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HELL TRACK/DEATH RACE!!!!!!
Summer's upon us, and once again the World
Cup at Fort William came around far too fast and took me completely
by surprise.
I was hoping that I could blag a lift with the guys that I'd gone
with last year, but Des was having a birthday party (so selfish),
so that was that one screwed.
I desperately didn't want to get there by train/bus,
as the journey takes forever. So, after much messing about, I managed
to find a willing travel companion, in the form of Mr Ray Anderson.
We booked a car (Ray's just sold his), got the media accreditation
sorted for us both (which should have been done about two months
ago), and we were set.
We were setting off on Saturday morning, so like the sensible, forward-planning,
hard-nose journo that I am, I spent Friday night getting reeking
drunk. I even found some random, misty spirit that had a pickled
cobra in it. I'm not even joking - it was awesome!
Ray picked me up on in morning and we went
to the shops where we bought a load of beer, some camera film, two
disposable barbeques and a load of meat.
Getting to Fort William was relatively uneventful.
Last year, I did the thing of using the big park
and ride buses, that are put on for the spectators, but this year
I realised that me and Ray were press - with IDs - AND ACCREDITATION!
Stuff the buses, we just drove stright into the event carpark, where
we were greeted by a very nice young lady who pointed us to a parking
space.
I can't believe I hadn't thought of it last year. Perks of the job,
eh? Fantastic!
Four Cross:
We arrived just as the cross country guys were coming off the hill
and they looked like crap. In fact a lot of them did actually look
like big, bike/rider-shaped craps - covered, as they were, in thick,
dark, Fort William cack. Unlucky - mind you, they all seemed pleased
about it, so all power to 'em.
The four cross was the main event of the day and
practice looked great. Gracia was taking the mick; wearing big,
chrome headphones and doing x-ups over the doubles. That's show-boatin'
folks!
I was excited to see the BMXers Wade Bootes and Thomas Allier there
as well and wondered how they'd fair against the MTB guys.
By the way - sorry about only having one photo from
the four cross event. I managed to get this one in practise, but
the crowd was packed so tight in the finals that the only way I
could have negotiated my way through it would be if I'd stripped
down and covered myself in KY Jelly, and that just wasn't going
to happen. Hopefully next year I'll have a nice, big telephoto lens,
so it won't be too much of an issue.
The racing was great though :)
Crashes all over the place - Allier and Boots both
went down. As did Gracia and Oggy (who wasn't best pleased about
it). Predictably, the crowd was almost in tears every time Steve
Peat swung his leg over his bike, but despite coming really close,
it wasn't to be for the big man, and so after a few photo finishes
and much air, Guido Tschugg took the win, with Sam Hill in second
and Romain Saladini in third.
Sam Hill rules.
By this point, we had bumped into Chris Ball and
Paul Angus (Incidently, Angus was wearing a ridiculously huge, Fox
coat, that was covered in cack). I was a little confused when, as
soon as the last rider crossed the finish line, they both just turned
around and ran like billy-o. Then the realisation dawned on me that
about 10,000 people would now all want to get back to their digs
- all at the same time. It was one of those 'Quick! Bottle-neck!
Get to the car! GO! GO! GO!' moments, but luckily we managed
to get to the campsite with no bother, where we fired up the bbq,
piled into the meat and drank a few stubbies before heading off
to the boozer.
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