classic racing motorcycle club / cadwell park

with dangerous away, ploughing a furrow down to the west country, post school holidays and after a long walk with the dogs, breakfast and an hour reading the sunday papers i decide to head up to cadwell park for the last c.r.m.c meeting of the year. the ducati has a new front brake lever, the replacement rear item turns out to be incorrect so i chance cold-bending it in the miller vice, hitting it with a nylon hammer to bend it back to shape, i'm waiting for the inevitable 'ping' as the cast aluminium breaks but no, i manage to sraighten it, drill out the rivet from the damaged toe peg and spin up a replacement out of some stock, a quick waft with a rattle can and it looks like new, just the snidy 'agip' stickers i scored off e-bay to apply to hide the damage to the fairing panel, when i picked up the brake levers from cornerspeed and told nelly about my tale of woe during the visit to the classic tt / manx gp, he gave me a couple of original 'agip' stickers,[ don't know about 'agip' more like fucking 'eejit' ] oh dear, my snide e-bay bargains are nothing like, they look more like a cocker spaniel with a chickens head, but, at least they are big enough to cover the damage and look better than the scratched fairing lowers until i get mad john to wield his majik spray gun and get them repaired. it's a bright, sunny day but deceiving, ten miles out and i'm dithering with cold as the wind chill catches me out, a t-shirt and zippered-inner not warm enough for a ninety mile ride to cadwell, the traffic is light and i make good progress, dismissing the convoy of caravan / tractor / sea-side day tripper / bored truckers in a breath of top gear throttle, into and out of the quaint village of horncastle and the dull, flat landscape of the lincolnshire fens changes dramatically as you start to climb the wolds, the ducati is perfect for these roads, an intoxitating combination of lidless airbox sucking hungrily at the early autumn air and the bark of the termi's, the 'bbmmmhhhhaaaaa' as you downshift, the elastic pull of the engine as you point and squirt at the horizon. paid.parked up and tea in hand, the first bikes i clock are the dutch becks-motoren bmw's, a short stroke 750 and the lovely little 500, these bikes were worth the admission price alone, i've been following their race exploits on the 'net, but to see them in the flesh? lovely, check out the drilled swingarm and the heavily machined rear hub, the inspiration for the team loveless 650 racer, the stand out bikes amongst all the great machines? the minnovation bike, the lovely seeley moto-guzzi, the big brutal kawasaki, the drixton 'machi, the absolute animal seeley goldstar that looked like it would hurt you badly and the well abused harris tt formula two 'ucati' the racing so competitive with many championship places up for grabs, the 500 races proved to be pretty frightening even as a spectator, gary thwaithes having a right snotter at the hairpin resulting in a very second-hand looking bike and his arm in a sling as he made his way back to the paddock via the medical centre, all the racing was very close, none more so than the 'practical sportsbike' production series, the yamaha fz 600's battling against the big air-cooled yamaha 1100's and the big, lone katana, a big grid, fairing bashing like the old LC350 series and lot's of outrageous last minute braking, oh yeah,  did you know you can get a race prepared fz 600 yam for fifteen hundred quid? sure beats building your own bike to race, hang on a minute, i've had an idea........................