FEATURE MACAU GP
Just the word ‘Macau’ conjures up images of excess and endless parties where anything goes - and this association isn’t without its merit. It is true that, for example, an otherwise meek and mild senior member of the motorcycle industry who shall obviously remain nameless, along with the manufacturer he works for, is serving a lifetime ban from the place. Being barred from a pub or restaurant is one thing, but this guy - who normally wouldn’t say boo to a goose - has been banned from the entire country… for life. It’s one of those places that can bring out the best or worst in someone, and it’s been on my list to visit for as long as I can remember, just to see what all the fuss is about.
Macau, on the south coast of China, used to be a Portuguese colony until 1999, when it was returned to China, in the same way that Hong Kong was a UK colony that was also returned to China, in 1997. Both Hong Kong and Macau are now part of China, but both are able to govern themselves. It’s built mostly on land reclaimed from the sea, so it’s only 12 square miles.
The Isle of Man, which is small, is 20 times bigger than Macau in area, but Macau has a population nearly 10 times larger than the Isle of Man, which makes it the most densely populated region on the planet, with 55,000 people living on EVERY single square mile of land.
Despite being the size of a small market town in the UK, Macau has the 80th largest economy in the world, almost entirely as a result of the gambling industry. Virtually the entire region has laws that ban gambling, except for Macau, so pretty much anyone in neighbouring China or Hong Kong who wants to gamble has to go to Macau. The gambling industry in Macau absolutely dwarfs Las Vegas, which is often considered to be the gambling capital of the world. Las Vegas is for stag parties and wannabes… Macau is where the real high rollers go. It’s eye-watering just how much money gets left behind by wealthy gamblers from China and Hong Kong. The industry here is seven times larger than in Las Vegas, and it’s said that one of the casinos alone - The Venitian makes the same amount of money from gambling that Las Vegas does as a whole. Just let that sink in for a minute.
When you think about the wealth, the size of the place, the density of the population, and the gambling culture, it’s hardly a huge stretch of the imagination to see why someone thought that closing the roads and having a race round a 3.8-mile lap would be a good idea, with either Armco, brick walls, or the South China Sea as run-off areas. It started as a car race in the mid-1950s, and motorbikes were added as a support race in the late 1960s. As luck would have it, my mate Michael Rutter is a bit handy at Macau by virtue of chalking up a record nine victories over the past 29 years he’s been going there. When the opportunity for him to race a full blooded
