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is increasing pressure there,”<br />
opines Oxley on the reason<br />
for Montjuic’s sad passage<br />
of time. “It can be about<br />
insurance and running costs<br />
sometimes more than safety!<br />
It’s a tricky thing to get your<br />
head around because what<br />
separates motorsports from<br />
other sports is the fact that<br />
it’s dangerous. How far can<br />
you reduce that danger before<br />
it gets too sanitised? But then<br />
you cannot ask for more danger!<br />
Although the Isle of Man<br />
is crazy I’m happy that it still<br />
goes on. If people want to do<br />
it then why not? I don’t think<br />
Montjuic will ever come back<br />
so I’m thankful I did it.”<br />
“It was the norm for the<br />
circuits of those days but<br />
when they had that Formula<br />
<strong>On</strong>e crash that went into the<br />
crowd…I think that’s what<br />
ended it,” believes Mortimer<br />
on Montjuic’s erosion as a<br />
world championship course.<br />
“I didn’t consider it any more<br />
dangerous than the circuits<br />
we were racing on in those<br />
days. The average speed was<br />
quite low. The only place<br />
where you could really hurt<br />
yourself was on the fast left<br />
and right-hander onto the<br />
finish straight. Even on the<br />
bikes we had then we were<br />
doing 90-100mph, and on the<br />
right-hander you’d have to be<br />
William Tell to hit one of the<br />
strawbales! The chances were<br />
that you’d hit a tree.”<br />
“It was very small but much<br />
nicer than Monaco that was<br />
just streets,” says Cañellas,<br />
who was born south of<br />
Barcelona near Tarragona.<br />
“Montjuic had its own history<br />
and to be able to race<br />
at speed through there was<br />
something special. The layout<br />
was different: wide and fast<br />
and it produced some good<br />
racing, exciting scenes every<br />
lap because we could run<br />
close up the hill, and even if<br />
you were second or third then<br />
you could still get it won by<br />
the time you reached the finish<br />
line at the top.”<br />
At the magnificent Mugello<br />
circuit in Italy several weeks<br />
ago Misson Winnow Ducati’s<br />
Andrea Dovizioso set a new<br />
high-speed mark for MotoGP<br />
at 221mph and the riders got<br />
close to this figure in Barcelona.<br />
It’s another world compared<br />
to the 76mph average<br />
speed that Mortimer recorded<br />
around 35 laps and 82 miles<br />
in 1972 under the Montjuic<br />
leaves as records wobbled<br />
at the end of the 1km main<br />
straight at the Circuit de<br />
Barcelona-Catalunya. As the<br />
second best-attended of the<br />
four Spanish rounds of MotoGP,<br />
it seems that the Catalans<br />
are still enamoured with<br />
their motorcycling.<br />
MONTJUIC PARK CIRCUIT
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