It’s impossible to start this column without talking about the penultimate round of the 2019 World Superbike championship, which saw planes, trains and automobiles make their way to the San Juan Villicum circuit in Argentina. First on the calendar in 2018, the whole paddock was looking forward to returning to the picturesque circuit at the foot of the Andes. But this was all to change…
To cut a long and frankly laughable story short, required resurfacing work that was requested a year ago, ended up being completed only a week before everyone arrived at the circuit. So not a single racing lap had been completed by anything, let alone a motorcycle. Sections of the circuit were completely green and brand new. Adding to that, once the afternoon temperatures rose, oils from the freshly laid tarmac emerged on the surface and turned it into an ice rink. Coupled with a race track absolutely coated in a thick layer of dust made a bit of a joke of a ‘World Championship’ event. Cars were sent out to try and clean a line, while groups of marshals blew the dust straight back on to it, showing that organisation clearly wasn’t a strong point of the Argentine organisers. The times on Friday were well down from 2018 because of this, and although a very narrow racing line did eventually emerge, it was the concerns of going off-line and actually overtaking one another that got people and the riders talking.As you may have seen by now, the riders grouped together on Saturday and held a meeting amongst themselves on track conditions. It seemed that most of them thought that the conditions were unsafe, even though the FIM said the opposite and in turn had homologated the circuit for racing. So why did they race?Well, by then there had already been two national races held on the verry same circuit, so it seemed ridiculous that itwas safe enough for some, but in theirminds unsafe for others.Therewas talk of pressure fromteams for the riders to participate and even rumours of large fines for riderswho didn’t take to the grid…