It was off to watch a local race about 30 mins from home which happened to be another round of the SW championship. It has to said that Nancemellion isn’t top priority on a riders list when looking at the diary of events, me included, so it’s just as well I ain’t riding at the moment!
I got picked en route by the dynamic duo of Batman and Robin, sorry, I meant Steve Jose and Adam Blake (Steve Jose is Robin by the way, coz he like dressing up in green lycra tights and wearing a mask, or so his misses told me), and made the short drive down the A30 to where it all was happening. A nice dry warm day, and a nice little crew of us had gathered as all our vans were just about parked up next to each other due to the massive field to park in. Phil ’smiler’ Harris was on top form as usual making everybody laugh, Andy Smith was proudly showing us his new fancy foot pegs, Francis Banfield was still going on about his bike being too fiery and his clutch being too heavy, Steve Jay was in the wars after ’cricking’ his neck that very morning whilst loading his bike in the back of the van, Arthur Johnson was still fuming at ‘that bloke on a bridge’ that held him up for 6 hours on the M5 whilst traveling to last years Dawn to Dusk and Tim Williams was almost at the stage of passing out whilst waiting for the catering van to turn up because he hadn’t had any breakfast.
With me the past few months being a general ‘dogs body’ at the races helping a few people out, today I’d thought I’d graduate to a new level and use a pit board to help a few riders out as the race unfolded. So it off down to the start to watch everybody pile through and then off to watch the field go by down on the bottom bit of the track where the rough old motocross course lies. Had a good old chat to Dean canfield for a while who was also stood there watching, before moving on to a section of the woods where there was a bit of mayhem ensuing on a rooty steep climb.
What was happening next the words ’farce’ ’ridiculous’ and ’nonsense’ (amongst others) spring to mind. You see the hill that everybody was getting stuck on (including some champ riders) was about at most 2 to 3 bike widths wide, so as soon as one got stuck, another bike came along to try and get round them, but of course there wasn’t really another line to take, only an extremely difficult one, so that rider got stuck as well causing absolute chaos, not only on the hill but with bikes queuing at the bottom waiting for the track to clear so they could have a clear run at getting up. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in plenty of these situations myself, but the thing is the marshals have used there common sense and opened up a different route temporarily in order to clear the backlog or have cut that bit of the course out altogether. Every couple of minutes it was complete chaos and believe it or not, the marshals were at the top of the hill whilst 4 or 5 of us spectators were doing the bloody donkey work (ok I admit with one arm only) and hauling the stricken bikes and fallen riders back on two wheels and up to the top. At the foot of the hill just to the right hand side there was another track which was dry and passible so as to cut out the carnage in front of the riders as they came round the corner. I started to direct some riders through this bit in order to clear the back log, and all of us who were stood there helping thought it was a sensible idea including the well respected Tony Dinham, who I must say had been helping out all the riders for some time on that hill and was absolutely soaked in sweat by doing so. But wait a minute, hold on, down came a marshal from the top of the hill and started ranting and raving that everyone had to go up the chaotic bike stricken climb regardless and promptly closed the easier alternative route. Apparently he mutterd the words to Tony ‘well Dustow can get up there’ um…………………hold on a minute, are we on about Chris Dustow who basically is a top class championship rider and has just come back from one of the toughest races in the world, that being ERZBERG??????? Well my friend, it’s not surprising he can make it up there then is it? Tony couldn’t believe it that he wouldn’t let the back log clear and open up the other route, nor could every other bugger who been stood there sweating there nuts off helping out, so I had a word and asked the marshal to ’use some common sense’, he said he was!!!! With that, all of us went and let him get on with himself, absolutely ridiculous and complete bloody farce in my opinion. Do you know what? Later on in the race that part of the course got CUT OUT!!! I rest my case. This blog that I write are my own personal opinions and how I see things, if you see things in a different light to me, then that’s fine, you can always start you’re own internet page up and do it yourself. I’m personally not into slagging off marshals, organisers, or any other bodies that help run events, I’m just saying as I see it, rant over, let’s move on!
So after getting my breath back and finally stopping the sweat dripping from my brow, I went back up to the pits to help a few guys out and to finally use my writing skills on the pitboard to tell a few riders how they were getting on as the race started to unfold, and also to have a bit of a laugh with a few of them and write something comical on the thing as they went past! I think the best one was when Francis Banfield went past me, he wasn’t going too well and I simply wrote on the board, ‘Try twisting the throttle more’! He saw it alright because he stuck his 2 fingers up at me as he rode by.
Saw a few people in the pits to have a chat too including Andrew Cundy who wasn’t racing due to a nasty looking injury to his fingers which he sustained while out practicing. From what he told me that had happened, he was lucky not to lose the bloody things as they were caught up in the bike and then dragged along the ground!
As the race came to an end the weather just started to cloud over and rain began to fall, but that didn’t dampen Steve’s (Jose) spirits as he’d knew he’d won his class and was full of it (see pic). One sad thing to report about the race that was said to me by 2 different riders and on 2 separate occasions, was a certain rider that was course cutting. I won’t name and shame the guy, but I think someone should have a quiet word with him, he’s a decent enough rider and doesn’t need to do it……………………………
I got picked en route by the dynamic duo of Batman and Robin, sorry, I meant Steve Jose and Adam Blake (Steve Jose is Robin by the way, coz he like dressing up in green lycra tights and wearing a mask, or so his misses told me), and made the short drive down the A30 to where it all was happening. A nice dry warm day, and a nice little crew of us had gathered as all our vans were just about parked up next to each other due to the massive field to park in. Phil ’smiler’ Harris was on top form as usual making everybody laugh, Andy Smith was proudly showing us his new fancy foot pegs, Francis Banfield was still going on about his bike being too fiery and his clutch being too heavy, Steve Jay was in the wars after ’cricking’ his neck that very morning whilst loading his bike in the back of the van, Arthur Johnson was still fuming at ‘that bloke on a bridge’ that held him up for 6 hours on the M5 whilst traveling to last years Dawn to Dusk and Tim Williams was almost at the stage of passing out whilst waiting for the catering van to turn up because he hadn’t had any breakfast.
With me the past few months being a general ‘dogs body’ at the races helping a few people out, today I’d thought I’d graduate to a new level and use a pit board to help a few riders out as the race unfolded. So it off down to the start to watch everybody pile through and then off to watch the field go by down on the bottom bit of the track where the rough old motocross course lies. Had a good old chat to Dean canfield for a while who was also stood there watching, before moving on to a section of the woods where there was a bit of mayhem ensuing on a rooty steep climb.
What was happening next the words ’farce’ ’ridiculous’ and ’nonsense’ (amongst others) spring to mind. You see the hill that everybody was getting stuck on (including some champ riders) was about at most 2 to 3 bike widths wide, so as soon as one got stuck, another bike came along to try and get round them, but of course there wasn’t really another line to take, only an extremely difficult one, so that rider got stuck as well causing absolute chaos, not only on the hill but with bikes queuing at the bottom waiting for the track to clear so they could have a clear run at getting up. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in plenty of these situations myself, but the thing is the marshals have used there common sense and opened up a different route temporarily in order to clear the backlog or have cut that bit of the course out altogether. Every couple of minutes it was complete chaos and believe it or not, the marshals were at the top of the hill whilst 4 or 5 of us spectators were doing the bloody donkey work (ok I admit with one arm only) and hauling the stricken bikes and fallen riders back on two wheels and up to the top. At the foot of the hill just to the right hand side there was another track which was dry and passible so as to cut out the carnage in front of the riders as they came round the corner. I started to direct some riders through this bit in order to clear the back log, and all of us who were stood there helping thought it was a sensible idea including the well respected Tony Dinham, who I must say had been helping out all the riders for some time on that hill and was absolutely soaked in sweat by doing so. But wait a minute, hold on, down came a marshal from the top of the hill and started ranting and raving that everyone had to go up the chaotic bike stricken climb regardless and promptly closed the easier alternative route. Apparently he mutterd the words to Tony ‘well Dustow can get up there’ um…………………hold on a minute, are we on about Chris Dustow who basically is a top class championship rider and has just come back from one of the toughest races in the world, that being ERZBERG??????? Well my friend, it’s not surprising he can make it up there then is it? Tony couldn’t believe it that he wouldn’t let the back log clear and open up the other route, nor could every other bugger who been stood there sweating there nuts off helping out, so I had a word and asked the marshal to ’use some common sense’, he said he was!!!! With that, all of us went and let him get on with himself, absolutely ridiculous and complete bloody farce in my opinion. Do you know what? Later on in the race that part of the course got CUT OUT!!! I rest my case. This blog that I write are my own personal opinions and how I see things, if you see things in a different light to me, then that’s fine, you can always start you’re own internet page up and do it yourself. I’m personally not into slagging off marshals, organisers, or any other bodies that help run events, I’m just saying as I see it, rant over, let’s move on!
So after getting my breath back and finally stopping the sweat dripping from my brow, I went back up to the pits to help a few guys out and to finally use my writing skills on the pitboard to tell a few riders how they were getting on as the race started to unfold, and also to have a bit of a laugh with a few of them and write something comical on the thing as they went past! I think the best one was when Francis Banfield went past me, he wasn’t going too well and I simply wrote on the board, ‘Try twisting the throttle more’! He saw it alright because he stuck his 2 fingers up at me as he rode by.
Saw a few people in the pits to have a chat too including Andrew Cundy who wasn’t racing due to a nasty looking injury to his fingers which he sustained while out practicing. From what he told me that had happened, he was lucky not to lose the bloody things as they were caught up in the bike and then dragged along the ground!
As the race came to an end the weather just started to cloud over and rain began to fall, but that didn’t dampen Steve’s (Jose) spirits as he’d knew he’d won his class and was full of it (see pic). One sad thing to report about the race that was said to me by 2 different riders and on 2 separate occasions, was a certain rider that was course cutting. I won’t name and shame the guy, but I think someone should have a quiet word with him, he’s a decent enough rider and doesn’t need to do it……………………………
