Firstly, I must apologise for not updating this site for quite a few days. I am at Phillip Island for the 19th annual Island Classic and I have my little laptop here that does not have my login details for this site stored on it. Thanks to Chris, my site administrator, who SMS’d me the details late last night, I am now able to bring you up-to-date.
I got down here early Wednesday morning after enduring a nightmare 10 and a half hour train trip from Moss Vale. Instead of doing the 160km/h the XPT usually does, it was restricted to 90km/h and so took an hour and a half longer for the journey. Next time I’ll take the punt of getting a seat where I can stretch my injured leg and take the plane instead.
I picked up my car from my son in Melbourne and headed out to Team Gunn HQ at Seaford, near Frankston. Roger Gunn, a Melbourne business man, runs a team of three Suzukis in Post-Classic racing, 2 Katanas and a GS1000S and he has invited my good Facebook friend, Edwin Haazer, from California, to come out from the US and race for him at the Island Classic. He also invited another American rider, Ed’s good mate, Jimi Mac, from Reno, Nevada, to come out as well, AND he asked me if I’d like to come down and hang out with the boys as guest of the team How could I refuse?
So, from Seaford, we headed down to PI with the three bikes in tow and the rest of his team, head mechanic, Peter Minehan and wrench, Mike Curtin. Roger has rented a house at Cowes so we settled in, hit the sack and got ready for a huge weekend.
Yesterday (Thursday) was a track day at the circuit and most of the competitors for the Classic were there, using the day as an extra practice day. Ed and Jimi were quickly on the pace as I knew they would be and it was all smiles in team Gunn by the end of the day. Peter and Mike spent most of the day fine-tuning the bikes to suit the new riders and the riders spent every session frantically learning a new, and very demanding track.
As one of the things that Ed wanted to do while he was out here, he had brought a mini voice recorder so that he could get some interviews with riders for Jim Race and Jules Clisek’s MotoPod internet podcast. Unsurprisingly, when Ed found out that I was a teacher and had lost of commentating and media experience, he prevailed upon me to do the interviews instead, especially since I knew nearly all the riders anyway. So, as well as helping out where I have been able, I have managed so far to do extensive interviews with Robbie Phillis, Josh Brookes, Steve Martin, Jeremy McWilliams, Ryan Farquhar and English Manx GP Ambassador, David Taylor. Tough work, but, somebody has to do it. Watch out for these interviews in the weeks to come on Motopod podcasts.
I have taken a hundred or so photos while trolling the pits and have spoken to literally dozens of the riders, mechanics and support crews. I have made friends with some of the British riders and especially the French riders who are in the pit bay next to ours. They are wonderful gentlemen, most of whom barely understand English, but, somehow we get by and understand each other. Their team has had some appalling bad luck with one of their best riders, Christian Vite, crashing in the very first session on Thursday and severely damaging his finger. This has required micro-surgery in hospital in Melbourne and there is some doubt as to whether Christian will be able to fly out with the team on Monday.
Phillipe le Grand, who rides a Seeley-framed Suzuki TR750 replica is such a charming and wonderful man, I wish I could remember more of my high school French so that we could converse more.
It hasn’t been a good weekend for some of the Suzuki riders either. NZ’s Russell Barker, holed a piston and damaged the crank on his GSX1100-engined bike on Thursday and is out of the event and today, the #7 Harris-framed GSX1100 ate the timing chain tensioner block, necessitating a complete engine tear-down to repair.
Rest of the World team’s Glenn Kelleher, from Taree, had a huge “off” this afternoon and the team was frantically rebuilding the CB900F when I left the circuit this afternoon. Glenn’s dad, Brian, is the proprietor of the National Motorcycle Museum at Nabiac on the north coast and he and his mechanic look like working a minor miracle and having the bike ready for racing tomorrow. Glenn is, thankfully, not injured.
Names? Malcolm Campbell, Robbie Phillis, Joshua Brookes, Steve Martin, Johnny Pace, Laurie Fyfe, Stuart Lolley, Leo Cash, it just goes on and on.
I’ve taken over 100 photos so far and published them on my Facebook page as an album. You do not need to be a Facebook member to view this album.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150620151015757.456144.785170756&type=1&l=72ea0b8b16
Tomorrow and Sunday I might be out of circulation, pit-wise, as I might have parlayed my way into the commentary box with Phil Harlin. I hope so, they are predicting 32 degrees tomorrow and the box is air-conditioned!! Stay tuned for further developments.