Well, the speedway season is over for me for another year. I wish I could say that it has been a good one, but it’s been a very frustrating one, mostly because of the weather. When one is promoting an outdoor sport, one learns to roll with the punches somewhat and there has been plenty of rolling this season. Out of the 11 shows scheduled for the Summer season at Nowra, my home track, 4 of the shows have been rained off and one of them has been timed out (the track is curfewed for 2230 and all racing must cease by that time.)
Such was the case for the last two meetings of the season and, wouldn’t you know it, they were both important meetings. 4th April we were scheduled to run the NSW Title for speedcars and last Saturday night we had the NSW Titles for National 4 cylinder cars and Modlites and a re-run of the Australian Title for Litre Sprint Cars that had been rained off earlier in the season. Both meetings were cancelled because of rain, the 4-4 one before a wheel was turned and last Saturday night after only five races had been run. For local competitors this is, at best, an inconvenience but it is much more so for competitors who travel huge distances to get to meetings. Last Saturday we had competitors who had travelled from Melbourne, far west NSW, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, all at their own expense, and all for zero prize money, just a plastic trophy if they happened to get on the podium in the feature races. Dedication? Speedway competitors have it is spades.
As noted in a previous post on this subject, the track at Nowra is mostly clay now and, once it gets wet, you can pretty much kiss goodbye any chance of it drying out. When the rain comes, it turns into a dangerous little skating rink and the officials are left with no choice but to cancel.
So my commentating at the races has been somewhat curtailed in 2014-15. Add to this the fact that a couple of meeting at Goulburn Speedway at which I was supposed to call were also rained-off, it has been a frustrating season as noted.
Of course it goes without saying that, if it’s too wet to race, it’s too wet to ride and I am typing this while listening to the rain belting down so no riding today either. 🙁
I am becoming increasingly frustrated also (since we are on the subject) with not being able to watch the bikes races on TV as well. It seems that, unless you are prepared to spend a lot of money for Pay TV, you are going to be seeing less and less of the important races on TV. I know we live in a “user pays” society but, if you can’t AFFORD to pay, the you miss out. Yes, the Grands Prixs being in the “wrong” time zone don’t help, either, I know.
And, on that subject, I wonder if Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes has bought a voodoo doll in the shape of Johnny Rae yet? If he hasn’t, you can bet that he will be doing so soon!
The power of the internet constantly amazes me, despite the fact that I have been playing around with it for more years than I care to number. Back in the 90’s one of the first web sites that I did was one about my then bike, the Honda CBX550.
http://www.halltech.com.au/CBX
For many years it was a repository of information about this short-lived Honda model and I corresponded with people all over the world who sent me information and pictures about their 550’s and asked me technical questions about the model. Eventually I graduated to a bigger bike but the web site stayed up and, on rare occasions, I get an email about it showing that there is still some interest in the model. Late last year I received such an email from a gentleman in Sweden called Peter Gardo. He had the opportunity of buying a pretty run-down example of the model (an F2 one, actually) and he asked me lots of questions. I tried to answer as best as I could remember and he bought the bike and started restoring it, keeping me informed of progress as he went.
Well, the bike is now finished and registered and Peter is enjoying riding it. I wish I had it and he had a better one, I still have a soft spot for the model as I travelled untold miles on my examples of it and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Peter Gardo’s CBX550F2
Till next time, stay safe.