Originally Posted by
Kickaha
Briliant day,did anyone else go to it?
Here's the write up I did for one of the sidecar sites
NZSRA Have A Go Day
Taupo 24th April
This was held on the short Taupo circuit on the Saturday 24th of April and the association couldn’t have had better weather for the day, with a bright sunny day and no wind.
Arriving about 9-15am there were already seven outfits in various stages of preparation as guys checked them over before starting the rides and another three outfits turned up later on, what they do on these days is sell tickets for the rides at $10 a shot and the person presents this to the outfit of their choice and gets three laps on it in the swingers position.
The first person out on the circuit was a local radio presenter on Phil Laws outfit, unfortunately the outfit ran out of gas on what I think was his first lap, after coming back into the pits he then went out with Spike for a few more, and after finishing his ride said he thoroughly enjoyed it, a couple of people said they had heard about it on the radio so the publicity gained from his ride may have attracted a few more along.
From the time they started going on to the track there seemed to be a never ending flow of people wandering down the pits and waiting to be taken out, some children as young as 5 went out on some outfits with the swinger perched behind them holding them on and they were coming back in with big smiles on their faces, one young 8 year old and his sister had been bought out as a birthday treat and both kids and dad had a go with the kids wanting more turns, one other young girl I saw out at least a couple of times , perhaps these young people are the future of our chosen sport.
The swinger were kept busy all day as well, offering advice to the people going out, showing them how to sit and were to hold on and answering questions and chatting to the people going out,Spike went out as swinger on an outfit and he’s used to riding for a few laps and his comment when he came back in and got off was “F*%k that S#@t”, then Dennis went out in the riders seat Spike however declined to go out with him.
A few people seemed to be going out multiple times on different outfits as there were both short and long outfits available and I went out on both Brian Wyeths and Spikes outfits as I normally passenger a short chair and hadn’t been out on a long chair before and found it considerably different, one lady turned up with her partner under the pretext of going for a motorcycle ride when in reality he was buying her a ride on a outfit for her birthday, I couldn’t think of a better present to give someone.
The rides were briefly interrupted when a passenger fell off through the s bends, although they were sitting up in the ambulance so I don’t think they were in to bad a shape and that was the only one I saw for the day, no doubt she’ll have a good story to tell at work on Monday.
Marcus who is touring the country from Austria (Brochaus on KB)drove up from Tauramanui with the person he was staying with and went out for a few laps and enjoyed himself, but said he couldn’t imagine how you could hold on for ten laps or more at twice the pace.
They were hoping for around 150 people to attend and said they quite often get about 120 on days with worse weather, unfortunately I had to leave about 3-30pm so I don’t know the final numbers but when I was leaving they were still going strong with some very tired sidecar riders still going out so it wouldn’t surprise me if they got at least that, from what I saw of the day it was well run and organised and quite successful in putting sidecar racing in front of the public and hopefully may get a few people interested in the sport as I heard a few asking about availability of outfits, running costs etc
I would say it was an event well worth the trip up and all credit the NZSRA for running it, which reminds me I must join up!
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