Just in case anyone's interested, I'll be on the island from Wed to Sat, so should get both of Champ's races in. I know one or two others are there, and I'll be meeting up as and when, but if there's anyone else I don't know about going then feel free to get in touch (via Champ, Bonners, or Mike if you don't have a number for me). It'd be great to see whoever, IYSWIM. Oh, and I'm an IOM virgin - is there some sort of initiation ceremony? On a related note, why is booking flights so goddam difficult sometimes? It stretches credibility to believe that it's not possible for one booking site/agent to sort all my flights out. I could probably, maybe, have got the work travel agent to do it, but I doubt theyd have had an easier time of it. I finally had to book Basel-LCY on Swiss airmiles, Lcy-IOM-Liverpool on two separate bookings with EuroManx, then Liverpool-Basel with Easyjet. To even find these connections and confirm availability took several hours (literally) of googling and trying various sectors with up to about ten possible airlines, including trying routes via Dublin and Amsterdam, then even once I'd found them I had to go into the booking pages for all four segments virtually simultaneously to ensure I didn't book one only to find that one of the others was no longer available. To cap it all, both EasyJet and EuroManx charge extra for credit cards, so I was then juggling to find which of the (lower charged) debit ones would work on each site (UK one worked for EJ, French one for EuroManx) but still ended up paying 1x1.50 and 2x3.00 UKP for the privilege of booking. Grrrrrrr... Still, at least I was saved having to coordinate accomodation booking, as Neal's very kindly sorted me out in the same Homestay place as some of his other mates are staying. And in case you've not read his blog tonight, he turned in a fifth fastest in Junior practice this evening, with a rather creditable 114.3mph lap, and was the fastest 600 through the speed trap at 167.8mph, so is understandably quite happy tonight. Full story at http://blog.myspace.com/nealchampion -- _______ ..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom) \`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10 `\\ | //' `\|/` `
Very respectable times Champ's putting in there. I didn't realise he's actually racing against Olie Linsdell, who I sometimes share paddock garage space with when I'm spannering for Danny Imberg[1]. Olie's dad Steve[2] was third in the Senior Classic on one of the fast Paton 500s that Champ mentions in his blog. Olie won the Newcomers C race on his FZR400 today, by 13 minutes - not 13 seconds - with a speed of 102.83mph, as opposed to his closest rival's 89.059mph. Champ is kicking Olie's arse in junior practise, by a full 4 minutes plus. I guess the ZX6R he's on must be lots quicker than Olie's Triumph 675 Challenge bike. [1] Who fucking crashed heavily twice at Mallory's stupid new Gerards chicane this weekend. I have lots of bike fixing to do. [2] Steve and Carole Linsdell were my bosses when I was recently working part-time just up the road at Flitwick Motorcycles.
Not this year, certainly. Ahh, now that I'd be OK with. Then again, with Champ, Bonners, Mike and whoever else is around I might be struggling by comparison. Heh. -- _______ ..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom) \`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10 `\\ | //' `\|/` `
WLTM GBM with GSOH and own slop bucket. Anyway, your love-life aside, I've shivering with anti-whatsit ... how did you do today? -- AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas) Aprilia RSV-1000R, Kawasaki ZX-6R, Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL) BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, DS#5, COSOC# Suspended, KotTFSTR# The speccy Geordie twat.
Ah, the faint sound of retaining clips for the full-harness straining belts clipping into the floor-mounted eyebolts echoes distantly across the Irish Sea.
Ah, I'd just finished reading your blog for 28th August, which said that tomorrow was race day, and then I'd checked the date, not noticing that it had slunk past midnight, so when I posted I thought you'd finished your first race. All this going fast on motorbikes just confuses me. Anyway, best of luck - even though you're not going to see this until after the event. -- AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas) Aprilia RSV-1000R, Kawasaki ZX-6R, Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL) BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, DS#5, COSOC# Suspended, KotTFSTR# The speccy Geordie twat.
http://www.manxradio.com/ Listening to it now - they don't half play some old shite. -- Dave GS850x2 XS650 SE6a Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the river cleaned out in a day.
Bad form and all, but I'm wondering why the fastest bloke in practice isn't allowed to go off first and the starting order being something like that down the field. Iow, why should the fastest bloke be held up by having to try and pass demonstrably slower riders? -- Dave GS850x2 XS650 SE6a Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the river cleaned out in a day.
Its called "a race". That's the whole point. Which is a major peeve of mine about the blue flag system in F1 - part of the driver skillset is HOW TO PASS SLOWER CARS! Pah. Wasn't like that when I was younger. Phil.
He finished 9th! Got mentioned a lot as "having a good race indeed". -- Dave GS850x2 XS650 SE6a Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the river cleaned out in a day.
Is it bollocks. They're racing against the clock and the fastest guy in practice should be on pole so he doesn't have be held up. -- Dave GS850x2 XS650 SE6a Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the river cleaned out in a day.
It's all a case of mind over matter. I don't mind and you don't matter.. The old ones are the.. oldest. Phil.
