My first visit to Pembrey Race Circuit was I believe the first race meeting to be held there (in recent times).

Llandow near Cardiff had been the circuit I had previously been to as a pit crew member with Dai Lever from Newton in Mumbles racing a 250cc Ducati.

I can't remember the reason why Pembrey took over from Llandow but I'm quite sure the race meeting was held in August 1983 when I was an 18 year old GS 550 Suzuki owner.

That first meeting was run under conditions which would nowadays give the organisers legal team a heart attack - we stood on the edge of the track where there was no rope or posts as they'd run out of rope!

The rope, where used, was between six and ten feet from the track edge. Occasionally a marshall would remind us not to drop litter on the track! Not that we would've of course.

Only a few riders I can remember, Godfrey Benson from near Swansea riding his 500cc Laverda and the heroes of my friends and I, Richard Roderick and the Harcourt brothers, all three mounted on their Z1000J Kawasaki's.

Llandow had been mad, but Pembrey was more so due to the broken surfaced, potholed tarmac upon which they heeled over those huge heavyweight racers with their knees on the floor in and out of the twisting turns while contending with weaves, wobbles and tankslappers without coming to grief - very often.

The sound of those in line fours breathing out through barely silenced four into ones made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and still can.

Were they the golden days of production racing? I like to think so.

Two years later I unofficially held the lap record, the slowest lap record that is. Whilst working in nearby RAF Pembrey I took my JCB around the circuit...