Ten years ago, seemingly before every brainless yayhoo with a bike in the US rode like this, the streets of Jerez were chaos on Friday & Saturday night. image by dean adams

There is one requirement for anyone staying in a hotel at Jerez during the weekend of the Spanish Grand Prix: earplugs. Motorcyclists from all over Spain, Portugal and much of Europe make the trip down to Jerez for the Grand Prix. And the party. As with everything in Spain, they like it loud.

After qualifying ends at Jerez on Friday and Saturday nights, the untold thousands of fans (honestly estimated at between one hundred twenty and one hundred fifty thousand on race day) funnel back into Jerez on the tiny two-lane road leading from the racetrack. Brought to a lather by the hundreds of beggared children who haven't the resources to go to the races and only connection with the race is to stand beside the road to slap hands with the returning motorcyclists and prompt them for wheelies and other fun, the machines, by the thousands, meet on main street in Jerez. The traffic becomes so clogged with two-wheelers that cars are forced to turn around and take an alternate route through the city, making downtown Jerez bike-only. Then some of the enterprising riders block off the side-streets with their bikes, making main street vacant. Once the cars are gone and the traffic onto main street is stopped the fun begins.

Locals of all shapes and colors staked out strategic viewing spots during the day. Street-benches and sidewalks are full, the curbs bulging with people all there to see the show that is Saturday night in Jerez. At first the affair is fairly harmless. The motorcycles, predominately sport bikes and standards, parade up and down the street, the riders, some in full riding gear and safety equipment, others dressed only in pants but missing helmets, shirts and some even shoes, wave to their friends and rev their engines to simulate racing sounds. By dusk all remaining cars are gone, the sidewalk for three solid European blocks are filled with people and only the brave, or stupid, are on two-wheels on main street. First it's high-speed passes that are the central point with the riders. Starting from a stoplight a block away, and making launches that would make Elmer Trett proud, they bang perhaps fourth gear by the time they reach the most populated part of the strip, screaming by on some of the larger four-stroke streetbikes, GSX-R750s and the like, at just under one hundred miles an hour, with people reaching out to touch the rider as he passes.

Then the wheelies begin. Wheelies, or "caballitos" as the locals term them, are everything to the Spanish. Some are quite skilled in this juvenile behavior, lofting the front wheel for a series of two or more blocks, banging gears and even dragging tail lights at times.

When the sun goes down (after ten o'clock) the locals begin to drink a mixture of red wine and Coca-Cola and the same behavior is exhibited, only now with dulled reflexes.

Bikes ridden by the Spaniards are as contrasted as you may find on earth. The major manufactures sell most of their entire line-ups in Spain, meaning that Honda sells everything from their flagship CBR900RR to the tiny NSR125; Aprilia the same, a few cruiser riders rode in on Aprilia's new chopper while most rode the firm's stealthy 250 Chesterfield replica. Big-bore bikes were in attendance, such as Kawasaki ZXR7s, GSX-R750s and other four-cylinder models. At one point an entire pack of NSR250/125s, Yamaha's tiny little two-stroke model and Aprilia RS125/250s went past, their machines painted exactly like the racing brethren, making them Max Biaggi, Loris Capirossi, and Tetsuya Harada replicas, right down to the leathers and helmets. Scooters are big in Spain and some are painted like their favorite riders as well. No Modenas scooters were in attendance.

Things turn potentially deadly on Main street when the locals, spilling from the sidewalks begin to crowd the street looking for a better view of the wheelies and high speed pass action. The crowding slowly continues as the wheelies get longer and more flagrant until the street is down to one lane of fun, with bikes accelerating and wheelieing directly at each other in one single lane in sort of an unorganized but deadly game of chicken. That still isn't close enough for some spectators, they continue to crowd and finally the bikes are wheelying on a collision course as the single lane is less than four feet wide. The action crosses the border from mildly entertaining fun to seriously stupid at this point as the bikes are colliding and running through the crowd at speed, like Mike Baldwin in the Connecticut woods, missing people when they can, mowing them down if not.

When the sun goes down (after ten o'clock) the locals begin to drink a mixture of red wine and Coca-Cola and the same behavior is exhibited, only now with dulled reflexes. The wheelies become somewhat tedious for the pilots and, searching for sort of eardrum exploding action (the Spanish love their firecrackers) the four-stroke riders will stop their machines by a group of friends and put the bike in neutral. In an action that'll make any ex-mechanic's skin crawl, the riders look around tentatively, and slowly wind on the throttle until the engine, still in neutral mind you, is revving its brains out, the needle laying on the peg past redline, the engine right at the point where the rev-limiter kicks in. That's where the rider leaves it, screaming its lungs out at fourteen thousand rpm. The ignition keeps shutting the party off for a second at a time but the fuel continues to flow into the cylinder. Then, every few seconds the desired effect is achieved: the filled with fuel cylinder is ignited by occasional spark and the charge explodes like an M-80 firecracker, over and over again. To the cheers of the thousands. Head gasket sales in Jerez motorcycle dealerships on Monday morning are assuredly very strong.

The police showed up and I thought they'd billy-club the degenerates into submission. They brought along portable street-closure barriers which I thought they'd use to block the streets, and side-arms. They didn't block the street, instead they officially closed the streets leading onto Main street and then joined in the fun, cheering the insanity on. You know you've really seen it all when you see a gun-toting police-officer pushing people back so that a rider can do longer wheelies on a public street.

Stick around roadracing and you're bound to see some interesting things: such as politically incorrect behavior at points at races all over the States: sport bikes on Atlantic Avenue in Daytona, Sturgis, Hell Industries at Brainerd, who can forget the old Laguna Seca burn-out contests? The thing that mystified me at Jerez for most of Saturday night was the complete and total lack of burn-outs by the riders, riders who didn't seem to spare any other piece of equipment. Wheelies, stoppies, the absurd rev-limiter abuse in neutral abound, but not one burn-out. Maybe tires cost $500 in Spain?

The fun didn't end until four or five the next morning. My wife and I literally slept with earplugs in our ears. By seven AM Jerez sanitation trucks were on Main street hosing the substantial garbage, bike parts and broken glass into the sewers.

As always the fun was not without a stiff price. By Saturday night seven people had been killed on motorcycles in Jerez.