Anglesey 7th June Race 2
Despite the borderline, brummie, poofery in the adjacent tent, I managed a decent nights kip and woke to another dreech welsh morning. Our race was not scheduled till after lunch and this gave me time to tour the local villages with a bootfull of soaked nomex searching for a beautiful laundrette. My luck was finally in at the local village, a place named without the use of vowels, where somebody had set up a shop specially for me, a combo espresso bar, restaurant and laundrette. I proceeded to invest a tenner, to relieve my Sunday morning misery, on 30mins of industrial dryer, two bacon baps, a Sunday Times and an espresso so very, very large that it would take some hours to recover from. Welsh entrepreneurs take note: at that time I would have happily shelled out 500quid on a 200quid suit if that beautiful laundrette had been closed.
Yesterday?s inundation had now been supplanted by a howling wind that dried the welsh asphalt in no time at all and it wasn?t long before the sounds of squealing tyres and twisted metal rent the tranquil landscape in twain. There was a very nasty looking high speed shunt in the bike powered RGB class that thankfully resulted in nothing more than financial pain and a similarly fortuitous result from an upside down sax max at Rocket. Lap times were finally back around the same times as Friday?s testing and it was with some determination that I formed up on the gird. Yesterday I lost 15 places on the first lap today I was determined to keep station. The red light went off, my wheels spun like politician trying to explain his expenses and the field zipped past me. I?m not normally given to the use of f**king foul language (sic) but anyone with a nervous disposition would have given thanks for my helmet at this point. I doubt that there has been such profanity on the Sabbath in Wales since the All Blacks put JPR Willams nose out of joint.
Three laps in and I?ve found my natural level, in front was the 54 car of David Morrow, which appeared to be wider than the Menai Bridge, and with every desperate lunge into rocket the blue striped livery of Victoria Pickles 71 car filled my mirrors. I was quicker in places but I was neither quick enough nor smart enough to get past the 54 car. I hadn?t eyeballed the last lap board however it was quite clear that my time was running out and I lined him up for a pass into the first half of the corkscrew. He wasn?t as quick as he had been out of the previous corner and I managed to get front wheels halfway up the side of his car before age and experience (beauty too probably) stepped in and told me to get out of it and my race was run. Placed 21st, not great from 13th on the grid but given the catalogue of learning experiences to date, I was still on a high as this was the first real racing for places that I had experienced. I pumped the hand of the man who beat me and despite my lowly result I had Matt sized grin to chum me down the motorway and back to the Slum.
