Pre-Season Blues
Added on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 by Carole Nash Editor
Pre-season blues
Hi Everybody,
Well, what a winter! It’s certainly had its high and lows.
This winter I started with good intensions following a reasonable year with MV Agusta. After a couple of podiums and the mint win at Oulton Park, everything was looking promising for 2008 as the winter went on. I was training as hard as ever and things were looking good. Anyway, the NEC motorcycle show had started and all of the team went down to the show, mainly to meet up again and keep in touch on a bit of a boys day out - and to check out the bikes as well! Everything is looking fine and the team is quietly confident that next years budget was coming and we would be going testing soon.
A few more weeks pass and I received a phone call from the team asking me to do a test for Fast Bike magazine. Well, it’s not the type of thing you need asking twice, so on the following Wednesday I went down to Donington Park to meet the ‘Fast Bike’ guys. Well, what a great day! Very sunny although it was still a bit cold, but generally a good day and I enjoyed riding a bike again.
Later on in the day, the magazine test rider came out on the track with me so I thought that I would show him some ‘proper’ riding. I followed him towards the Melbourne loop in 3rd gear and waited until he hit the brakes before flying past him. I hit the brakes a good 50 metres later with the brake wheel 3 ft in the air, then dropped it down whilst hooking 2nd gear, backing it in and leaving a black line most of the way into the loop. When the session was over he came up to me and said “Whoa! I never thought that was possible, it looked real cool!”
He had a big smile for the rest of the day, it was a real fun day for me and, as always, really good to get back on a bike again, especially when it’s just a fun day and I’m able to play. Racing is serious stuff as we all know, but sometimes, well, it’s nice to have no pressure and let the kid in me come out to play.
Anyway, I’ll catch you all soon.
Howie #43
