A LONG AND EVENTFUL WEEKEND IN THE SOUTH-WEST

or How I came away from my trip to the South-West with more pictures than I bargained for :-(

Since I had a day of kart racing already in my diary for the Sunday at Clay Pigeon near Yeovil, I decided to make a long weekend of it and spend another couple of days touring the South-West picking up Round Britain Rally landmarks.

With me on the VFR with the overnight luggage and Tanya on her CBR6 with Pete as pillion, we left Buckingham on Friday morning. The weather forecast for the weekend had not looked promising OTOH, on the Friday it delivered what it promised ie rain, rain and yet more rain. We took the scenic route down Southern England following the "13 bends of death" road then going cross-country until we got to the first landmark at Bratton in Wilts. We had lunch in the local hostelry then went on up to get a photo of King Alfred's memorial. We pushed on to Langport on Somerset to get a picture of the Hanging Chapel then cut back through Yeovil to ride down to the Smiths Arms in Godmanston.

The Smiths Arms claims to be the smallest pub in Britain. I am sure I have been in smaller but certainly none so picturesque. The locals are a very friendly bunch, especially the husband of the landlady. He is an ex-jump jockey from the fifties and sixties who broke his neck and later had a stroke. His mind is still pin-sharp even though he sometimes struggles to say what he wants to. He is a real live-wire unable to sit still for more than a few minutes before he is off on some task or other. He chivvied everyone out of the pub to look at the swans with their babies making slow progress of paddling upstream in the little brook at the back of the pub. I think this has to be my favourite landmark experience so far.

We left the Smiths Arms in the heaviest rain of the day to go and find our B&B 60 miles away in Silverton, North of Exeter. We arrived at the ex-farmhouse which is down a half-mile of very narrow road with a grass and gravel "dividing barrier" and the hedgerow whipping against you even if you hang off the opposite side of the bike. It’s only a mile walk into the village to find a pub though I would recommend a torch (which we forgot to pack).

Saturday dawns and the weather is looking much better, We have a long day ahead of us as we have 360 miles to ride all the way down to Lands End and back, using mainly interesting roads. The morning provided some of the most scenic riding of the weekend across Dartmoor to Widecombe-in-the-moor. After a near-whoopsy in getting a picture of the right landmark we continued across country. At one point, I looked in my mirrors to see, not just Tanya, but a whole stream of bikes stretching back as far as the eye could see. I had been tootling along, admiring the sheep at this point but decided it would be rude to hold these other bikes up, so I opened the throttle to lead the whole flotilla along at much more brisk pace. I think their lead bike was green (presumably Ninja) with matching leathers (anyone own up to being around Dartmoor on Saturday lunchtime?). They eventually turned off South towards Plymouth

After stopping for a lunch of crab sandwiches in Gunnislake, we made our way to get a picture of The Hurlers. There didn't seem to be any restrictions on riding on the rough track past the stones so I took the VFR a half mile up there to get my landmark shot. We now had a long 80 mile run to Cape Cornwall ahead of us and we had comparatively heavy traffic most of the way so forward progress was only sporadic.

We had one scary moment when we piled round a corner to find a horse- drawn wedding carriage with a tail of cars. I went for the inside gap between the verge and the tail car but still pulled up safely short of the line of his bumper. Tanya *could* have pulled up in time, but instead went for the "biker's lane in the middle of the road and slowed down more sedately."

The batteries in my GPS packed up on the outskirts of Penzance so we pulled over for a break so I could change them over. Tanya and Pete nipped over the road to the local supermarket for the loos and to get some chocolate. While I minded the shop, a traffic car pulled up in front of the two bikes. Wary of our non-standard plates and cans I walked over to the policeman hoping he wouldn't want to walk back to check the bikes over while he had the chance. He asked if everything was all right then suggested that we were parked in a dangerous place (at the side of the road on a dual carriage a hundred yards away from leaving a roundabout). I suggested that given the width of the lanes (each lane was two car-widths and the excellent visibility it wasn't

*that* dangerous. He seemed a bit sniffy but accepted my point and drove off, I *knew* he would be back for another look on his next tour and when we did, I didn't want to be there. As soon as Tanya and Pete got back, I hustled them onto the bikes and we scrammed out of there.

We finally arrived at Cape Cornwall and finished the choccy break which had been so rudely interrupted earlier. I got my picture of St Mary's Oratory. A reminder. Do *not* try and use the side-stand when facing down-hill. There was a couple there who were repeatedly wandering up and down the road. The had been sat down on the verge admiring the magnificent view when he took off his wedding band and put it down on the road and had now lost it. We helped them look and lo and behold there it was just where he must have left it. A bit lucky I guess, as it could have been pinged away by a passing car wheel to g*d knows where.

It was now late afternoon and we still had to get to North Devon for the last landmark of the day, find somewhere to eat and *still* get back to our B&B at some reasonable hour. I reckoned we still had time to run the twisty B-road along the North Cornish coast before jumping on the A30/A39 to munch some miles on our way to Hartland Quay. I dropped Tanya and Pete of at a pub in Hartland village to organise dinner then pushed on the Quay itself to get the landmark picture. The museum was shut, and in fact, the only clues that it *was* the museum was the picture off the official web-site that I had printed off and a small plaque by a huge oar resting against the wall.

After dinner we left Hartland at 10:00pm with a planned 60 miles to run to get back to the B&B. No problem, should be back between 11:00 and 11:30. Except it was now dark so I had not bothered to turn on the GPS as the route was straightforward. But then I took a wrong turning in Barnstaple and finished up head the wrong way up the A361, not realising my mistake until we ended up in Ilfracombe! I compounded the mistake by not backtracking, but deciding to take a B-road back to Barnstaple.

It was raining heavily again by this time and visibility was not good so it was a slow trek down the narrow twisty road. This was when I had big scare number two. A really big scare. As I approached a bend a car came round it on my side of the road and just kept on coming straight towards me. I pulled up to a halt into the side of the road, but it looked as though he might still clip me. At the last minute the driver swerved back to his own side of the road leaving me to spend a few minutes contemplating my lucky escape.  The driver wasn't going

particularly fast so he didn't *need* to use all the road to get round the corner, so I reckon the driver was either drunk or a foreigner. It was eventually past midnight by the time we got back and we had to be up at 6:00am to make sure I got to the kart track in time to register.

Sunday. Beep, beep, beep. What the f*ck! Oh God, its the alarm. In a semi-comatose state we dragged ourselves out of bed and found some cereal and orange juice for breakfast as it was too early for the landlady to do us a full English. We left the B&B on time in a bright sunny early morning. We went through Yeovil and headed South towards Dorchester. As we approached Clay Pigeon we ran into a cloud on top of the hill. This was the clue that we were nearly at the track!

The track was fully wet and it was still raining lightly as practise began, I hadn't actually been in a kart for quite a while and a 2 stroke was an even more distant memory. I spent my first five minutes cautiously reacquainting myself with the layout and investigating how much grip there was on each of the corners. There was surprisingly quite a lot of grip if you used the right bit of the track and our kart seemed to be working well. Loads of karts were whizzing past me at this point but it wasn't race-time yet :-)

After the rest of my team had had their practise, I went back out at the end of the session for the last ten minute qualifying. I found myself on track a few kart lengths behind Louis Lazarus of Trisys who is leading the Fastest Lap competition, so I knew if I could follow him round I could put in a good time. In fact, I was faster than Louis on most of the track and could have passed him if I had wanted too. Instead, I just hung back and waited for us to both get a reasonably clear lap to be able to post a decent time. I now knew that whatever Louis did, I would be quicker. The track was drying by this time and we never got a really clear lap in, so I was still satisfied to qualify P4, a position which seemed to surprise John Burton, much to my chagrin.

The track was just about dry with a few off-line damp patches as Race 1 started so I knew that my wet-weather advantage would soon be lost to a few of the teams behind me. So it proved as I rapidly dropped to 6th and then Louis, recovering from qualifying in P9, went past but I still seemed to be able to hang onto him. We were having a good battle when a back-marker decided they could retake Louis going through the inner left-hander. Instead, he went in far too hot T-boning Louis which in turn, took me out as I had nowhere to go except the grass. We rejoined the race and by the time of our first fuel stop and driver change we had recovered to 12th.

Apart from Jeremy being taken out on the hairpin, the rest of our race went fairly smoothly and we went into the last half-hour in 10th, a lap up on 11th and only 10 seconds behind 8th and closing fast. We made our last fuel stop and Jeff went out for the last stint as we waited for the two teams in front to do the same. And waited. And waited. It was now clear that teams 10 and 16 where both trying to run to the end doing over 30 minutes on one tank. We had just about given up on them when we saw Peter Smith in team 10 slow right up, losing time hand over fist as he spluttered his way to the finish. A lap later with two minutes to go, team 16 eventually came in for a splash and dash. Eighth place was ours, our best result in a good while.

Race 2 was going to be interesting as I now had the problem of working my way through from 26th near the back of the reverse grid. The gods seemed to be shining on us as we arrived at the far corner to find carnage spread across the track. Apparently, only about four karts had spun out but the midfield was thrown into confusion as it tried to pick its way through. I must have made up ten places as I took the inside line (well actually the grass inside the inside line to avoid a stalling kart). I spent the next few laps picking off places one by one and speculating that I must be near the top ten by now when I went round the inside of the left-hander after the hairpin only for the kart on the outside to pull across from the outside on what would be the normal racing line and smack into the side of me which spun us both out. I can only assume he didn't see me up his inside to start with, but he should still have had time to adjust his line and yield the corner cleanly for both of us.

I jumped out of the kart, pulled the front round to point the right direction then *BANG*! Out of the corner of my eye I had seem some karts coming round the corner, but they will avoid me right? Wrong! The front bumper of the Nortel kart clipped my left ankle against the front bumper of my kart. I am told I was actually knocked over, but the next thing I remember is standing in the middle of the track thinking "Hmm! This isn't a safe place to be!", so I hobbled over to the grass and made for the safety of the tyre wall. I could feel my ankle was in a bad way so I signalled over to my team that I couldn't continue. I saw Jeremy getting ready to take over then I collapsed over the tyre wall to think a bit more about how bad my injury was.

I was thinking that maybe it was just badly bruised and a bit of ice and a couple of hours rest and I would be fit enough to ride the bike home. Deep down though, I knew I had likely got a broken fibula. The on-course paramedic was with me by now and carried me to his hut for treatment. He confirmed my suspicions. The ankle was starting to hurt pretty badly by now so he gave me a whack of morphine. I could feel the hit rising up from my chest as my heart pumped it round to my brain and that was it. I was now in happy Larry land, so the rest of this account is only as I remember it, and may bear little resemblance to reality.

I noticed that they had now red-flagged the race and was wondering why, when I got put on a stretcher and bundled into the back of a helicopter which had landed on the track, Cool! My first ever ride in a chopper! Not much of view though :-( Tanya had been over to let me know that Jon would ride my bike back to Bucks and Bram would chauffeur me back from the hospital in the back of his big, fast, executive Beemer. The hospital in Dorchester was quick and efficient and I was out of there in a couple of house with a temporary cast and a letter for my local hospital. And, Oh yes, those extra (X-ray) pictures I mentioned right at the start. Actually the break is very clean and hardly out of alignment so it should recover very well. I didn't want to upset the Trisys schedule too much so I joined them back in Yeovil for their usual post-race curry.

In retrospect I suppose, I should have felt, or feel very angry about being hit. I assumed that the marshal had not yet had time to put out a yellow flag, but I am told the yellows were waving so there was absolutely no excuse for karts not to get themselves under control and go safely through the corner in line on the inside of the corner. I guess, I was initially in shock and then in a drug-induced euphoria. I am now just considering myself lucky that I wasn't injured a lot more badly. I just hope the Challenge teams use this as reminder that karting *is* dangerous and that caution flags are there for a reason.

Anyway, I suppose I will now have to postpone my planned week's bike tour of Scotland back from August to September. I should still have time to get round all the landmarks before the end of October.

Stuart Shearman

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