Night of Legends – Wembley racing 23 Sept 2008
Trevor Genis
It all started off quite innocuously, a simple email from Greg Wilson (of Daytona track and outride fame) as he wanted to get in touch with some vintage riders. Greg had hatched his evil plan after a very successful “Heydays of MX” drinking and bragging session held at Club Russell Campbell’s place a few months ago.
This simple email turned into the most awesome event I have ever entered. There’s a bunch of us that are committed to maintaining and riding these old War Horses on a regular basis. Most of us had just completed our annual Clarens event some 3 weeks earlier – so everyone was under the whip to get things back up and running in time.
Quick word on owning an older bike. Preparation, Preparation, Preparation. If you skimp on this step – it becomes a world of pain and frustration. This is a separate article for another time…
We finalized our arrangements and got to Wembley at 16:00. The pits were full. No worries, we set up camp by the VIP stand and immediately drew comments. “Damn, I haven’t seen one of those in years, I had an RM like that…” “When I was younger, I did the Bapsfontein on a bike just like that.” The clincher for me was this one:
“What is it ? Why does it have 2 shocks ?“
“I don’t know. Looks like some 19vintage mothertrucker.”
Just as the sun started setting, we were ushered out onto the track for practice. On initial inspection, it looked like a lot of tar. I immediately wondered if the Tiger Wheel & Tyre on the corner had Motard tyres – they might come in handy round about now. Some dust was hanging in the setting sun – very picturesque apparently. All I saw intimidating tabletops and some double jumps. Now bear in mind I don’t jump – it’s the next thing on my to-do list. The 10 mins of practice had me pumped up and missing apexes. First thoughts: this is damn tight. Why did I bring a desert racer 2nd thought, I wonder what 3rd feels like followed closely after…
It was now practice de-briefing time. Hennie of the “3 must be Queers Clarens team” had gone out and dropped the KTM 250 in a big way on the table top. Tweaked his collarbone – but not broken. He was out so his partner in grime Calvin was drafted in. Wayne – a buddy I had only recently met up with again from High School 20 years back, had completed all of half a lap on the RM 250. In our excitement, we had double-filled one of the bikes and left him with enough gas to start and stall on corner 4. All in all – we were ready – NOT !!!
By this time the Monster tent was up and running. We organized some youngsters to ferry ice cold Monster backwards and forwards. It was the closest we could get to an IV drip. Soon the Monster took effect, and we felt invincible again. As is customary with these Classic Dirt Bikes – last minute pit wrenching was the order of the day. Oddly enough, all of our preparation had paid off, so we simply watched this time. Missing brakes, loose levers, bolts hanging from a thread. Legend has it that the Nyloc nut was invented as part of the space race. Wrongo ! Nyloc nuts, locking wire, duct tape and Loctite were actually all invented for Open Class bikes in the hope they could complete a single race without disintegrating into a thousand pieces. (I never found the custom fabricated Husky chain tensioner in Clarens. 8 pieces, the smallest being a 200mm 8mm bolt – all just disappeared ??)
Our turn. It felt awesome to ride out onto the banked oval to see hundreds of people in the stands watching us. No pressure. I had been drawn in position 1. No, there must be a mistake, no you start from here. On the inside, from row with a perfect run to corner one. Look behind me, Alfie Cox. Shit. Look behind on the right - a fire breathing Maico 490 piloted by Adrian de Hutton. Joy. I made sure there was enough space for them to come though and a few seconds later the lights turned green. I battled to keep the Husky front end down, and made a mid-pack start. Turn 2 at the end of the pit straight was interesting. It was a flat right hander that had just been watered. If you got it right, a massive roost of acceleration. Get it wrong, and you either run way wide of were left gingerly trying to feed in some power while vainly trying to point the front end into the corner. Later I saw Alfie flat-track that entire corner round the outside and pass 2 other battling souls. He makes it look all so easy. I struggled quite a bit with the tight corners but had an absolute blast. We got a little strung out, and once I realized there was no way in hell I was going to catch the front runners – I waited around to race some of the other guys. All too soon it was all over.
More Monster, and we watched the Legends and Champions races. Gary Peterson was lofting the front -end about 0.5m down the pit straight as he hit the table top. Damn those boys can jump. There were a few low speed get-offs, mostly as guys tried to out-block each other on the tighter corners. Great to watch though.
Soon enough it was time for our second race – and this was even closer. Horace and Alfie disappeared into the distance with Robbie Wicks. Yes, we got lapped by then too. The racing was very close on the tight circuit. There were even more knobbly marks on the outside wall now. Some guys had been bouncing off the concrete retaining wall in a bid to maintain speed. Most of the jumps had been ripped up and were a lot more manageable – even for me. Ripped up meant ruts and on a few occasions as I was perfecting my Flying W – I sensed bulbs flashing in the crowd, catching my worst moments on film. Hopefully I can track them down before they get to print. With just 2 laps to go, I caught one of the guys, and was closely tracking him left and right through the tight infield section. Too close. Sure, I only had 3” of tyre next to his swingarm, but as I tried to change line to get too the inside of the next one, he swing wide to get a better shot at the next apex. Slow motion. N 0 o o o – down I went. My front wheel was there, then it wasn’t. I was laughing to myself as I re-mounted – only to be passed by 3 other clowns who all had the decency to say thanks and wave as they roosted past. Bugger. I tried catching them for the remaining lap and a bit, but no way. I did have the front row seat to see Alfie and Wayne perform a perfectly synchronised jump to the checkered flag though ?
All in all, the organizers Greg & Glen did an awesome job. The commerative medal has a prize spot in the cabinet and I can’t wait for the next race. In the meantime, I have a to-do list as long as my arm to contend with.
