Ducati Sporting Club UK - HERE it is ! official response to What happend to MAD MAV and The ring sting!

Well guys and girls WHAT a year!!!!!!!!

The season started back in March and went off with a bang!!
The first trip to the ring was awsome and it looked like being a bumper year with a full order book and Mav's 'euro trotter' all kitted out and ready to serv.

Five years of hard work was now coming to fruition, yipee!!
By the time we took the JHP trip to Italy in May we had taken some 300 bikers out to Germany and covererd around 7000 miles! In June I noticed for the first time ever that things were changing - and not for the better! - (at the ring).
I did a trip with 10 guys and when we got to the ring 4 of the bikes were dukes and they were all refused entry onto the ring because of the noise!!!
So I made some enquires with my german friends and was told that the locals had been complaining about the level of noise and that the GMBH had started doing random tests! Ok, so we were refused and so as to avoid disappointment we headed off to do some twisties - BAD MOVE !!

1 hr later we were stopped at a road side check point and fined 100 euros for noisey cans (all of us ) and one guy
had got a standard pipe on a gixxer 1000!

When we got back to the hotel I thought these events were strange and went to seek out what had been happening around and about.
Well it seemed that the problem was that the locals had also been complaining about speed and noise in the surrounding villages! and as one german friend told me the honeymoon was over - and the brits are easy pickings! Well after that we had got a two week break in our bookings and I decided I was due for a biking holiday of my own!:lol:
So the next week headed off with 22 mates to ASSEN for the GP and then rode the 996 on a marathon trip to the Alps and back - all in 7 days AWSOME !!!!

BIG THANKS TO JOHN HACKET - what my bike did was flat out for 3000 miles and not a drop of oil was used, or a single problem with the engine he had just built!

Anyway I got back from my holiday and what greeted me was horrifying!! Our company insurance RENEWAL was waiting on the mat and it did not make good reading!

In 28 yrs of driving HGV's, BIKES and CARS and never having made a claim, MY MOTOR TRADE insurance had trebbled over night!!!!!!! The main problem was that the Public Liability had gone from 2,000,000 to 6,000,000 cover and the premium had doubled.

We aint talking 100s more like 1000s!!

So, after a week of getting on the fone, the decision was made that the business was not going to afford such an increase and we were going to have to call it a day!

The problem was in the organising of the trips and where the liability lay. Although we had never had a problem, if we did and someone got hurt on one of our trips, it would have bankrupted me if i had not got the right liability cover in place!

At this point in time me, John and Ken at JHP had been talking about me getting on board with them, and I decided to go with it ! I had also been talking to a prospective
buyer for the 'Ring Sting' bussines and it's order book !
So I sold out LOCK STOCK and TWO SMOKING BARRELS!

watch out next year when they go to press, as they have the resourses to take it a lot lot further than I as a sole trader could!

Anyway, the timming was not right for me at JHP, but we are still talking and I am dying for the window of opportunity to open again and for me to get back on board with JHP.

Untill then I've gone back to my roots and I am doing a bit of commercial HGV driving to bring in the pennies, as well as doing bikes at week ends.

Well, it's better to have taken part in the game than to have stood as a bystander !!

LIVE THE DREAM i have ! ;) mav

ps watch this space:lol::lol::lol: