will know, is very flat - it seems flatter than the Cambridgeshire fens (if that’s possible) - which means that as soon as you gain a little height (the top of a bank or the back of a stand) you can see for miles. From the top of high banking, we could see huge parts of the track and for miles across fertile farmland. I’m not sure how far above (or below) sea level we were, but there are drainage ditches everywhere.
We could have watched from there, but we wanted to be where the crucial action is at Assen - the final chicane, where we’d also have a big screen so we could keep tabs on what was happening at other sections. Once we got round that side, it was much busier but we got a decent seat in the stand by the chicane.
There was a guy in front of us who looked much the worse for wear. He clearly hadn’t been to a nice restaurant and enjoyed a couple of beers (a couple of dozen more like). He had a black woollen hat on and was well wrapped up. I thought he was semi-conscious, but he stirred into life when his phone went off and it was his friend who needed directions to where he was. When he pulled his hat off he had a ratty mohican cut and a Mad Sunday T-shirt with a map of the Isle of Man TT course on the back. His friend was thin, with a goatee beard and, judging by his paddock jacket (which had a ginger-haired leprechaun on the back) he was a Eugene Laverty fan. They were both Irish.
The thin guy had a 2-litre bottle of water, which he swigged from often, so I guessed there had been a bit of a party the night before. We got chatting (like you do) and I asked him why he liked Eugene Laverty and not Jonathan Rae. He said Rae didn’t want to be Irish (in other words, he had God Save the Queen played if he was on the top step of the podium). He was from the Republic of Ireland and I said I was surprised those things still mattered these days. I said I wanted Tom Sykes to win, but I was always going to cheer the best rider and it didn’t matter which country he came from. We all then agreed that Laverty was a class act.
There were actually three Irish guys, but the third mate had drunk so much that he couldn’t get out of the tent that morning, he was still sleeping it off! They had been drinking with some Dutch guys the night before and it had all got a little out of hand. At some stage, they’d decided to try to get into the paddock, but hadn’t been able to get through the security fence. It was a good thing they couldn’t - it wouldn’t have been great to have nicked a superbike and tried a fast lap of Assen at 3am. They were Japanese 600 fans and both had owned Suzuki GSX-R 600s, but the second guy had bought an Aprilia Tuono because it would be more comfortable for his girlfriend, who had promptly got pregnant and wouldn’t ride pillion on anything. We had a technical discussion about the merits of torque versus top end. I said I’d been brought up on British singles and had never revved a bike above 6,000. The first Irish guy said his revs never fell below 6,000!
Tom and I were knocking back the weak local lager in the sunshine, which was nice, but the Irish stuck to rehydrating water. Their third friend arrived just before the second superbike race, so he’d travelled all that way, got pissed, slept in with a hangover and saw just the one race.
The racing was pretty good. Tom Sykes dominated the first race, winning by around eight seconds, but there was a good battle for podium places. In the second race, Eugene Laverty just managed to pip Sykes. Best race was probably the Supersport, where Sam Lowes managed a win, thanks to a brave pass at the chicane on the last lap. It was a good day for the British Isles.
After the Supersport race, there were a couple of of races to see (a Dutch Superbike race and a 250cc single - basically Moto3 - race, plus Dutch Superbike qualifying). We walked around the east side of the circuit, pausing frequently at different vantage points to watch the racing so that, by the time we reached the exit, all the racing was done. At Donington Park, we’d now be facing a 90-minute wait to get out of the car park, but the Dutch are much better organised. We pretty much drove straight out with just a couple of cars in front of us. Only hold-up was where we got stuck behind a couple of bikes for about a minute.
We retraced our route of the morning to get back to the main road. The houses in this part of Drenthe are quite distinctive, brick built and often with thatched roofs, some have part tiled, part thatched roofs. The roads are all tree-lined and very close planted trees at that. You’d be hard pressed to skid off the road without hitting one! Where trees are missing, young ones have been planted in their place, so they are keen to keep the look of the landscape intact. Even smaller Dutch roads have a cycle track running alongside and they are well used. There are cycle racks at bus stops where you can park and lock your bike - it’s a completely different philosophy to the UK. Even the bikes are different, most are sit-up-and-beg machines like my mum and dad would have ridden in their youth; it seems they prefer comfort over speed and 21 gears.
We made good time on the way back to Brussels and were able to return the car, post the keys and be back at the flat by about 9.30pm.
Monday was my last day in Brussels and we used the damp morning to do a little exploring. I don’t have much luck with Belgium and the weather, last time I was here it was ice and snow; this time it was warmer, but quite wet. We took refuge in a cafe for the worst shower (had a chocolate and a game of chess), took in the Grand Place, decided to give the beer museum a miss, was appalled by the prices of Chimay goblets in the beer shop and ended up (where else?) in a bar. Highlight of the morning was avoiding the Manneken Pis, but this being Brussels - a city obsessed with the act of urination - we did stumble across the Zinneke Pis, which is a statue of a dog cocking its leg against a post on the street. There’s no water here (which is a bit of a cheat) and the Chinese tourists are not standing six deep to photograph it and actually, I quite like the joke. In England, the gypsies steal bronze Henry Moores to melt them down for scrap. If this was in London, it would be knocked off its legs and in the back of a scruffy Transit van the day after it was set up.
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| The zinneke pis (the Belgians have made a tourist attraction from weeing in public) |
The bar we went to was called Delerium and it was one of these places where you could enter at lunchtime and lose the whole day. We had a couple of glasses of their own-brand beer, which comes on tap. I liked the place, despite it being a tourist trap, but I imagine it gets quite unbearable with British stag parties at various times of the day. Beer at 9% ABV and available by the litre is a recipe for disaster.
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| Delerium - a great place to lose an entire afternoon! |
I’ll say nothing about the Eurostar home, except a small grumble about British passport control/border checks, which are slow, too many and useless. Quite why we need to be processed in St Pancras after being processed in Brussels is beyond me. Wouldn’t this doubled-up resource be better used on some other aspect of border control?
Other motorcycle-related posts:
TT Rider Deaths are in Your Hands
Will Michael Dunlop Become the Greatest TT Racer of all Time?
Closer to the Riders
Notes from the Isle of Man
Will Michael Dunlop Become the Greatest TT Racer of all Time?
Closer to the Riders
Notes from the Isle of Man
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