Chevanege Farm- 21st February 2010

This week I traveled up with Jack (Twentyman) who was racing in the 1st round of the Midwest series up in Gloucestershire. An early start again was needed and just as well as Jack didn’t get off the right motorway junction and we ended up getting lost! Panic ensued but with about 45 mins to go to race time, we finally made it, phew!

After a mad rush helping Jack out to get ready it was off to watch the start of it all with Paddy (Jack’s son) before moving on to find a nice tricky bit of the course where all the action went on. It didn’t take us long to find somewhere as mayhem ensued at the bottom of a slippery ‘rooty’ climb where we were stood. Bikes getting stuck half way up meant that was a queue forming at the bottom, sometimes 10 or 15 bikes were waiting there for the hill to clear before attempting to get up it. I couldn’t believe 2 riders in particular, they’d had a go at the hill but couldn’t make it, so they came back down again, but after they waited and had a bit of a rest, they took another look at it and thought b*llocks to this and went back up the field, back to the pits and retired! This was only the 1st lap and only about 20 mins into the race, their bikes were ok and they weren’t injured, makes my blood boil does that, there’s me stood there desperate to ride and yet some people give up after the 1st hill, pathetic!

After a while watching some action I went back to the pits and met up with Pete Boyles who I’d hasn’t seen for ages, he pulled out due to gear lever problems, but my problem was getting told by one of the officials to get out of the pits! ‘Riders only’ he said to me, I said ‘I am a rider, it’s just that I’m injured and I’m not riding at the moment’, that comment didn’t go down too well and I had to continue my conversation with Pete outside the pit area, this also meant that I couldn’t help Jack on his pit stop coz I was a marked man now! Never mind, rules are rules so that’s fair enough, it’s just a shame other clubs don’t adhere to their regs (no names mentioned) when they say ‘no children, spectators or dogs in the pits’, yeah right!

I finally ended up by the lap scoring area to watch out the race to the finish. Then came the worst bit of the day, queuing 25 mins to get a cup of tea! I think the caterers were a bit shorthanded as only one of them were serving.

A good day all in all and yet again Jack rode out of his skin, he won the Vets experts by over a lap and finished in the top 10 overall, and he didn’t us lost on the way home! Next week I should be going along to watch the Muntjac, which is the 1st round of the BEC, somewhere in Norfolk I think!