MAG Mega Show

Well for a mere 25 quid we got wrist bands for the MAG Mega Show and a 40 quid ticket for the racing and free entry to the evening parties (normally 5 quid each) at the Donington GP! So off we headed on a nice A road route to Donington. The journey took a bit longer than we anticipated due to Cathy's XS650 only wanting to use one cylinder for the last 70 or so miles. Around 10 of the last miles were riding around Donington Park looking for the MAG area because we foolishly used the wrong entrance. Eventually found it tucked away in the corner of a field.

Here's Cathy getting her priorities right and sorting out the radio for a bit of tennis.

After downing a bit of booze we went over to the exhibition hall to see some band playing ancient old songs that you had to be really old to appreciate. So Frankie was in her element but we dragged her back to the MAG beer tent for the rest of the evening.

In-between falling asleep, pretending to hit us, staggering around in an attempt to dance, Cathy would join in with the singing. We don't know what Frankie is doing here!

There was a bike show in the MAG area on the Saturday.

We had a look at the race track to see some of the qualifying races. Frankie spent some time telling us that we were looking at 125's as her experienced ear could tell by the sound. We were all very impressed until we found out that we'd been watching 500's! Her excuse is something to do with 2 strokes sounding different or some old nonsense.

There were plenty of stalls in the exhibition center and many more in the race track area.

We had a nice ride out looking for Donington Castle until we found that there isn't actually a castle at "Castle Donington"! Had a look around Derby town center (where Cathy had to go feeling leather jackets for some reason) and then visited an old friend for a quick cuppa.

Siôn and I did a bit of a Frankie by spending most of the day telling Cathy that it had to be her HT lead that was playing up. A quick check showed that there was a spark. So armed with the knowledge that me and Siôn were totally useless and just putting her off the real problem, she found a pipe thingy going into the carb had come off. Much rejoicing (never seen her so happy) and a quick ride around the campsite followed to clear out the cylinder.

Can everyone just notice the nice new jacket here. Only took 2 hours to choose.

Went along to the party at the exhibition center again. Lots of people wearing shorts and baseball caps blowing those air horn things. So back to the MAG beer tent again. On the way out we saw someone with an injury. Picked up Guy and Phil from Insane MCC on the way who'd won a ticket for the GP from a radio competition. Later found out that we missed some UK porn star at the exhibition center!

Sunday morning Cathy dashed off for the Wimbledon finals (which were actually rained off). She saw more of the GP than we did though by watching the TV. As we aproached the race track we saw about 10 parachutists descending on the track! Siôn did his doom and gloom bit (the TV helicopter was monitored in case the blades stopped) saying that they were all crashing but I think he was proved wrong by the lack of dead bodies when we got there. Inbetween the races there were displays by the Red Arrows.

We saw some of the 125 and 250 race's but, because we're not really into racing, we left before the main race and headed off home. I found out later that we missed the stunt show that we'd been looking for all weekend. It had been on after the final race but there was no mention of it in the program.

Somehow, clouds don't put Frankie off a bit of sunbathing.

All in all we had a great weekend with reasonably priced beer in the MAG area and some good entertainment in the Donington Complex. The campers in the main area who were not camping with MAG had a bit of a harder time with people making noise all night and setting fire to the portaloos! (43 of them).

Nice ride back down the A5 too.

Some panoramic shots-
Racetrack
Campsite

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