Well, I have just spent some of the most enjoyable 4 days that I can remember for a long time. 4 days of sunshine, fast bikes, delicious old machinery, old friends and new ones and some champagne racing. Could it get any better? I don’t think so.
Ed and Jimi took to Phillip Island like a duck to water and scored top 10 finishes in every one of the Unlimited Forgeotten Era races they competed (4) and top 20 placings in the four International Challenge races. An astonishing example of how good racers learn new bikes and new tracks quickly.
I got the opportunity to do some extensive interviews for Jules Cisek and Jim Race’s Motopod internet podcasts. They will be published in the next few weeks. I spoke to (or, perhaps I should say, listened to) Robbie Phillis, Steve Martin, Josh Brookes, Ryan Farquhar, Jeremy McWilliams, Ed Haazer and David Taylor. I can’t wait to hear them as the guys really opened up on the state of racing in the world and in Australia.
Speaking of Josh Brookes, he was flown in as a last-minute replacement for Cam Donald who’d broken his jaw in a dirt bike accident. Perhaps he’d have been better to stay away. In the first race og the International Challenge, Josh’s beautiful XR69 replica Suzuki was turned to scrap after running over its own (broken-off) exhaust pipe. The footage, captured by Pat Heuvel, will no doubt go around the world.
Josh Brookes’s accident, Phillip Island.
As with every meeting there were good luck stories and bad luck ones, underlining again just what a fickle trade motorcycle racing is.
Me? Well, I just had a ball, mooching the pits, helping out where I could and trying to stay out of the way of people who were there doing serious things. So much good racing, so many great stories; I’ve overdosed on racing. My album has now grown to over 200 pictures and browsing them and the captions for them will tell you so much more about my Island adventure that I can by reconstituting all the captions. Go there and enjoy.
Till next time
