Thursday 7 November 2013

The rest of the 2013 season

Well it looks like I have been a bit remiss in my blogging. Nothing since June and it is now November. The season has finished and winter is setting in.
In July I rode my road bike out to Chimay in Belgium to meet up with Tony and take part in the Chimay Classic road race. It was scorching hot weather and a lot of fun. We had problems with the bike - timing I think - but we completed the races and both got bitten by the road racing bug. Unfortunately our plans to take part in the Gedinne road race the following month was thwarted and Chimay proved to the last race we would take part in this year.


All was not lost however as my friend Allie bought the F1 she had been passengering on and she asked me to passenger for her. She had never driven one of these before and so it was a leap into the unknown. We went up to Mallory Park for a Wednesday practice session to see how we would do.
Riding around the paddock area Allie seemed to get to grips with things pretty well. That is with the exception of her ability to judge how far out the sidecar was. We narrowly missed a wheelie bin at one point. A bit of ribbing and it was time to go out on circuit and see how things went.
We took it slowly and both of us spent our session getting used to where things were. The sessions went by with us getting quicker each time until we went out for our final session. We exited the pit lane and accelerated around Gerards then slowed down and coasted to a halt. I was looking at Allie expectantly wondering what was going on. It turned out that the throttle cable had pulled out of the nipple at the throttle. End of session and end of practice for the day. We sat the remainder of the session out on the grass by the lake watching the others fly round. Eventually the recovery van came to push us in. As I sat facing the rear with my feet against the front of the van we moved off. Just before Edwina's the van dropped back and we turned right into an entrance to the paddock. The entrance is one of those types with the offset fences requiring us to go through at an angle. We came to an abrupt stop as we went through because the sidecar wheel fairing collided with the fence post! Oh dear, fortunately there wasn't too much damage done.
The following week we were going to be racing at Brands Hatch on the GP circuit. Neither of us had ever done the GP circuit before and practice was on the Indy circuit! Not a lot of help in learning the GP circuit.
Anyway the qualifying session was our first taste of it and we managed a 2min 15sec. lap. Not fantastic but not the slowest out there. We were happy. By the end of the weekend we had managed to get just under 2minutes and we were very happy with that.
Looking good but we were being lapped. They are one of the top teams in the British Championships though.
Going through my favourite bend, Surtees. I love that bend on the GP circuit.

We did OK and came away happy with our progress. Still a lot to learn and improve on. Next up was Cadwell.
I enjoyed Cadwell on the classic but it was definitely hard work. The change at the bottom of the mountain is very fast and I wondered what it would be like on this F1.
I searched You Tube for videos to learn from and found an excellent one of Tim  Reeves and Gregory Cluze chasing the Birchalls. Who better to learn from? I studied this video for hours noting every move and position of Tom Birchall until I felt I knew exactly what to do and where.
Of course, I wasn't able to do what he did but it helped me to find my own way. I also got lots of advice from Adrian Hope of AMR and Ben Hughes. Both very competent passengers in the Bemsee series. The entries for this meeting were so great that the F1s went out separately to the F2s so this meant we had a less crowded track for the races. As I expected the changeover at the bottom of the mountain was fast but no worse than on the classic. I was learning more about positioning myself and was using the footplate above the cross member to enable me to get further out on the right hand bends. Again we were making improvements each tie we went out. Then on Sunday we went out on slicks and lined up as it started to rain. We did the sighting lap and lined up on the grid. We decided that we were too inexperienced to risk this race on slicks and so we pulled in on the first lap and returned to the paddock. The next race was also wet but this time we were prepared and went out on wets. For me it was a relatively relaxed cruise around. Merely sticking my leg out on the lefts and doing the usual on the rights. For Allie it was her most intense experience yet!

I now needed just one more race to qualify me to lose my orange learner vest. Our next meeting was the Indy Circuit at Brands. We wanted to get our lap time down to under a minute this time but had no idea how reasonable an expectation this was. We spent Friday practicing and on Saturday morning went out for qualifying - 1min 02sec. Not bad, 1 minute was certainly do-able.
We were definitely getting quicker generally. I was much happier with my positioning and changeovers. We lined up for the first race and set off on the sighting lap. This would be our first time on circuit at the same time as Marianne and Claire on their F2. We were looking forward to racing them as were they. Jon and Dom also on an F2 were also in our sights. They had been a bit quicker than us last time out at Brands but were definitely in our sights.
We had video cameras running front and rear to capture this race. The red light went out and we were off. Allie fluffed the start slightly with the engine bogging a bit. She soon had that sorted however and before Marianne could get past we were beginning to pull out from them. Jon and Dom were ahead but we were staying with them and in touch with the rest of the field. Being a shorter circuit this was a ten lap race. We were getting quicker each lap and leaving the girls behind until Allie had a gear selection problem at Clearways. Marianne and Claire regained a lot of the lost ground but we started to stretch it out again. Then on lap six we began to get lapped. Kev and Guy first followed by Sammy and Ben as we accelerated down Cooper Straight. We were flying round Clearways and onto the Start/Finish straight. Good acceleration and speed as we approached Paddock Hill bend. I popped my head up and watched the distance markers. At 300 I put my left foot up to the footplate and waited for the braking. As the braking force pushed me forwards I used this to help me come up and over the rear wheel and settled myself into position ready for the corner. As we hit the apex I could feel myself go light. The track drops away quite sharply here. This time however it was different. I felt the back end start to swing out to the left. Damn! We had lost it like this during practice for the GP circuit race and ended up on the grass.
I looked up as we went down the hill backwards and saw two big black lines from our tyres. I thought to myself 'Hold it straight Allie'. Then it slewed further round and I felt us topple over. I felt the crunch as I hit the track and then everything was just a blur of motion as I was thrown around.
I don't remember the next bit but apparently I began to get up and was hit by another machine that was spinning as it tried to avoid us. The next thing I remember is getting up and looking at my left hand. My glove had ripped partly off my hand and I was injured at the base of my thumb. I looked to right and saw other machines and tried to make my way off the track. I had the strange sensation of knowing I was trying to walk off but experiencing a feeling that I can only describe as my body flipping about like a fish on dry land. I realised at this point I was winded as I couldn't breathe and also realised that this meant I wouldn't get rid of my orange vest which irritated me somewhat.
The next thing I know was a marshal was telling me to lay down and stay still. I was saying i needed to get my helmet off as I couldn't breathe. He made me keep it on so I asked him to undo my leathers. That eased things a bit and I relaxed a little and let things happen. I was surrounded by marshals and other people. I was asked a lot of questions that I knew were to check whether I was concussed or not. I had taken quite a knock to the right side of my head that had cracked my visor at the pivot and so that was hanging off. I still felt somewhat irritated at these questions however. I asked about Allie and was told she was OK.
Eventually after repeated tellings off for nodding as I answered questions they felt I was OK and removed my helmet then strapped blocks to the sides of my head to immobilise my neck. I managed to see behind me enough to see that some guys were holding blankets up to screen me off from the spectators and wondered how bad I was.
A short trip in the ambulance to the medical centre and I was being examined and asked how attached I was to my leathers. Very was my response. They are tatty but my favourites, unfortunately they had to cut them off. While I was in there they told me that the other crew were OK. I asked if I could talk to them and was told they had already been released. I asked again about Allie and then she came into my line of sight looking mildly concerned. I also found out that Tricia and some other friends were waiting to see me. I was allowed to see Tricia and I could see she was very upset and my heart went out to her as I tried to reassure her I was OK. I was on Morphine by this time and my humour had returned as they loaded me back into the ambulance to take me to hospital.
I was x-rayed and CT scanned and found I had 13 ribs fractured in my back and a multiple fracture of my left collar bone. A fracture of my C7 vertebrae and a wrist fracture and scaphoid fracture. Bugger.
I got out after three days and Allie drove up to get me. Tony had phoned and offered to come and get me which moved me a lot. Various other people had phoned or texted to ask after me.
I found out that everyone had jumped in at the circuit to help repair the damage to the outfit. Tricia and Chick had almost climbed the fence as they had been watching the race right where we crashed.
Apparently it had looked horrific and I am quite glad I couldn't remember being clobbered.
It is now one month on from the crash and I am beginning to move better. My hand is healing but my wrist is still very stiff. My left shoulder is improving but my right shoulder is very weak as I discovered later that I had wrenched the muscles and couldn't lift my arm. Most of my ribs are now fine, some of the lower ones are still painful occasionally. My neck muscles are stiff but I am working on all of this so that I am fit for next season.
It appears that the line Allie took was maybe a little tight. She thinks she went in a bit hot. The back end started to go and she shut the throttle off which just exacerbated the imbalance and so we spun. It was due to inexperience and hopefully we have learnt from it.