I haven't been there in a while, actually a long while now that I think about it, but every year when Brands World Superbike happens I get pangs of regret that Friday morning practice will begin and I'm not in Kent, at one of the greatest racetracks in the world.

Brands Hatch is actually more a bull-ring or American-style TT dirt track course than a classic road course. Like many tracks in the UK, the place dates back to a time when motorcycles were in their infancy, powered by horrible little road-oiler engines and featuring chassis without brakes. Even the long course at Brands is short and vicious.

While Brands probably won't ever win any racetrack safety awards with its eyebrow-raising corners, at the same time it comes a copious amount of character. You can stand at a few corners at Brands--Druids, for example--and you're within feet of the bikes as they round the bend. It's great fun.

Like most tracks with their existence still firmly locked in the first half of the last century, Brands Hatch can be a nightmare for spectators to get in and out of, and the facilities--at least the last time I was there--make the always humbling squat toilets at some Italian tracks seem like an upgrade. A great track hammered out of the Kent brush means everything is essentially packed on top of a small amount of real estate. People are shoulder to shoulder, cars and bikes are parked so close together you can barely extract them.

But it's great. The atmosphere is electric and the racing is almost always fantastic.

Monday is usually the day Webmaster Tim and I drone around half-depressed because we weren't able to make it to Brands. As we do every year, we'll pledge to go "next year for sure".