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Old 30-Jun-2014, 22:18
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Otei Otei is offline
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The Otei Report: Back to front, not upside down.

Well, It all started off innocently enough. I honestly didn’t expect to be racing this year as I had suffered all sorts of problems, both personally and illness wise. My confidence had been at an all time low and my physical condition was appraised on a day to day basis.

So I was more than chuffed to finally get out on track at Cadwell for a track evening the Monday before Donington DD on the 750. It was hard work but satisfying.

I had planned to go to the Donny DD meet whatever the case, just to see some friends and watch the racing, but when Scotty “The shaven ******** Badger boy” Wilson told me that him, Jim “Electric knees” Brian and Scott’s pet Capuchin monkey, “Blommers” were doing a track day on the Thursday, I decided to take the day off work the day before and try and get on the already full Focussed events day when I turned up.

I arrived at the circuit early and the weather was lovely. I decided to break out my most expensive pair of Primark shorts and wander around in my £3.99 local garage sunglasses. P.I.M.P. No-one had a Scooby Doo that I was wearing Hello kitty underwear! Suckers!

I unloaded the bike and arranged my shizzle as loudly as possible in a vain attempt to wake Badger’s Comatose Mrs, Nancy. It failed and she only surfaced at midday when there was an announcement over the tannoy that someone had driven a car into the local supermarket’s window.

I went to start the bike and….click…click…nothing. Marvellous. I got a bump start from Scott who instead of actually pushing me, just flexed his handshake grip and the resultant massive wave of energy catapulted me halfway down the paddock. The bike fired into life…on one cylinder. By great Suarez’s bite marks, what a giant pile of Mingewarts.

It was at this point that I realised why I had been involved in DD in the first place. Everyone gathered round the bike and immediately started trying to diagnose the fault. Jim Brian, being an electrician by trade suggested that I probably needed a new fuse board, a flux capacitor and some very expensive platinum dimmer light switches, that he displayed proudly in his trade brochure. Scott, being someone that is awake at night for a living, suggested that it was probably because my eyebrows needed plucking and went to see if he could find some tweezers.

In the meantime, the Capuchin monkey started screeching wildly and threw a banana at me. I opened it to find a brand new spark plug in it. Being somewhat surprised at his ability to conceal such an item in a piece of fruit, I cleaned it off and replaced the rear cylinder plug. The bike fired into life and all was good.

A very nice lady came over the tannoy and reminded whoever it was that was running their motorcycle that engines were to be silenced until 9am. Scott retorted in his charming Northern manner by barking, “Why don’t you go and F*ck yourself!” Good lad.

The guys went off to sign on while I pieced things back together. Unfortunately, the seat wasn’t on the bike and I tore a hole in my prized shorts on a sticky out bit. Bugger. But the trackday was at least mildly on..and I went to see if I could get on it.

“Come back at half nine.”

“Come back in 10 minutes!”

“Come back in 10 minutes!”

“Yes, you’re on!”

Sorted….but I had missed the sighting laps and they couldn’t put a transponder on to time me. It was a “Chrono” day where they divide you into groups based on laptime. This is actually a great idea, but it doesn’t translate if you have a 50-60bhp bike against litre bikes. The net result of this was a train of us navigating big lardy and powerful missiles that were regularly 15mph slower than our slippery little Desmos in the corners. I found it to be quite good fun but Jim was particularly incensed by it and vented his frustration by hooking the monkey’s balls up to his generator and delivering random, high voltage shocks. “Blommers” seemed to enjoy it, which only wound Jimbo up more and he went to change his group to a faster one.

At this point, a new rider to the series, Ellis “Boo” Hadley turned up and introduced himself to the group. I wasn’t sure how to get home, but fortunately, amongst the many inky scribblings on his arm, there was a map of the Midlands. I made a note of the route and wrote it on the monkey’s forehead, as I had plans to take him home as a washing up slave.

The day progressed well, despite a couple of incidents that threatened to make a mockery of the entire show. These included running out of ambulances…so there was a delay…and also the fact that three people had parked their vans in unsafe poisitions..which led to……...a delay. Then, the monkey stole Karen Mabbut’s bar of dairy milk….which led to….a delay.

In the end though, I started to feel very comfortable on the fast and flowing circuit and chased down and eventually passed the very smooth looking endurance style of “Boo” Hadley.

Now, I had recently seen videos on Youtube of people training monkeys to ride minimotos, their pre-hensile tails seemingly offering them immense balance and stabilising capabilities. What I didn’t know, was that Scott had trained “Blommers” to ride his very own 583 under the number 69, which was kind of ironic, as apparently he could regularly be heard at night, wailing and freaking out at his futile attempts to perform self felatio.

During one of the sessions, I ran hard into the downhill and off camber Old Hairpin section of the track, only to see a Simian pilot fly up the inside, tail wildly swishing from the back of his leathers in an attempt to understand what it was that he was trying to achieve, exactly. He ran wide, onto the rumble strips and had the biggest lock to lock tankslapper that any primate has ever experienced. I laughed my ass
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Old 30-Jun-2014, 22:19
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Otei Otei is offline
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off…the marshalls collected the trail of slippery chimp truffles he had expelled and we all made it safely back to the pits.

The standout moment of the day was convincing the female Rip van Winkle known as Nancy, that I couldn’t sew..and having her mend my shorts for me. Bless her heart. I bought her a quiz magazine as payment. I am far too generous!

It had been a great day, and despite still feeling quite poorly and having an annoyingly painful bad back, I went home with a big smile on my face. Being amongst my DD family had ignited some stupid ideas. I texted Scott and despite not being able to make the Saturday, I asked him to quiz Trudi as to whether I could just turn up on Sunday and race. I hadn’t REALLY been able to afford the trackday, which was fricken pricey..and I sure as hell couldn’t really afford to drive back to Donny and race. I was sure that I was just asking based on what I wished I could do.

Scott was a star and answered all of my questions via Truderama, and I thanked him for it.

So , naturally, over the next few days, my mind started to become more accustomed to the idea of actually entering the races on the Sunday. Because I couldn’t make the Saturday qualifying, I would have to start from the back, but what the hell. I kept an eye on the weather forecast as I sure as shizzle didn’t want to spend money I didn’t have on a rainfest..and things looked good.

I nervously packed the bike into the van…found some stupidly small numbers at a local DIY store to fit onto the miniscule RSV4 tail piece and drank beer, desperately trying to talk myself out of such a foolish and potentially embarrassing venture. It was coming up to 4 years since my last race. EEeeeeeeepp!

Sunday morning, I awoke to my alarm at 5am and checked the weather. Sunny all day. Fook it, I was going to do it and damn the consequences.

It was a beautiful bright morning and I was actually very calm on the journey. I arrived, unloaded and started to prep the bike. Jim later told me that he had woken, opened the curtains on his caravan and seen Tim Pritchard working on a DD bike. He decided to go back to sleep as he was clearly dreaming. Ha Haaaaaaa!

Scrutineering and signing on went without a hitch and I even got a very warm and welcoming hug from Trudi as she did a double take when I strolled into the office. Nice to feel welcome. 

I noticed Matt Lobb had turned up for the day and it transpired that we would both be lining up on the back row of the grid in about 30th place. I sportingly asked how his collarbone was feeling and alluded to the fact that it would be awful to break it again so soon. Actually, I didn’t..but probably should have..just for a laugh.

Morning warm up was at 9:30 and I felt pretty good during it, especially as my wheels were completely out of alignment. Borrowing Jim’s straight edges cured that and I just tried to relax in anticipation of the first race.

Then the clouds started to roll in and looked very black. This wasn’t in the plan. I had spent the money I had saved for a holiday on this sheeeit…and wasn’t best pleased.

Fortunately, when our race was called, the weather was just fine. I felt extremely nervous and played toilet tennis with Scott’s monkey, “Blommers” I was impressed that he was so domesticated and frankly, had expected him to be crapping into his hands and throwing it at random spectators.

I won’t lie. As I rolled up to the holding bay, I was messing myself. Despite being on the back of the grid and having the excuse of that, I knew that people would judge me on the basis of what I had done 4 years previously. I really didn’t want to let myself down..but my back was already laughing at me and calling me a mid forties cripple.

Some things don’t change. I blasted off on the warm up lap and ran hard through the traffic. I always figured that I would rather crash on the warm up lap rather than not having the best advantage I could muster through the blessing of warm tyres on the first lap of the race proper!

I rolled onto the grid..tried not to hold my breath and focussed firmly on the lights.

Red goes on….red goes off…BOOM!...an Otei jack rabbit start.

Apparently, the commentator wasn’t used to my starts and gleefully declared that I had made a jump start as I had passed 2 rows before they had even started. Wrong!! Hahaha!

I waited as long as I could before braking into Redgate and drove as hard as I dare out and around Hollywood. The bike felt mint..and despite the tyres being about a year and a half old, they were driving hard and super sticky.

I chanced some close moves through the middle of a few guys down Craner and slotted up the inside of a few more into the old hairpin.

I hadn’t run wide though, and got Segamegadrive out and onto the run through Starkeys bridge and weaved through a few more chaps as we hurtled around Schwantz curve. A few more into Mcleans and the same into Coppice set me up for a great run down to Foggy’s Esses.

By the time we reached the Melbourne loop, I had moved up to 10th, just behind Jim Brian. As Jim was distracted by a loose wire sticking out of the tannoy speaker, I slipped up the inside and set off after Tim Sayers, who wasn’t hard to miss on his bright green Kawasaki looking machine.

Obviously, when you’ve had a few people to get by on the first lap, then the nearer you get to the front, the harder it is to pass. To be fair though, I think I had just about reached my speed limit for the weekend. Despite this I passed Tim into Coppice, got my head down and pulled a 2 second gap. Neal Catling and his friend, who I’m embarrassed to say’s name escapes me, had kindly agreed to man my pitboard and I had a good idea of where I was.
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Old 30-Jun-2014, 22:20
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Otei Otei is offline
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I closed down on the rider in front, who to be honest, I thought was Matt Lawson. This pleased me immensely as he had been saying that he hoped he didn’t see me in the race, seeing as I was coming from the back of beyond. As I crested the brow into Goddards, my eyes went to dinnerplate radius as he lost the front and skittled unceremoniously onto his ass. It turned out that the mushrooms I had been served with my breakfast that morning were deceiving me though, and it was the tattooed, car tyre testing, cycle masochist, “Boo” Hadley that had suffered arm pump from an entire night of masturbatory experimentation with Scott’s pet monkey and had unexpectedly decided to indulge in a spot of close up asphalt analysis. A committed scientist in this field, he sacrificed himself yet again in the second race to make a reasoned and unbiased report on the differences in grip coefficient between wet and dry versions of the stuff that he regularly skips around on four wheels. Nobody took the ****..he looks a bit hard. He’s actually a total softie and a gentleman.

At this point, I had moved up to 5th place in class A with no B class bikes in front of me. I was more than happy with that, but my back was seriously starting to give me grief and my consistent laptimes started to suffer as my concentration wandered towards the invisible Gremlin that was ramming bbq skewers into my lower spine.

Not long after this, Tim Sayers sailed past into the Foggy Esses and gapped me instantly. To be fair, I tried to keep up and repass, but I think his fitness level and determination had the better of me that day, so fair play, Tim…you deserved it mate.

I crossed the line in 6th and pulled into Redgate. Chris Pullen, who has seen my lightning starts bite me in the ass in the past as he was my crew chief, had a slightly disappointed yet slightly amused look on his grill as he told me he thought I might have a jump start. ********. I was sure I hadn’t..and it turned out I was right. Phew!

I was delighted, yet strangely disappointed with 6th. I knew it would be tough and I think that if I had been at the front at the start I could have challenged for 4th. Truth is though, I just haven’t gotten used to the amount of grip these new Dunlops offer. The last time I raced at Donington was on the old Pirelli tyres and I set the lap record at 1:54.10. My fastest lap in the race was 1:54.29, so I was at least nearly as fast as the last time I was there. I just need to maybe stiffen the bike up a touch and get used to opening the throttle much, much earlier than you used to be able to.

The second race was simply underwater..and I race for pleasure these days. That simply doesn’t give me any pleasure whatsoever.

Shout outs go to Scott Wilson, who has been a loyal and supportive friend throughout my hard times..and an inspiration to get back into this.

Also, as well as James Gerrard who looked fast all weekend, I want to say a massive big up to Andy Pike, who isn’t young (no offence, officer) but still manages to be incredibly fast and smooth. Well done fella.

Commiserations to Dallas, who spent a sheetload more than me and ended up with very little. He was still super cool about the whole thing though. Nice one, geezer!

Best moment of the weekend for everyone though, was when “Ghosty” turned up in his bathchair with ear trumpet. I even gave him a giant kiss on the cheek, but avoided any tongues because his daughters are all well fit and I don’t want to spoil my chances.

Soooooo then…Snetterton next…if I can afford to do a test day as I haven’t ridden the 300 layout. And obviously if it’s raining, I’ll be in Dallas’ van getting tattooed.

Peace out,

Otei #85
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Old 30-Jun-2014, 22:55
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chris.p chris.p is offline
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Some things never change, the cat nip induced deranged babbling's of a shampoo heir are back

Welcome back Timmy


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Old 01-Jul-2014, 00:03
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DSC Member domski domski is offline
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My eyes are bleeding!!!

I mean, nice race report dude. Glad you're back out there again and enjoying it
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Old 01-Jul-2014, 00:24
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Luv it Tim, great to see you back and your reports as well, as amusing as ever and the report was also quite funny


Checkout the Desmo Due Paddock on Facebook
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Old 01-Jul-2014, 00:32
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What a star you are Timmy you really looked stylish on that bike down Craner. Just read this report from my hospital bed on my small phone screen. A real hoot as usual a great bedtime read. It made my heart ache not to be out racing with you guys but some brill racing to watch.
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Old 01-Jul-2014, 07:01
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Otei Otei is offline
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He he.

Thanks, chaps.

The only problem with such long reports is that you always forget to include something or someone.

I also wanted to mention how well Jim Brian did, quietly going about getting the job done and kind of slipping under the radar. Well done, fella.

Also, Andy B rode brilliantly, which I guess is reflected in how much grief I've given him in this report.

That's kind of how it works! You do well, you get hassled in my write up! Lol.

Feel for you being medically taken out of racing, Phil. The same thing happened to Andy shep because he didn't want to stop either.

Im sure you will still be heavily involved.
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Old 01-Jul-2014, 08:28
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dunlop0_1 dunlop0_1 is offline
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Excellent shampoo lad. You coming to Oulton in September? I'll be there spectating if you fancy watchin some racing and talking ****e for a couple of hours

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Old 01-Jul-2014, 10:05
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Otei Otei is offline
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That would be mega, Piebloke!

Will see what happens, hoping to save up for a holiday at some point though.

Probably end up racing at Oulton though! Lol.
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