(pic Sue Pitman)Photo's of this event can be found here:
A nice local event and just 10 mins up the road from me which is always handy, especially in the winter months! Today’s race was an entirely different kettle of fish for me as I was riding in fancy dress and hoping to raise a bit of money for the Cornwall Air ambulance. Even in my short space of time racing motorbikes I’ve seen the air ambulance being called into action a few times to help injured riders, so I thought that would be a worthy cause to ride for.
Well what a cracking sight it was as I drove up the hill in the van to arrive at the parking area in the darkened sky at around 7am. The Camel Vale club had Christmas lights hanging from the trees, a stereo sounding out festive corals and a decorated Christmas tree thrown in for good measure! Just as the sun came up, then one by one everyone started to arrive and with me holding my bucket, I went off and visited every riders van or trailer and asked for a donation for the charity. Everybody I visited was only too pleased to throw in some loose change and with me having a chat with every bugger as well, it took me bloody ages and I didn’t have much time in the end in order to get changed and get to the start. Even the bloke from the burger van who was serving stopped me as I walked past and threw in some money! Tony Dinham almost pulled my arm off and couldn’t wait to throw some money in the bucket as he told me he’d used the air ambulance 3 times when he was riding at the top level of racing after crashing and getting injured a few years back!
It really was a great atmosphere with just about every local rider in attendance and far too many to mention. Hannes Tanzer came by the van with box of Stella’s and gave us a couple of bottles (didn’t drink um before racing I might add!), and those riders who didn’t have any change for the bucket when I saw them came back after a visit to the burger van and lopped some money in. So, with a quick change into the outfit, it was off to the start where Mike Roose was waiting there to give a riders briefing. As always with this event something a little different was in store as we all had to line up (without our bikes) wait for the hooter to sound, run and jump over a couple of fallen trees, then go under some trees and run round a corner before we could fire up our bikes and go!
By the time I started I was probably about mid pack (not easy running to the bike with a father xmas outfit on I must say) and even though I was supposed to be riding for a bit of fun, I got into the mode of racing which didn’t do me favours as I soon found out. After about 10 mins I came off on a tree root and dumped the bike on the floor, I thought to myself ‘what the bloody hell you doing? You’re supposed to be doing this for charity and having a bit of fun and not trying to prove anything’, so I got back on and took my own advice and slowed down a bit without risking anything. Shame Steve Jose didn’t listen to my advice because shortly after he came flying by me (literally) only to catapult into the air after hitting a tree stump and landing about 30 ft away from where he took off with an almighty THUD. This happened right in front of and to be honest I thought something serious had happened, it didn’t look too good. I quickly got off and for once Steve was speechless! (that makes a pleasant change) The only thing that could be heard was a slight groan with the words ‘f*ucking hell that hurt! I directed all the riders past so no bugger ran into him while Steve crawled to one side of the track and propped himself up against a tree. Luckily after about 10 mins or so he was able to make his way back to the pits albeit a little sore and take a breather. He later re joined the race and managed to finish.
The course itself was a cracker, quite rooty and soft in places with some lovely flowing woodland tracks and lovely hills, one of which tested you a bit as it was as slimy as hell and very steep which we had to ride down. On the first couple of laps there was a bit of traffic jam on this one as nearly all the riders were tip toeing their way down there very cautiously. A few long fire roads to open the bikes up a bit were included as well as the famous ‘whoop’ section which was like riding a rocking horse over a road of ten pin bowling balls, extremely bumpy and an ideal part of the course to give yourself a 'tank slapper' if you were unfortunate enough to cop one!
Every lap I did I was cheered on by a few spectators as I was making my way round the course in the Father Christmas outfit, I even stopped a few times and had a chat with some of them and had a good laugh. Unfortunately at about half way through the race my fancy dress began to show signs of doing an enduro, especially the trousers, and soon after the material on one of the legs got caught in the chain and within a flash my trousers were ripped off of me and proceeded to tangle round the back wheel. Oh well, never mind the whole costume was only a tenner from eBay! As for the beard I was wearing, what a nightmare to wear that is, bloody hell that thing seriously makes you hot No wonder you don’t see many enduro riders with massive amounts of ‘moss’ growing on their faces!!
For the last couple of laps I rode round with Phil ‘smiler’ Harris until the flag came out for the finish. Today I set out to do a race and raise some money for a worthy cause and in fancy dress. Glad to say that everything turned out exactly the way I planned it, a cracking day!
Many thanks to all who donated on Sunday, a total of £100.77 was raised. Further details of the monies collected today and also with sponsorship forms that have been completed, will be on the blog within the next couple of weeks when I shall be visiting the Cornwall Air ambulance in person and presenting them with the funds that have been raised.
