At present I am waiting to hear from the owners of the National Motorcycle Museum of Australia as to when their truck will be down this way again so they can pick up the bike and transport it to its new home in Nabiac. In the mean time, I have been busy taking care of a few, last-minute things. For riding and display purposes the bike has worn the Kerker exhaust muffler that you have seen in most of the photos. While it is a period piece, it is not original as the builders would never have been able to afford one back in the day. In fact, the whole exhaust system on the original race bike was hand made, including the headers. As well as that, however, the Kerker was borrowed from Dave Quinn and is, actually, the pipe off his most prized bike, the Black Pearl. So it has been returned to Dave with much thanks.
In its place I have sourced a pipe that is far more closely resembling that of the one it had (though even this one is probably prettier than the piece of drain pipe that adorned the bike when it hit the track) Thanks to Andrew, my local muffler shop man in Dapto, I now have a pipe that will do for display purposes.
The summer break for the MotoGp teams is over and the first two practice sessions at Indianapolis have been completed. Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo have had three extra weeks for their respective collar bone injuries to heal and both came out and set good times. However, just when it looked like the status quo would be restored, MM93 came out and eclipsed them all to go top of the charts heading into FP3. To further upset the applecart, Stefan Bradl, fresh from re-signing for LCR for another season, came out and stole 3rd place putting JL99 back to 4th. It’s going to be an interesting weekend, but I won’t be staying up at 0330 on Monday to watch the races.
I’ve had a busy week. For the first time in a couple of months I got a call for school and ended up teaching for three days, the longest stint for a long time. And, man, did it knock me about. If you haven’t done it, I can’t describe adequately to you how physically demanding teaching is. You are constantly on your feet and moving around. Then there is playground duty and sport. All in all, a very exhausting week.
Next week promising to be interesting also. A Facebook friend who lives locally has invited me to join him and a group of his friends on Wednesday for a regular music gig that they do at some nursing homes around Wollongong. Elwyn and the boys go to the homes, sing some songs for an hour or so and entertain the residents and he asked me (knowing that I am a bit of a frustrated muso) to come along, sing along with them and also do a couple of songs solo to boot. How could I resist? Now I just have to decide what songs to do out of the thousand or so that I know and love. Decisions, decisions. I think I will debut my new (2nd hand) Art and Lutherie guitar!
Yesterday was spent in a high-powered meeting with my WordPress guru, the amazing Chris Mundy. We’re working on a business plan that may see both his and my internet interests diversify a little and hopefully into something that can actually generate some income as well. Early stages yet, but, with his thorough approach, it is an exciting prospect.
That’s all for now. Enjoy the weekend and the MotoGp.