Right o' I've had an enforced moment of calm. I've had to come into hospital for a kidney biopsy (of my transplanted kidney). They take a big needle, stab your kidney with it and it takes a tiny core from the tissue of your kidney, this core can be examined to check the health of your kidney. My guess it'll tell 'em it's just been stabbed! :o) My 'enforced' petit sojourn is due to the fact I've got to lie still for 6 hours so the kidney doesn't bleed 'unnecessarily'..!
Ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem, just in and out and wait for the results but Liz (long suffering wife) has just had to have a emergency cesarean section loosing 3 pints of blood and gaining us a 'bouncing' baby boy (George) of 9lb 2oz! So she could do with a hand. Bobby, our first son is currently enjoying wearing out his respective matriarchal and patriarchal grandparents with my sister taking subs duties when they have been exhausted..
George's late arrival also means I had to miss the invitation race at Cadwell with the VMCCs British Historical Racing club. John and Neil, at great expense, arranged to bring the TS//2C team and the little Benelli 'across' to race at Cadwell in the event I had to miss one of the important championship rounds and therefore missing a signature for the ACU mountain licence. The ACU's ridiculous and impotent qualification requirements are extremely difficult to get on time and in my opinion have almost no benefit in preparing a rider for the ravages of the mountain course. The team still attended Cadwell and I understand a worthy replacement rider was found. But that's for another Blog..;o) Maybe I could persuade John or Neil to write it.
And so to the matter in hand, the final mountain course licence signature eligible race on the Jurby Airfield circuit. The weather forecast for the weekend was really bad, wet and windy, which is fairly normal for Jurby, but in reality unusual this year. So far all the races had been in unseasonal bright sunshine, even the first test day in Feb. We drove up to the circuit in driving rain at the usual early approach. As we arrived at the circuit the rain slowed to a persistent drizzle but it wasn't bad enough to dissuade Neil from his usual high quality sausage grilling skills, he set up his stove and we were all royally fed..:o) The time waiting for practice to start was spent discussing bike set up and a battle plan for the Manx GP. During the discussion it was remarked upon that we would need to be painstakingly careful with prep' to the point of anal pedantry. This was the que for the quote of the weekend from John that we will always get out of the banter box in time of need, "It's ok I can 'do' anal!".......
Practice was wet, and we chose our wet setup, which coincidentally is the same as our dry set up. There are sometimes advantages to having somewhere over 24 brake horse-power and classic tyres...:o) In that such a light bike, exceptional chassis and relatively little power the whole set-up is quite forgiving to errors. Grip was good considering the conditions and John's small experiment with porting had netted a much more agreeable midrange which would help in the wet.
After practice the drizzle abated and the track began to dry leaving a damp but not wet track, this enabled some of the early races to get a decent few laps in before the heavens opened again and the synchronised motorcycle lobbing began. Virtually every class had a couple of stoppages. I found the Benelli quite well behaved in the wet and enjoyed good progress during the race, leading the class. As I approached some of latter Steel Framed 600s I started to line up a couple of passes, I could just about see through the murk that there were at least 3 guys struggling where the Benelli felt good. Each time I girded my loins for an attack the yellow flags would be out and in such a short wet race the attrition rate meant that the yellow flags were out all the way round for the rest of the race and we'd been warned very strongly before-hand by the Clerk of the course that any flag infringements would not be tolerated. We still won the class and gained a sig so everyone was happy!
The Clerk of the course decided to suspend activities as everyone had been able to complete one race (for sig's) and the marshals and officials were getting a bit fed up and on the edge of hypothermia! A good decision in the interests of safety and sanity. A couple of the young guns had a little whinge but could ultimately see the sense..
Despite the conditions it was an enjoyable day and we came away with exactly what we wanted a Class win and another sig for the MGP.
