La Bañeza smells of petrol and oil. It sounds like a roar capable of deafening the emblematic lion that bears the name of the province in which it is located. La Bañeza is on two wheelspreferably classic, and is filled with alpacas to delimit a route along which more than 170 pilots will pass throughout this Saturday and during tomorrow’s session.
The town of La Bañeza in León is putting on its leather suit and protection this weekend to host the great motorcycling event that brings together around 80,000 people every yearcoming from all over the country and even from Europe, who do not want to miss the star motor event in the province of León: the 63rd edition of the Grand Prix of Speed of the City of La Bañeza, which makes it, once again, the city of motorcycling.
Since Friday afternoon, the town’s exteriors began to fill with tents and camping tables occupied by several thousand people, many of them families, who mostly follow the tradition of attending the event.
This is the case of Miguel, Silvia, Lara, Jairo and Raquel, who are part of a group of 15 people from Pontevedra and some are coming for the second time and others for the fifteenth. Together, like a big family, they have breakfast in the improvised open-air lounge that they set up yesterday afternoon and that will become their home until tomorrow afternoon or Monday morning, when they return to their home Galicia. “We come for the motorcycles and the atmosphere. It has already become a tradition and we have seen how it has changed and grown over the years, the truth is that we do not want to miss it anymore, because there is nothing like it in all of Spain,” they comment.
A few meters away from them, their neighbors, a couple from Madrid who have come for the first time with their six-year-old son, explain that they were regulars when they started datingbut they stopped coming until the boy “grew up a little.” Today, the little boy looks on in amazement at the traffic of motorbikes through a city that has made this sport its hallmark.
From the improvised camp you can see the movement of thousands and thousands of people who walk towards the centre of La Bañeza to soak up a “healthy and family-friendly” atmosphere, as some define it, in which the motor is the main protagonist. Thus, along the streets of the town there are several hundred motorcycles making their way to the pit area, close to the start, where the teams are finalising the details for the training and qualifying sessions that will take place this afternoon.
It is there, in the pit area, where the city of La Bañeza becomes the city of motorcycles, with dozens of teams around the city revving their bikes to get them ready. This is the case of the team of the Andalusian rider Juan Francisco García, who last year achieved second place among the Super-Series in Eurotwins. Coming from Malaga, their mechanics say that they have been participating for several years in a race that is “the best in Spain and almost in Europe” and that is surrounded by “a completely different atmosphere”.
A unique GP in Spain
The La Bañeza Speed Grand Prix is the only motorcycle race in Spain that is held entirely on an urban circuit and is organized by the Bañezano Motorcycle Clubwhose president, Sergio Vidales, celebrates the “great turnout of the public”, which will allow it to exceed the approximately 77,000 people who attended the last edition. An increase that will easily occur, because despite the fact that the big event is being held tomorrow “La Bañeza is already full, the camping area is full, people are very active with their motorcycles and there is a lot of movement”.
Sergio Vidales is clear that the GP Ciudad de La Bañeza is a “very family-oriented” event, something he considers “very nice”, because “in addition They lend their houses to all the pilots who come from outside “We always try to make sure everyone has their own way and their own things, but sometimes we don’t have enough time and the neighbours let us use their houses for showers or whatever else is needed, and that’s what makes this so special,” he says.
There are a total of four categories that make up the GP Ciudad de La Bañeza, such as the veteran 2 and 4-stroke Classics, the GP125/Moto3, which is “the premier category” and a more recent one, the Eurotwins. Around 170 people will participate throughout the afternoon this Saturday in the qualifiers, while there will be about 120 or 130 who will compete in the competition.
Most of the drivers “are from the north of Spain”, but there is “a lot of influx of drivers from outside”, among whom this year there is a German driver, an English one and one from the Czech Republic, although there is “an Italian who came last year and couldn’t come this year despite wanting to”. All of this means something “very important” for the competition, such as the fact that “it is entering Europe”.
