Before I got to Qatar, I first had to meet some of the group of mechanics who would be my teamates for the next couple days. They came from all over Spain (literally) and half of the group lifted off from BCN and the other half from Madrid. We flew via Qatar Airways, first to London's Heathrow airport. It was a short flight and I now know how bad Heathrow can be. Throw in some flight delays, some busses, multiple levels, poor signage, and a wacky Gate arrangment, and you have a complete hodge-podge ripe for screwing up in. Add the crazy Spanish and we were in for a frenzied time just trying to meet and navigate through the mess that is Heathrow. I got separated from one group due to my non-EU passport and although I knew what my next flight was and where to go, my group members kept freaking out and calling me every two minutes. For an hour! Finally, we boarded our plane to Qatar and it was quite likely the nicest plane I've ever been on. Beautiful flight attendants, free drinks, great food -- it was a great way to start this adventure. For dinner I had Lamb Tikka with cabbage and pea curry, basmati rice, and several bottles of wine. I should point out that we left Spain at 3PM and were due to arrive in Doha around 6:30AM the following day, Thursday. As I mentioned earlier, no one slept, and it was a party atmosphere the whole trip. The flight was not even half full, so everyone was moving around, joking out loud, throwing girly magazines at one another, and generally being very unorthodox towards the girls (who were very patiently dealing with them). I did my best to distance myself from all the trouble making because I didn't want to upset any Islamic principles before I even arrived in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the spanish kids were involved in all manner of "terrorism", like hanging three page girly fold-outs in the bathrooms, and things like that.
Anyway. I arrived in Doha with no rest and the sun had just started to shine. I was here to work for Luis d'Antin, a former GP rider and since '97, a team owner who has campaigned with Norick Abe, and Shinya Nakano, among others. d'Antin currently has the Ducati Satellite team, Dantin Pramac, and you might remember that last year his rider, Reuben Xaus, was regularly beating the factory Ducati team. He also runs a team in the Spanish National Championship. Qatar hosts it's own National Cup racing series, and you must first be a Qatari citizen, and also qualify to race one of the identically prepped machines, in this case an '05 Yamaha R6. Some of these guys are pretty fast and the bikes are well set-up, with suspension modifications and some other bits. Qatar contracted d'Antin Racing Service to build and maintain these machines for their series, which runs from December through April. Like everything he does, d'Antin is hands on and involved, and even in Qatar he was busy directing all the action (while simultaneously making and receiving calls concerning his other teams and organizing this week's testing in Sepang, Malaysia). I can't figure out how he gets it all done, without an assistant. As you can see, this is box #16 of 28. Ten of the boxes were lost in transit, and this would prove to be very problematic for me in the coming days.
Sexy!
