nodrog
31st March 2014, 16:35
Having been told that Steve didn’t want to go around with me at Paeroa upset my feeling, but fortunately I didn’t have to look far to find some replacement ballast. Now teaming up with your Wife to race sidecars probably isn’t the best of ideas for two reasons –
1, that’s the last person in the world you want to hurt.
2, who will cook the dinner if she gets hurt?
But I was confident we would be sweet as, Tina has been going around with Tracey for a while now and is probably more qualified to be on a sidecar than I am. We didn’t really talk much about Paeroa in the weeks leading up to it. We didn’t have anything to say about it really, it was all going to be new to us both so we couldn’t really discuss the track or what to do. I think the most helpful piece of advice I gave when Tina asked what she should do was “don’t fall off”.
We drove up to the track at about lunchtime on Saturday and got unloaded and scrutineered and set up camp. Now it was starting to sink in, Street circuits give me the shits at the best of times but now that I have to take my Wife around one without throwing her into a hay bale (that’s Traceys job) I am beginning to get nervous. Its just as well we have a gathering for Dave Dibbens 70th birthday to take my mind off things. I tell you what, for a team that has a combined age of about 246 Dave and Basil have way too much energy. Basil wore a hole in the dance floor at the pub wooing all the young lasses with his slick moves. After making a pig of myself at McDonalds it was back to camp to try and get some sleep.
Sunday morning came around with the gentle sound of some annoying bastard with a reverse beeper on a truck, I have no idea what he was doing but he must have rooted the gearbox because I’m sure it only went backwards. After some swearing we got up and went up the road so the girls could cook us McDonalds for Breakfast, thankfully nobody recognised me from the night before. Back to the track and things are starting to happen fast now, straight into riders briefing and the virgin laps.
Now Wanganui is the only street circuit I have ridden at and I have only done that twice, so I didn’t want to miss out on the virgin laps so we went down to Aaron’s pit on the dummy grid to wait. And I glad we did otherwise we would have missed out on seeing Smithy and Sid being let out on the track with the solos. I thought they had invented a new sport, motoskittles! After they had sorted that debacle out we were let onto the track for 4 laps to have a look, all I remember really is the jump down the backstraight, and the lack of grip, especially into the hairpin where the round bales are. We came back in and I asked Tina what she thought “its cool”. I was shitting myself and had already decided that we would just take it easy, I cant break my Wife 2 weeks before she goes to Aussie to race on pinky.
First practice we went out at the back and slid around, having trouble steering through the lefthand turn 3 as the wheel is coming up due to Tina’s lack of pie retention. Also having trouble scrubbing off speed for the hairpin and turn 1, its just locking up. I was also finding it hard as Tina was hanging on around my waist and pulling me off (calm down Scrivy) the back of the sidecar. We came back in and decided to let some air out of the tyres, and Tina was going to get out a bit more for the lefthander and not pull me off. Second practice came around and was much the same as the first with the changes doing nothing, I was just going to have to slow down more for the lefthander and deal with the lockup. Again we just took it easy at the back, I figured out I could chuck it into turn 1 in third and basically drift all the way up and over the hill past turn 2, hey it may not have been the fastest way around there but I figured at least we would look cool. We came in and just chilled out for the race, Tina asked what she should do, I just said “have fun and wave”.
Heading up to the dummy grid for the race I was feeling ok. Basil had already told us that they were changing the grid positions that they had worked out from last year and were going to do a new one from the 2 practice sessions and would let us know our positions when we got to the dummy grid. Sure enough when we got there a bloke was going around to all the rigs with the grid telling everyone their position, he got to me and said “you’re on pole”, “BULLSHIT!” I replied. Then he showed me his piece of paper, yep 245 on the front row righthand side right under where it said POLE POSITION. I said “FUCK”, talk about no pressure. I turned and told Tina, then a faint smell of poo could be smelt.
On the warm up lap I was getting nervous, I’d never been on pole before I was truly crapping my daks. Hoody must of known I was nervous and decided to take the pressure off me by taking my spot on pole, oh well just as well its classic sidecar racing and nothing serious. I just grided up way back in Hoody’s spot, 3rd on the front row on the outside next to Will And Julie. With my nerves now calmer with my demoted grid position I realised I didn’t actually know how they were going to start this race, then I spotted Trev with his flag out and figured he would be the man to watch.
Green Flag Drops and we are off, we get a good start but Will and Julie get a gooderer one and we have to tuck in behind them into turn one and follow them through to the back straight, I don’t really mind as we have the best seat in the house to watch the maddest show in town. It doesn’t matter how many times I see it, it still makes me smile watching Tiger getting thrown around. We pass going past the dummy grid and going into the hairpin I smell something funny, then Smithy and Sid pop up on the inside. No worries I pass him coming out of the corner and this is where our good little battle starts. I lost track of how many times we passed but it was good fun. I got back infront on lap 4 I think, and was waiting for Smithy to throw it back at the hair pin, But Basil and Dave had parked up at the hairpin to chat up some girls they met at the pub lastnight so we had a yellow flag situation. Going into the hairpin I thought I had it in the bag due to the yellow flag, but they had taken the flag down on the corner and team Far Canal decide to give us a love tap up the inside again. We got it abit sideways, but monstered them down the front straight and passed them for second position, what a race I was rooted.
What started out as just a fun weekend with the missus turned into a really special occasion, 1 that we shared together which made it even better. 2nd at our first ever Paeroa, nobody hurt, and my dinner still getting cooked, truly awesome. I couldn’t tell you what lap times we did as I never bothered to check as they don’t measure the fun factor. But its not a bad result for a shitty old petrol Beemer, with no sidewheel brake and 8 year old tyres of Nana’s Daihatsu Charade.
What a Fun weekend.
Gordie.
1, that’s the last person in the world you want to hurt.
2, who will cook the dinner if she gets hurt?
But I was confident we would be sweet as, Tina has been going around with Tracey for a while now and is probably more qualified to be on a sidecar than I am. We didn’t really talk much about Paeroa in the weeks leading up to it. We didn’t have anything to say about it really, it was all going to be new to us both so we couldn’t really discuss the track or what to do. I think the most helpful piece of advice I gave when Tina asked what she should do was “don’t fall off”.
We drove up to the track at about lunchtime on Saturday and got unloaded and scrutineered and set up camp. Now it was starting to sink in, Street circuits give me the shits at the best of times but now that I have to take my Wife around one without throwing her into a hay bale (that’s Traceys job) I am beginning to get nervous. Its just as well we have a gathering for Dave Dibbens 70th birthday to take my mind off things. I tell you what, for a team that has a combined age of about 246 Dave and Basil have way too much energy. Basil wore a hole in the dance floor at the pub wooing all the young lasses with his slick moves. After making a pig of myself at McDonalds it was back to camp to try and get some sleep.
Sunday morning came around with the gentle sound of some annoying bastard with a reverse beeper on a truck, I have no idea what he was doing but he must have rooted the gearbox because I’m sure it only went backwards. After some swearing we got up and went up the road so the girls could cook us McDonalds for Breakfast, thankfully nobody recognised me from the night before. Back to the track and things are starting to happen fast now, straight into riders briefing and the virgin laps.
Now Wanganui is the only street circuit I have ridden at and I have only done that twice, so I didn’t want to miss out on the virgin laps so we went down to Aaron’s pit on the dummy grid to wait. And I glad we did otherwise we would have missed out on seeing Smithy and Sid being let out on the track with the solos. I thought they had invented a new sport, motoskittles! After they had sorted that debacle out we were let onto the track for 4 laps to have a look, all I remember really is the jump down the backstraight, and the lack of grip, especially into the hairpin where the round bales are. We came back in and I asked Tina what she thought “its cool”. I was shitting myself and had already decided that we would just take it easy, I cant break my Wife 2 weeks before she goes to Aussie to race on pinky.
First practice we went out at the back and slid around, having trouble steering through the lefthand turn 3 as the wheel is coming up due to Tina’s lack of pie retention. Also having trouble scrubbing off speed for the hairpin and turn 1, its just locking up. I was also finding it hard as Tina was hanging on around my waist and pulling me off (calm down Scrivy) the back of the sidecar. We came back in and decided to let some air out of the tyres, and Tina was going to get out a bit more for the lefthander and not pull me off. Second practice came around and was much the same as the first with the changes doing nothing, I was just going to have to slow down more for the lefthander and deal with the lockup. Again we just took it easy at the back, I figured out I could chuck it into turn 1 in third and basically drift all the way up and over the hill past turn 2, hey it may not have been the fastest way around there but I figured at least we would look cool. We came in and just chilled out for the race, Tina asked what she should do, I just said “have fun and wave”.
Heading up to the dummy grid for the race I was feeling ok. Basil had already told us that they were changing the grid positions that they had worked out from last year and were going to do a new one from the 2 practice sessions and would let us know our positions when we got to the dummy grid. Sure enough when we got there a bloke was going around to all the rigs with the grid telling everyone their position, he got to me and said “you’re on pole”, “BULLSHIT!” I replied. Then he showed me his piece of paper, yep 245 on the front row righthand side right under where it said POLE POSITION. I said “FUCK”, talk about no pressure. I turned and told Tina, then a faint smell of poo could be smelt.
On the warm up lap I was getting nervous, I’d never been on pole before I was truly crapping my daks. Hoody must of known I was nervous and decided to take the pressure off me by taking my spot on pole, oh well just as well its classic sidecar racing and nothing serious. I just grided up way back in Hoody’s spot, 3rd on the front row on the outside next to Will And Julie. With my nerves now calmer with my demoted grid position I realised I didn’t actually know how they were going to start this race, then I spotted Trev with his flag out and figured he would be the man to watch.
Green Flag Drops and we are off, we get a good start but Will and Julie get a gooderer one and we have to tuck in behind them into turn one and follow them through to the back straight, I don’t really mind as we have the best seat in the house to watch the maddest show in town. It doesn’t matter how many times I see it, it still makes me smile watching Tiger getting thrown around. We pass going past the dummy grid and going into the hairpin I smell something funny, then Smithy and Sid pop up on the inside. No worries I pass him coming out of the corner and this is where our good little battle starts. I lost track of how many times we passed but it was good fun. I got back infront on lap 4 I think, and was waiting for Smithy to throw it back at the hair pin, But Basil and Dave had parked up at the hairpin to chat up some girls they met at the pub lastnight so we had a yellow flag situation. Going into the hairpin I thought I had it in the bag due to the yellow flag, but they had taken the flag down on the corner and team Far Canal decide to give us a love tap up the inside again. We got it abit sideways, but monstered them down the front straight and passed them for second position, what a race I was rooted.
What started out as just a fun weekend with the missus turned into a really special occasion, 1 that we shared together which made it even better. 2nd at our first ever Paeroa, nobody hurt, and my dinner still getting cooked, truly awesome. I couldn’t tell you what lap times we did as I never bothered to check as they don’t measure the fun factor. But its not a bad result for a shitty old petrol Beemer, with no sidewheel brake and 8 year old tyres of Nana’s Daihatsu Charade.
What a Fun weekend.
Gordie.