Aberdare Park National Roadraces 2010

by Benedict Laurence

This year Liz and I decided it was time to take another look at the bike racing at Aberdare. The last time we went was well over ten years ago and we were curious to see how the experience compared to the Open Road racing we’d attended at Ostrava in the Czech Republic a few weeks earlier.

Having parked the bike in the secure parking set up in the nearby school …£3.00 per bike, proceeds to charity, helmet park available so a worthwhile extra …. we strolled through the ornamental gateway into the park and paid up our £12 each for entry to probably the most unlikely “road race” venue still operating.

Aberdare Park itself is a very nicely maintained public park and flower gardens situated on the edge of the South Wales mining town of Aberdare with very pleasant views to the surrounding hills. It has an extensive mown grassy centre rising maybe 20 metres from the entrance level before sloping down half as much again to the far perimeter and covers an area of some 30ha. It contains an ornamental pond complete with huge goldfish, a Stone Circle dating from the 1956 Eisteddfod (annual Welsh cultural festival, complete with Druids) and a very impressive children’s play area.

It also contains a narrow road, 0.9 miles / 1.4 km in length, which more or less follows the perimeter of the park. When ridden in the anti-clockwise direction this road (it’s actually considerably nicer than the footpath my unreliable memory pictured from all those years ago and has just been re-surfaced with a proper hi-grip track surface) offers some six left handed corners but only one right.

As this single right-hander (cold side of the tyre, remember) drops away fairly steeply from the apex, follows on from a fast left hander and has as it’s run-off the lake full of enormous gold-fish it follows that it is also a popular spectator location.

Having timed our arrival for mid morning on Sunday we found ourselves with plenty of time to stroll around the infield ….. I’d forgotten about the 1 hour “Church Break” that the racing is obliged to observe! At least we had plenty of time to remind ourselves of the best viewpoints, check out the trade stands and also bump into my old friend Ned who is good company at any time let alone at the world’s strangest road race venue. Excellent!

Once the racing recommenced I was reminded of  perhaps the most gratifying aspect of this event …. you don’t get any time to be bored! As the track is so short even the 50s complete a lap in under a minute, most races are held over 8 laps and they pack nearly 30 races into each day there’s normally a bike of some description whizzing past, usually within 3 metres of where you are standing.

There are heats and finals for 50s, 125s, 250s and 600s plus the Welsh Open, Welsh Classic, Golden Era and SuperMoto classes. The premier class is the Welsh Open which this year was dominated by 600s with a few smaller bikes included, notably William Dunlop on his 250 Honda.

The standard of the racing is actually very high and over the years the Park has attracted some very big names, John Surtees and Carl Fogarty among them. This year the undoubted star of the show was William Dunlop who managed 7 race wins from 9 starts (125 & 250 classes) although he had to concede victory in the Welsh Open final to Mark Buckley. The fact that Buckley was on a 600 Kawasaki and Dunlop on a 250 Honda would make this less of a surprise if the race was somewhere other than the Park …. it isn’t a venue that favours power!

My personal favorite rider at this year’s event was a chap called John Simpson from Antrim, NI riding a 675 Triumph. I thought that style-wise he was absolutely brilliant … smooth as you like and a joy to watch.

We were enjoying ourselves so much that we even stayed on for the award ceremony, held rather charmingly outside the school bus that had been acting as race control and commentary box. Had a slightly confused chat with William Dunlop … it was rather noisy and I don’t think he was expecting to be asked if he knew any of my Czech road race friends! As it happens he did actually know Indie perfectly well, so it was worth asking. Got my programme signed by him as well, which was nice of him as he was pretty busy collecting all his trophies at the time.

All in all we had a very enjoyable day out made even better by the secure parking and helmet storage facilities provided. It makes a huge difference not having to carry stuff about and to be sure that the bike’s still going to be parked where you left it.

Didn’t rain on us either!!!!