Gubb
23rd February 2009, 21:05
I'm not a Racer, but I'm still gonna post my version of events, so hush up.
Took the car down (I know, I know. I'm a loser) on Saturday afternoon (Marshal's briefing was at 7pm) as I was bringing back a rather large Macrocarpa table and bench chairs. Fairly uneventful trip down until I stumbled across two guys standing on the side of the road about 35Km out of Paeroa kneeling beside a Black Norton 850 (or is it a 350? The decals were all faded) Commando, fiddling with something. "Need a hand?" I asked. "She's dead, won't even start" replied they. "Heading to Paeroa I take it? Need a lift? I got tie-downs with the Trailer." Exchanged hand-gestures, and loaded the bike onto the Trailer, strapped down and ready to go. Turn off the fairly loud, particularly shouty rendition of Refused's 'New Noise', and started with idle conversation.
He'd only been on the side of the road for 10 minutes, and was genuinely suprised that someone had stopped so soon. I guess having a fellow biker turn up with an empty trailer, tie downs, and heading to the same location so soon really is proof of the Biker Gods at work. +1 to Karma.
Drop the guy off in Paeroa, quick further conversation about the impending day, and the offer of all sorts of worldly goods, all of which were turned down.
Back in the car, and off to the Motel. Arrived there, parked up, and signed in. Got offered a vast array of Eye-Wateringly-Orange apparel to don, none of which was made in 'real' sizes. Fluro vest it is then. Given free Sunblock, and a BOTS Marshal shirt. More of a souvineir than anything else, as we had the fluros and overalls on over the top anyway, but a cool, and more unique offer than everyone else got. Briefing. Assigned Point 5. The first corner of the S bend, and only real left hander in the circuit. Am told that I certainly wont die of boredom.
Sank piss, swapped stories, explained that i'd only ever Marshalled once before at Pukekohe, and i'd never attended a Street Race before, so I was somewhat apprenhensive. Went out, and walked the circuit, had all sorts of advice chucked at me, most of which was useful. Cool to see all of the circuit before much of the barriers were in place. Continued on drinking piss, the Organisers were there, and gave us a brief rundown of what to expect, and gave me some history of the event.
Finally get into the room ready for sleep at about 1am. Fart jokes, much giggling, and sex talk finally subside at about 2am, when he who shall remain nameless fell asleep. Then it started. At first I thought a Freight Train had derailed, and rolled into the bathroom. Nope. Snoring like a motherfucker. Awesome, after my limited sleep the night before (Thank You Iron Maiden) I gained all of 30 minutes beauty rest (I know, I know some say I don't need any more at all, but what can you say when blessed with a face and body such as this).
Up at 6am, showered, changed. Off to have the worst breakfast i'll ever suffer. If you ever think that the Tui bakery (not associated with the beer) would make a great stop for a bite to eat, you should remove yourselves from the premises quick smart. Off to my assigned corner. Looks quite narrow. Can only wonder how much carnage will be impending with 25-odd Motards barreling down. On a corner with Gremlin, who seems like a somewhat normal bloke. Likes KTM's apparently, not that I held it against him. The first Triumph Motard will convert him.
Drizzle. Lame. Watch the Truck and Trailers drive around the circuit after dropping off the Hay bales. Notice that they only have 4 inches of clearance on either side on my corner. It is quite narrow.
Drizzle stops, onto the track and start sweeping the sodden Hay away. Pace cars sent out to dry out the track. Someone needs to invent a car with a massive bar heater on the bumper to sort out situations like this. The cars on the track do sweet fuck-all. Clound eventuall let up at about 9am, an hour after Practice was supposed to start. Track starts drying out.
10.30ish, Bikes start to come out and play.
Damn those Sidecars are awesome. Next have-a-go day in Taupo, I'm there. First incident is a Post Classic guy who's engine drops it's guts out of the hairpin, and leaks fluid down too the kink. 150m or so. Out with the Brooms and sand. Takes a good 5-10 minutes to get it "cleaned up". Back to my post for more practice.
Now, it was a long day, so what i'm about to recall probably didn't happen in the order that I listed it.
Had a F3 (I think) guy lose it into the bales, dropped his bike, spotted flames shoot up from his lying down bike, I watched from the bales (I was frantically waving the flag, so sadle couldn't go as assistance) as he reached inside the fairing, and smothered out the flames with his hand. That man deserves a DB.
Post Classic fellow ended up locking up the back end, hitting the bales side on, leaned the bike up, amd hopped over the bales. Sat the race out.
F2 (I think) guy on a Green bike (sponsored by Castrol) ended up in the bales. No biggie, but had to sit the remainder of the race out.
Sidecar 50 (Powered by Oporto chickens apparently) flipped on the corner after ours.
One of the Motard boys traded paint, and shoulder pads with another rider, and ended up against the bales leaving us with a small slippery Thank You gift to cherish. Or put sand on.
Had either an Official, or Team Boss (Older guy with a White beard in a Blue Yamaha polo shirt) climb the ladder into the crane thing and hurl a torrent of abuse at the Announcer. Crowd was somewhat shocked as they must have thought it may be a friendly joke to start with until he told the annoucer that "If the Wanker announcer doesn't watch what he'd say then he'd smack the cunt in the face". Pleasant man. No idea what he was referring to though, with the earplugs in I only heard the shouty bits. If anyone could shed some light on this it'd be much appreciated.
I think that was everything. I had the best seat in the house, on arguably the best corner, given free lunch, and didn't have to pay to get in. Awesome time, awesome people.
Met a few KBers, saw even more, and by the looks of it, I'm the most photographed man on KB. It's like playing "Where's Gubby".
Cheers everyone, i'll be back next year, and hopefully at Nationals if my work schedule allows it.
Drive back with the loaded Trailer took over 4 hours. Lame. Next year I'm riding.
EDIT: For somr reason, I wrote "Taupo" instead of "Paeroa". Guess i'm looking forward to my first Track Day a little more than I had anticipated.
Took the car down (I know, I know. I'm a loser) on Saturday afternoon (Marshal's briefing was at 7pm) as I was bringing back a rather large Macrocarpa table and bench chairs. Fairly uneventful trip down until I stumbled across two guys standing on the side of the road about 35Km out of Paeroa kneeling beside a Black Norton 850 (or is it a 350? The decals were all faded) Commando, fiddling with something. "Need a hand?" I asked. "She's dead, won't even start" replied they. "Heading to Paeroa I take it? Need a lift? I got tie-downs with the Trailer." Exchanged hand-gestures, and loaded the bike onto the Trailer, strapped down and ready to go. Turn off the fairly loud, particularly shouty rendition of Refused's 'New Noise', and started with idle conversation.
He'd only been on the side of the road for 10 minutes, and was genuinely suprised that someone had stopped so soon. I guess having a fellow biker turn up with an empty trailer, tie downs, and heading to the same location so soon really is proof of the Biker Gods at work. +1 to Karma.
Drop the guy off in Paeroa, quick further conversation about the impending day, and the offer of all sorts of worldly goods, all of which were turned down.
Back in the car, and off to the Motel. Arrived there, parked up, and signed in. Got offered a vast array of Eye-Wateringly-Orange apparel to don, none of which was made in 'real' sizes. Fluro vest it is then. Given free Sunblock, and a BOTS Marshal shirt. More of a souvineir than anything else, as we had the fluros and overalls on over the top anyway, but a cool, and more unique offer than everyone else got. Briefing. Assigned Point 5. The first corner of the S bend, and only real left hander in the circuit. Am told that I certainly wont die of boredom.
Sank piss, swapped stories, explained that i'd only ever Marshalled once before at Pukekohe, and i'd never attended a Street Race before, so I was somewhat apprenhensive. Went out, and walked the circuit, had all sorts of advice chucked at me, most of which was useful. Cool to see all of the circuit before much of the barriers were in place. Continued on drinking piss, the Organisers were there, and gave us a brief rundown of what to expect, and gave me some history of the event.
Finally get into the room ready for sleep at about 1am. Fart jokes, much giggling, and sex talk finally subside at about 2am, when he who shall remain nameless fell asleep. Then it started. At first I thought a Freight Train had derailed, and rolled into the bathroom. Nope. Snoring like a motherfucker. Awesome, after my limited sleep the night before (Thank You Iron Maiden) I gained all of 30 minutes beauty rest (I know, I know some say I don't need any more at all, but what can you say when blessed with a face and body such as this).
Up at 6am, showered, changed. Off to have the worst breakfast i'll ever suffer. If you ever think that the Tui bakery (not associated with the beer) would make a great stop for a bite to eat, you should remove yourselves from the premises quick smart. Off to my assigned corner. Looks quite narrow. Can only wonder how much carnage will be impending with 25-odd Motards barreling down. On a corner with Gremlin, who seems like a somewhat normal bloke. Likes KTM's apparently, not that I held it against him. The first Triumph Motard will convert him.
Drizzle. Lame. Watch the Truck and Trailers drive around the circuit after dropping off the Hay bales. Notice that they only have 4 inches of clearance on either side on my corner. It is quite narrow.
Drizzle stops, onto the track and start sweeping the sodden Hay away. Pace cars sent out to dry out the track. Someone needs to invent a car with a massive bar heater on the bumper to sort out situations like this. The cars on the track do sweet fuck-all. Clound eventuall let up at about 9am, an hour after Practice was supposed to start. Track starts drying out.
10.30ish, Bikes start to come out and play.
Damn those Sidecars are awesome. Next have-a-go day in Taupo, I'm there. First incident is a Post Classic guy who's engine drops it's guts out of the hairpin, and leaks fluid down too the kink. 150m or so. Out with the Brooms and sand. Takes a good 5-10 minutes to get it "cleaned up". Back to my post for more practice.
Now, it was a long day, so what i'm about to recall probably didn't happen in the order that I listed it.
Had a F3 (I think) guy lose it into the bales, dropped his bike, spotted flames shoot up from his lying down bike, I watched from the bales (I was frantically waving the flag, so sadle couldn't go as assistance) as he reached inside the fairing, and smothered out the flames with his hand. That man deserves a DB.
Post Classic fellow ended up locking up the back end, hitting the bales side on, leaned the bike up, amd hopped over the bales. Sat the race out.
F2 (I think) guy on a Green bike (sponsored by Castrol) ended up in the bales. No biggie, but had to sit the remainder of the race out.
Sidecar 50 (Powered by Oporto chickens apparently) flipped on the corner after ours.
One of the Motard boys traded paint, and shoulder pads with another rider, and ended up against the bales leaving us with a small slippery Thank You gift to cherish. Or put sand on.
Had either an Official, or Team Boss (Older guy with a White beard in a Blue Yamaha polo shirt) climb the ladder into the crane thing and hurl a torrent of abuse at the Announcer. Crowd was somewhat shocked as they must have thought it may be a friendly joke to start with until he told the annoucer that "If the Wanker announcer doesn't watch what he'd say then he'd smack the cunt in the face". Pleasant man. No idea what he was referring to though, with the earplugs in I only heard the shouty bits. If anyone could shed some light on this it'd be much appreciated.
I think that was everything. I had the best seat in the house, on arguably the best corner, given free lunch, and didn't have to pay to get in. Awesome time, awesome people.
Met a few KBers, saw even more, and by the looks of it, I'm the most photographed man on KB. It's like playing "Where's Gubby".
Cheers everyone, i'll be back next year, and hopefully at Nationals if my work schedule allows it.
Drive back with the loaded Trailer took over 4 hours. Lame. Next year I'm riding.
EDIT: For somr reason, I wrote "Taupo" instead of "Paeroa". Guess i'm looking forward to my first Track Day a little more than I had anticipated.