Travelling man!
Published: 12th July 2007
Author: Words by Gordon Crockard
France, Bulgaria, Sweden, Whitby - the Crock Star's certainly putting it about a bit...
So it's my turn again to report any shocking news or stories from my latest month of racing bikes. Since my chain-breaking day at Langrish I've driven to the French GP, caught a flight to Bulgaria, driven home to Desertmartin and caught another flight to Sweden for their GP at the weekend just passed.
Today I'm tired of travelling but hoping I'll get over that mood quickly as I've got racing and travelling to continue with for some period yet. I would be interested to know how many miles I cover in a year as it seems most of my time is spent transporting myself from one place to another. Whether it be a 10-mile run, a 50-mile bicycle ride, a 40-minute GP race, a 500-mile camper drive, an afternoon doing motos at the practice track or a long-haul flight - it all adds up.
At the end of all these miles I ask myself where am I going or even where am I trying to get to. When will it stop? Steve McQueen once said something along the lines of 'life is a race, everything else is just waiting'. My reason for the miles I cover is simple - I'm trying to get to the chequered flag before everyone else! So given the current content of my life I'd say it's definitely a race. For others that I know and have seen it most definitely is NOT a race.
I don't think there's a right or wrong on this topic as everyone in life is dealt a different hand and also at any stage anyone's circumstances can drastically change, especially in a sport like MX where injury is a big possibility. Just ask my fellow DBR columnist Swordy. Good to see you back on track Haggis!
I've had frustration overload at last month's races with qualifying being a major factor in how your starts end up. I've been okay with my riding but not okay with my results. In France the times were close - you'd think being 1.8 seconds off pole would leave me higher than 19th in qualifying. And tempers were fraying I'm sure among the Youthstream top brass on Sunday morning after some troublesome fans took it upon themselves to spray graffiti all over the startgate and startline backdrop. The club repainted the gate during morning warm-up but the sponsors' backdrop was unrepairable.
France was hot and Bulgaria was even hotter which I guessed would be the case. Last year when I went to the GP in Bulgaria I packed riding kit and goggles suitable for hot weather and, yes, it was mega hot but then all of a sudden it went completely the other way and a huge thunderstorm broke out turning everything to mud. I'll never forget sitting on the startline freezing cold and soaking wet with dark lens goggles and tear-offs. Paddy Irishman, eh?
This year I was better prepared for the weather but not for the behaviour of some of the Bulgarian people who tried to get as much money out of my pocket as possible! From the moment I arrived to the moment I left I was constantly trying to avoid getting ripped off. Taxi guys are the worst and some of the waiters in restaurants are like magicians, making your change disappear and then losing the ability to speak English when challenged. On the first night I got there I stayed in a hotel arranged through the Youthstream website. My flight was in late so it was close to the airport and after paying four times the regular taxi fare I wasn't too impressed to be greeted by a sign at the hotel saying 'NO GUNS'. Definitely the dirtiest, oldest, badly maintained, run down, hellhole of a hotel I've ever seen, never mind paid money to stay in. Good job we were only there for one night.
The races in Bulgaria were all about where you started and where you started was all about where you qualified. I left the GP pretty frustrated with where I finished. I flew back on the Monday from Sofia to Luton and got a taxi to Mark Bishop's KTM race team workshop which is where I'd parked my camper. After feeding the fish in his pond and catching up on the craic we hit the motorway and headed for Stranraer in Scotland to catch the P+O ferry home to Belfast. There had been some serious flooding at home but the Desertmartin club had handled it very well and the track and venue were prepared to the highest standard.
My mechanic Factory Phil had made the massive drive from Bulgaria in one piece but there was a worrying noise coming from the engine of my Sprinter. After Desertmartin my van was heading straight to Sweden so some urgent repairs were needed and with the help of a friend the van was repaired, serviced and in top shape again.
I wanted to win at Desertmartin and had the pace needed but I found it tough to pass Brad Anderson in the first moto when the track was still quite smooth and back-markers seem to get in my way all the time too. In the second race I collided with someone on the start straight and was lucky not to go down but by the time I'd passed the pack Big Ken was long gone. Second overall is okay but I wanted to win!
In Sweden I had a tough time protecting my damaged knee on the rutted track. Some tracks are no problem and I can ride without caring for my knee but others are really tough. I'm having surgery on it at the end of the year and I look forward to getting rid of the daily pain I experience at the moment. Sweden's also suffering with strange summer wet weather too and this made it all very muddy on the Saturday. It was much drier on the Sunday but the ruts were formed already and I didn't really enjoy it at all - 16th and 12th were my results but I'd hoped and planned for much better than that.
Whitby is my next stop for a British championship round this weekend and looking out the window now I'm guessing it's going to be a wet one! Where has the summer gone?