Off it! On it!
Published: 06th December 2007
Author: Gordon Crockard
Gordy goes down hard at Sheffield and then parties hard in Ireland…
What a joy it is to look back over time. Writing a column every month gives me that chance but in years past that would have been a huge mental challenge for me and selected friends as November was a month of bars, clubs and pubs. When we were in our early 20s the social side and party lifestyle hit full throttle in November as it was completely the end of our racing season and time to celebrate, unwind and finally relax after being dedicated to racing for 10 solid months beforehand.
Rocket fuel intake was often the case and not surprisingly this resulted in not remembering a whole lot. October was renamed Bloctober and November became Noremember so if I was writing a column in those days it would have been tough! But now I’m a responsible 28-year-old adult I have plenty to write about in November.
At the Sheffield Supercross I was on it and dying to run up front. I rode a 450 PAR Honda and holeshot my heat and lead for the whole race until Jeff Alessi pushed past in the last turn. In the final Mike Brown ran into Alessi who ran into me in the first turn and I got punted off the track and went down. Away last and fully hacked off about it too. But it got worse as during my raging effort to climb the leaderboard I caught a plastic haybale cover with my footpeg and flew through the air backwards, landing full impact onto my just healed shoulder. I broke all the scar tissue around the original break of my collarbone and knackered a ligament in there too. Good news is that the collarbone didn’t break which is a sign that it itself is strong.
My bike was pretty beat up and I felt awful handing it back to the PAR team like that. Sorry Rowly! I must take this opportunity to thank PAR Homes Honda Racing and Rowly and Claire especially for taking me on and having me part of the team this year.
I was meant to be racing a German SX at Stuttgart the weekend after but had to miss it because of my shoulder. The same weekend was Bercy so I watched that on TV instead.
WRC came to Ireland for the first time ever and it was fantastic to say the least. The opening stage was held at Stormont in Belfast and I gave going to it in person a miss and instead watched it on the telly so I got to see a lot more but missed out on the noise and atmosphere. Let’s hope Rally Ireland is an annual fixture on the WRC calendar for years to come.
The same weekend I flew over to Newcastle Upon Tyne to give out the prizes at the North East centre and club presentation. Nigel Roe took care of me all weekend and I was able to call in at Custom Lids’ shop to visit and have a catch up and chat with Kev who sponsored me. Thanks for lunch Kev. The prize-giving was held at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light ground – or, as Newcastle United fans call it, Stadium of Sh***! I had a fun night and signed way too many body parts for anyone’s good but that seemed to be what the North East wanted and I was the man with the permanent marker. Good luck scrubbing it off. Ouch!
Because of going over for the presentation I missed out on riding the two-hour cross country race at Mount Panther. All my buddies rode it and enjoyed it so I was sorry to miss the craic on the track.
Newtownards and District held their 20th Charity Sporting Dinner recently and for the sixth year running I went along to be among the distinguished guests also in formal attendance. During the night between Jeremy McWilliams and myself we arranged to go to the Mourne Mountains on the trials bikes early the next morning. The dinner went on very late and I got home around 4.30am so just four-and-a-half hours later I was up and heading to the Mournes. Neil Hodgson and Leon Haslam were over for another formal dinner that night so Jezza wanted to get them down the Mournes on the trial bikes for a good day’s banter. It was a mega craic and we all had a blast.
I thought I was knackered from the night before but that was nothing compared to what was ahead. I went straight from the trials outing back up to Belfast and straight back into my tux and to the next formal dinner for another charge at it. Well, that night was again another belter and I finally made it to bed at 5am. Trouble was I was getting picked up at 8am to go down south to Dundalk for a training school to raise funds for the MXdN team’s trip to America last September. I actually slept in my tux – that’s how posh I am!
The school went well and improvement was achieved so I was happy at the end of the day even though I was running on empty in terms of energy. The school was on a Saturday and everyone knows Saturday night only comes once a week so I did as every other normal Irishman would do – I went out. That day had been the last round of the P&O supermoto series and I had arranged to meet friends who were having a night out to celebrate their championship results. Well, while doing that I ran into a couple of guys I used to race youth MX with and hadn’t seen in ages so the fun and laughter were flowing and before we knew it we were still out and it was 3am. Suddenly I decided it was bedtime! An action-packed weekend indeed but you couldn’t get on like that for long before something gives. Thankfully I have stamina in abundance!