I'd been a bit worried about this meeting since the start of the season, so it made perfect sense not to bother doing a test day and just turn up, hoping that the extra practice gained from doing one of those ludicrous Allcomers races would be enough to beat Shep round a track he's won at before. Hmmm.
In all honesty, part of it was lack of cash, and part of it was just me being stubborn having recieved that snotty email from the fella that helps run things there, so it'd just have to do.
It was a bit of a trek for us, so I had decided that the little blue van would have to stay at home, because 65mph for 200 miles just isn't good for your mental health. With this in mind I asked my sponsors, Ultimate Finish Powder coating if I could borrow their work van, which has a behemoth 2.8 turbo diesel engine in it...gosh!
What I wasn't told, was that for some reason, when the tyres had worn down a bit, it gave off the most excruciating road noise. Kate was off out with some mates the night before we left, and I implored her not to get steaming, goggle eyed, knickers round a strangers head drunk the night before, because I didn't want her to suffer the journey with a mega hangover.
Truth be told, I just couldn't be arsed to listen to her grind away about her head for 4 hours!
Fortunately, I soon discovered that at precisely 83mph the noise was bearable...just. This made for an entertaining trip as I tore through built up areas and past orphanages at the optimum speed, only giving the poor van a brief respite when we stopped to help some hooded youths get back their pink handbag from an old lady that was on the ground protesting that it was hers. The cheek of old folk these days.
We eventually arrived after what had not, to be honest seemed a long journey. We parked up next to Chass in the adjacent paddock, and to be honest felt a bit rude. We did have some hard standing for the bike though and this was the main reason for choosing that paddock...as well as the fact that we're scared of Dallas cos he's only a facial tattoo away from being Queequeg out of Moby dick!
See!
Anyway, we set up camp, with Kate getting all excited when she saw how cosy our little race HQ looked, bless her.
Chass, made us a ridiculously tasty Spag bol, with garlic bread to die for, and not once did that kind gent ask for felatio from either me or my wife. Excellent skills....that's the cooking, not the fel...er..anyway.
We went for a stroll around the track at night, and it really was a bizzarre scene, as we looked around at the huge cheesewheel hay bales and it felt as though we were on a ramble, rather than on a racetrack. It was difficult to spot any obvious bumps, and Kate made the astute observation that they might only really show up when you were on the bike at speed. How right she was!
Having the alarm go off at 7am was plain rude, and the fact we had to go out at 8:45 to qualify for the allcomers was very much akin to having your face sat on by a naked Leper...just not welcome in the least!
Chris had informed me that Sam had spent the day with Mr Cobby on the Wednesday test day and that it might be wise to tag along and get an idea of lines. What he hadn't factored into this advise was the fact that Sam is a student, and it dawned on me as I was trundling behind him at 6.3 mph for 2 laps that he was actually asleep on the bike and dreaming about playing drinking games with Kelly Brooke.
I decided to go past and find my own way around, which is what I normally do anyway, but this place seemed like the sort of idiosynchratic track that requires knowledge of the danger areas to go properly quick at. I managed to get down to a 1:28, which I was pleased with, given that it was my first ever time on the track.
Sam had obviously been woken up when a bat flew into his underpants and in his haste to get back to the paddock, posted a slightly quicker time. Not to worry.
Next up was DD qually. Time to get serious. Me and Shep headed off out front and Chris and Cathy gave me good pit signals to inform me that I'd managed to get into the 1:24's. I started to hit traffic and figured I'd have done enough for a front row, which turned out to be the case, with me in 2nd, Shep on pole and Harriet firing Betty onto the front row with a cracking laptime on a 583 and Tom Tom Parkes in 3rd having put in a great display.
I pulled in a little early, because I had to go out in the allcomers race straight away afterwards. In hindsight, this was a mistake, as I was already up to speed really and should have saved the tyres!
The Allcomers was just Keystone cops on 2 wheels. Such a mindless mix of machinery and ability as to be comical. I jumped the start, messed about for a bit, did a 1:23.98 laptime then pulled off when the brakes went all grabby and weird on my ass in the closing laps. I was a bit concerned actually, and Chris and Cathy stripped the brakes and bled them. Cheers guys, you're amazin'!
Part 2 to follow.