Today has been a very busy and somewhat frustrating day. We arrived at the track early only to find that it had been booked for a car event for the whole day. Members of the international teams were allowed access as long as their names were on the master list at the front gate and plainly, ours weren’t. However, the lovely gentleman with the Irish accent who was working the front gate, accepted my explanation that I was, in fact, working media and he allowed us in on the proviso that we signed the appropriate indemnity form, which we did.
For the whole day the on-track activity consisted of people exercising their extremely expensive sports and racing cars, some just for fun and some testing cars and components for the upcoming GT Series or for the Bathurst 12 Hour.
The amount of money on show today was eye-watering, bordering on the obscene. The Eerebus Motorsport B Double transporter was probably worth a couple of mill all by itself, to say nothing of the two SLK Mercs they had there testing brake components all day. There was an Ascari, an exotic Italian hand-built sports car of which there is only one in Australia, this was it. And so it went on. As someone who started their motorsports obsession with car racing it was fascinating to me and I absolutely loved snivelling around the pits, photographing the exotica and talking with the drivers, some famous and others not so.
My album of photos has been already published on my Facebook site and you can access it here, you do not need to be a Facebook member to view it.
Later, I decided to visit the office and make enquiries about Media Centre arrangements for the weekend and it was while chatting to the circuit manager, Peter Matthews, that I was told that tomorrow (Thursday) would be for teams only and that no media were allowed because PI didn’t have the staff to supervise them. This was a major blow as it has always been my plan to get a lot of interviews done before racing starts. Lots of begging and grovelling and pleading didn’t seem to make any difference, but Leanne Duthie came to my rescue in the end. No, I would not be able to do any media work, that rule was not going to be changed. But, yes, I COULD get in to the track as long as I was listed on their master list as a member of one of the international teams. Should I be able to convince one of the teams to put me on their list I could come in to the track and watch, take photos etc, but I would not be allowed to do any interviews.
Proving, again, that you catch more bees with honey than you do with vinegar, I readily agreed, being pretty sure that my American buddies would consent to putting my name on the Team USA list.
A hasty meeting with American team captain, Ottis Lance and we were in. Both my name and John’s name will be on the list in the morning and we should be in. Phew.
While all of this was going on, I noticed through the window that some bikes were being unpacked so we hot-footed it out and helped the Team USA guys and gals unpack the two 47′ shipping containers that contained their 36 solo bikes and 5 sidecars. Wow, what a mammoth undertaking it must have been packing them and sending them off from the USA! The east coast competitors had to have theirs packed and on the ship in OCTOBER so that the freighter could make the long journey down the east coast, through the Panama Canal and across the Pacific Ocean to Melbourne. The west coast contingent had it a little easier, only having to have their work done by mid-November.
What a fabulous bunch of people the Team USA members are. I don’t have time to detail it all, but there is a rider who has ridden in the Isle of Man and the Manx TT on both solos and sidecars. There is a member who still owns and races the Yamaha TZ750D that he bought for Daytona in 1978. There are three lady racers, two of them sidecar passengers and one solo competitor. Jimi Mac is back after competing here last year as well as the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb and the Manx TT (aboard Ed Haazer’s Kawaskai)
And there is already a treasure trove of fascinating and funny stories. Tom Marquardt, a dentist from Colorado, has a lovely little 400/4 Honda, bored out to 500cc with a Yoshimura kit. He won’t be riding it, but he is fettling it. And it was Tom who furnished this little gem. When he was entering Australia, the customs official asked him if he had more than 50g of tobacco on him. “I thought I’d better fess up,” he said, so he showed the official a box of 30 Cuban cigars that he had in his luggage. Tom’s honesty cost him a fee of $167, a value much higher than the face value of the cigars themselves!
So, tomorrow it will be photography day, and a planning day to line up as many interviews as I can. And it will be the day when everyone arrives at the track and the bikes hit the track for the first time. I can’t wait.