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A small field of 28 riders fronted up at Collie on March 16th for our first race day of the year. The track was prepared to perfection by Steve Melvin with a few guys reckoning you could nearly have used slicks for the day – the surface was that smooth. Riders went out in two groups for practice where unfortunately Sarah Dillon’s sponsored ride on brother Robert’s BSA came to an early end with a ‘footrest vs brake pedal’ problem. With the small number of riders it was decided to combine the field into A’s, B’s & Over 55’s with the feature race of under 30 y/olds which was dropped after lunch due to a lack of stamina from the young whipper snappers!
We’ve picked up a number of new riders this year with Jamie Harris, Brett Rosser & Allan McCabe all going well. John from the Narrogin Ag College (And previously at the ‘Gary Johnson School of Fork Building’?) had a big get-off over the spectator mound – get well soon John, you were going well up to this point. Lachie Ayers miscalculated the fuel economy of his Yamaha & was last seen heading off over the hill with a jerry can & funnel in hand.
Peter ‘Bow-legged’ Barker debuted the Greeves/Yamaha/Kawasaki hybrid but unfortunately the famous Japanese reliability was overpowered by the English components fear of water on the track & the beast was retired early in the day. Peter Berryman’s Elsinore was struck down by the ’broken muffler mount syndrome’ – luckily he takes a TM125 Suzuki as a backup – just think Pete, if you used the TM as your main bike you wouldn’t need to take a spare at all.
Bill Copley & Bert Sykes spent most of the day at the front of the Over 55’s pack but the other guys weren’t far away in case either of them faltered. Andrew Irving must have been getting tired out in front of all the B grade races as he was seen having a little lie down late in the day.
Paul Copley was the man to beat in A grade – being chased hard by Rod Gilchrist & Syd Swepstone culminating in a great battle in the all-in with the lead changing a number of times & all three of them getting some big-air over the spectator mound. However it was Brian Watson who timed his run to perfection to clean up the field in the end of day all-in. He’d obviously recovered from doing the ‘old inverted turtle routine’ in one of his races earlier in the day. Just to show what supremely fit athletes they are, Brian & Gary Johnson both did an extra lap at the end of the all-in - or was it because Mike Brady lost count of laps & forgot to give them the chequered flag? All in all, a really good day to kick off what should be another great season of VMX. Many thanks to the Collie guys & girls & to all our helpers & officials on the day
(Hey Mike, since when did lugging jerry cans & pushing dead Greeves become part of the COC duties?)
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