And more than 100 years after the invention of the motor car
Donington and the local cops still haven't figured out how to direct traffic. Even at 10am on Friday morning it was taking nearly an hour to cover the three or four miles from the M1 to the track. If it's raining on Sunday - almost inevitable - there could be chaos.
The tragedy is that Britain, once a world leader in motorcycle racing, hasn't got a track that comes anywhere near the majesty of the great Spanish or Italian venues.
Brands Hatch is one of the world's finest motorcycle racing circuits, but presumably doesn't meet
MotoGP safety standards. People say that
Silverstone is boring - but I prefer it to dreary Donington perched up on its exposed Midland plan.
Friday 5.05pm - Why Vermeulen Wants it Dry, Even Though He Could Win in the Wet
Look, there's something weird going on here. Australia swelters in a drought climate, but their motorcycle riders come to Europe and splash through our washed-out tracks like they were brought up in Holland or England.
Chris Vermeulen wins the drenching French Grand Prix on his Rizla Suzuki, and now MotoGP new boy
Anthony West makes his debut in the 800cc class by setting the seventh fastest time today on the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-RR. So what's the deal - how do Aussies do this? I head for Rizla Suzuki's base after the second session to get the lowdown from Vermeulen.
"I don't know why it is," he starts. But then the answer wells up from his sub-conscious, as it so often does with racers. "Maybe it's that all of us -
Troy Bayliss, Casey, Anthony West and me - grew up on dirt tracks where you have to be very smooth with everything and really feel what's happening."
So that's it then - must be easy for an Aussie to feed 220-horsepower through a contact patch the size of your credit card while the bike's floating over a puddle. Not so, according to Vermeulen.
