Nigel Birkett

Scorpa. "Being at Hawkstone brings back many memories about when I used to compete in world rounds. I remember doing my first ever in Sweden on a Kawasaki KT250 with my good mate Richard Sunter at the ripe old age of 19. Bit of a baptism of fire really and I recall mainly how nice the Swedish girls were!

"My world championship highlight was second place at the Swiss world round on a factory Suzuki, about 1976/'77. Can't remember exactly but I know it ran round the bottom of a glacier and that Bultaco supplied special high-compression heads for their bikes to run at that altitude. We also had special tuning tricks - we took off a head gasket as the factory Suzukis at that time had about three! Should actually have removed two because Vesty beat me by a couple of marks as the big S would not run at all on the section at the bottom of the glacier and Vesty cleaned it both times (what a bummer, so near and yet so far) and I still lose sleep over it now.
"Later I rode for Montesa through the best guy to work with as an importer, Gentleman Jim Sandiford. Jim was great and very fair as he had been a good rider himself. I know he stuck his neck out to give us the best that he could scrounge from the factory. At this time I had linked up with (Big) Mart Lampkin to travel the world and these were just the best times. What was better than having travelling companions like Mart, Sid, Thorpey, Rob Edwards and later on the younger Lampkin, John Boy. We had never a dull moment.
"Apart from one that I will remind Mart about now! We'd ridden a world round in Holland in a sand pit and the main thing I remember was that it was a very long and quiet ride from Holland to Spain that followed as I had finished third and he had a bummer. All Mart would say, repeatedly, was "You have to admit Birky, that were a reet crap trial!"
"But that was then and here we are at Hawkstone again, doesn't seem 12 months ago does it that every Brit was shouting Doug on for the win so let's hope it's the same result again in '06! If not, I would settle for a certain dapper Polish gent to be up there. I will be praying and you never know! Good luck to you Taddy and all at Team Scorpa.
"Let's hope the English summer continues for one more weekend and the spectators are once again treated to the best riders in the world strutting there stuff in the Shropshire countryside."