(pic Sue Pitman)Happy memories for me last year at this event when I recorded a win in a round of the SW champs, not this year though eh? I was however really looking forward to watching all the action and I wasn’t to be disappointed.
I took a ride up there with Adam Blake (who was still out through injury) and Steve Jose who basically only had to finish to secure the E2 title in the clubman category. An overcast but nevertheless warm conditions greeted us as we arrived after about 1 ½ hours drive. We actually got there really early, but there was already quite a lot of riders about so with plenty of time to kill a lot of chatting and general piss taking was the order of the day before everyone had to get ready. Francis Banfield came up and showed us that his T shirt that he was wearing today wasn’t made for a sumo wrestler and it was the correct size (that was after he called me an explicit word for mentioning it on the blog a while back), John Pitman was riding a decent bike at last and had ditched his big 4 banger to have a blast round on a 125! Barry Weeks was hoping his ’Trago Mills’ chain wouldn’t snap this week, Mike Roose was still looking like a ’Gurning’ champion due to a recent visit to the dentist, he also couldn’t ride due to getting injured the day before, and Dan Hull was also out due to knee ligament damage after coming off a kids bike at about 10 mph! The usual suspects were all present and what you’d expect at a SW round, and one by one all stopped by for a bit of a natter. The E1 category which obviously I pay close attention too was still up for grabs, but John Hinkley only needed a good result today and the title would be his. I really wanted John to win it, we’re about the same age and it’s not been easy for him after riding a bigger bike for a while and then coming down in size and riding a ‘strimmer’, but he’s done well on it this year so good luck to him.
I didn’t see the start as I went on walkabout with Blakey down into the woods and waited at the top of a long fast uphill section to see the riders come by. A few close calls were had because half way up this fast section there was an ugly looking tree stump that nearly caught a few riders out and this threw them off line missing the on coming trees by inches, luckily after a couple of laps everyone knew where the bloody thing was so most avoided it after that. It certainly was good racing to watch with some good vantage points to have a look from and especially watching Chris Dustow giving everybody in the entire field a master class on how to ride a motorbike, absolutely superb.
After about an hour I was on pit board duties for Steve and was constantly was going backwards and forwards between two parts of the course to update him on his position, but by the time he’d pitted he had a bit of a lead which increased as the race went on, so no panic and I just told him ‘don’t let anyone overtake you’! During the last hour I decided to have a bit of a laugh with a few of the lads as they were riding round with my usual trick of writing something on the pit board and showing it to them as they went by. ‘Go faster’ and ‘twist the throttle more’ were wrote on the board, Andy Smith laughed so much as he went by that he nearly had an ‘off’ and just missed a bunch of trees by a few inches, Steve Jay also laughed his nuts off as he went by but Francis Banfield simply muttered the words ‘F*ck off’! not the 1st time he’s said that to me when I’ve wrote something down for him, but it was all taken light heartedly (I think).
And so to the end of it all where controversy reared it’s ugly head! No names mentioned here but I went back to where the results were posted up to try and help a rider sort out his position. Something somewhere didn’t add up and I can tell you after watching the race for the full 3 hours or more and knowing where the first 5 were in each group, I couldn’t make it out either! As I looked further down the list a few more were in the wrong order as well, um………..not good, in fact one of the riders in question had won his class and had him down as a DNF! It’s happened to me once or twice before so I know how it feels, not good.
So after the obligatory Cheese burger at the catering van and listening to the woeful tale of John Pitman not finishing on his ‘strimmer’ because it had packed up on him, it was off back home and to hear more stories in the van from Mr ‘jackanory’ Jose!
I took a ride up there with Adam Blake (who was still out through injury) and Steve Jose who basically only had to finish to secure the E2 title in the clubman category. An overcast but nevertheless warm conditions greeted us as we arrived after about 1 ½ hours drive. We actually got there really early, but there was already quite a lot of riders about so with plenty of time to kill a lot of chatting and general piss taking was the order of the day before everyone had to get ready. Francis Banfield came up and showed us that his T shirt that he was wearing today wasn’t made for a sumo wrestler and it was the correct size (that was after he called me an explicit word for mentioning it on the blog a while back), John Pitman was riding a decent bike at last and had ditched his big 4 banger to have a blast round on a 125! Barry Weeks was hoping his ’Trago Mills’ chain wouldn’t snap this week, Mike Roose was still looking like a ’Gurning’ champion due to a recent visit to the dentist, he also couldn’t ride due to getting injured the day before, and Dan Hull was also out due to knee ligament damage after coming off a kids bike at about 10 mph! The usual suspects were all present and what you’d expect at a SW round, and one by one all stopped by for a bit of a natter. The E1 category which obviously I pay close attention too was still up for grabs, but John Hinkley only needed a good result today and the title would be his. I really wanted John to win it, we’re about the same age and it’s not been easy for him after riding a bigger bike for a while and then coming down in size and riding a ‘strimmer’, but he’s done well on it this year so good luck to him.
I didn’t see the start as I went on walkabout with Blakey down into the woods and waited at the top of a long fast uphill section to see the riders come by. A few close calls were had because half way up this fast section there was an ugly looking tree stump that nearly caught a few riders out and this threw them off line missing the on coming trees by inches, luckily after a couple of laps everyone knew where the bloody thing was so most avoided it after that. It certainly was good racing to watch with some good vantage points to have a look from and especially watching Chris Dustow giving everybody in the entire field a master class on how to ride a motorbike, absolutely superb.
After about an hour I was on pit board duties for Steve and was constantly was going backwards and forwards between two parts of the course to update him on his position, but by the time he’d pitted he had a bit of a lead which increased as the race went on, so no panic and I just told him ‘don’t let anyone overtake you’! During the last hour I decided to have a bit of a laugh with a few of the lads as they were riding round with my usual trick of writing something on the pit board and showing it to them as they went by. ‘Go faster’ and ‘twist the throttle more’ were wrote on the board, Andy Smith laughed so much as he went by that he nearly had an ‘off’ and just missed a bunch of trees by a few inches, Steve Jay also laughed his nuts off as he went by but Francis Banfield simply muttered the words ‘F*ck off’! not the 1st time he’s said that to me when I’ve wrote something down for him, but it was all taken light heartedly (I think).
And so to the end of it all where controversy reared it’s ugly head! No names mentioned here but I went back to where the results were posted up to try and help a rider sort out his position. Something somewhere didn’t add up and I can tell you after watching the race for the full 3 hours or more and knowing where the first 5 were in each group, I couldn’t make it out either! As I looked further down the list a few more were in the wrong order as well, um………..not good, in fact one of the riders in question had won his class and had him down as a DNF! It’s happened to me once or twice before so I know how it feels, not good.
So after the obligatory Cheese burger at the catering van and listening to the woeful tale of John Pitman not finishing on his ‘strimmer’ because it had packed up on him, it was off back home and to hear more stories in the van from Mr ‘jackanory’ Jose!
