More of the faithful are trudging through the village of La Cueva, humping their cool-boxes of beer and vino to fuel their
passion during the long day to come. Out in 'the zoo' - the grassy hillsides where 100,000 frenzied punters will erupt if
Jorge Lorenzo or
Dani Pedrosa win the big race - the car horns are already blazing, even though dawn is still an hour away.
It's 7am on Sunday at the Spanish grand prix here at
Jerez, and the hardcore punters know that they have to be inside this circuit by 7.30am, or suffer in a two-hour jam on the roads outside.
Everybody should come to a
MotoGP race in a Latin country to experience what
Valentino Rossi calls
la emoción. We're staying in a
casa de huéspedes - (guest house) - for just €50 a night for a twin-bedded room overlooking a vast Andalucian landscape, our rental car costs just €19 a day, a flight around €100.
What can we expect to see on this 2.75-mile track? Looking at the string of 11 consecutive laps in the 1 minute 40 second bracket reeled off by Lorenzo on race Michelins yesterday, before he set that stunning 1-38.189 pole effort, you'd have to say that he starts as clear favourite - if he can make a fast getaway.
But Pedrosa and Rossi will want to tangle the 20-year-old in a three-way scrap, where his inexperience on a 200-horsepower MotoGP bike could lead him to commit errors.
Saturday pm - 'Private' Edwards Could Finally Get That Win
Colin Edwards relaxed on the balcony outside the media centre at Jerez and expanded on his new career as
not a factory rider.
"The thing about being in a factory team is that you have a Japanese guy behind you saying they want to try an idea, and it should go this way and that way. But over here we're just doing what we want to do," he said after hitting the front row for the second consecutive race.
