Gary Johnson
Iguess I should kick things off by apologising to King Carl Fogarty following his recent coming together with the ground. If I hadn’t been riding so fast at the DirtQuake event, having a right laugh on my Triumph, he wouldn’t have had to ride so far beyond his abilities to try and keep up. Silly old fart! Fix up soon, mate… and stick to jungles. Were you there? That was one of those impromptu gigs that sounded a tad whacky and pricked my interest, and I’m well chuffed to have competed in it. If you’ve never been before, make sure you get it in your diary for 2017.
Moving on, it’s been another busy month and not just because Dangerous Bruce dragged my backside over to Donington to help sort his R6’s suspension during a recent endurance race. I’ll be honest, it looked a right good craic and I quite fancied a slice of the action, but it’s a killer on engines. I think his race went on for nine hours or something, which would pretty much mean a refresh on a supersport bike. I’m not made of money, and I’m not on Bruce’s wages, so that’s me out before I’ve even got stared.
Still, I’ve had other things to preoccupy myself with, including getting my York Suzuki Centre XR69 ready for this year’s Classic TT. Crazy Shane Pearson’s been grafting like a machine to get my bike sorted ahead of this year’s event, and it looks like things are finally taking shape. My debut on it was at Scarborough and let’s just say that’s one I’m trying to forget. It wasn’t playing ball and it was a right handful to hustle around, so I came home from that outing and wrote out a couple of A4 pads’ worth of changes to make. Since then, with said changes having been rattled off the long, long, long list, the bike’s a different beast. I took it to Cadwell a few days ago and surprised myself with my pace. We worked on everything from set-up to rider position and made a massive leap forward in several areas. So much so that I clocked several 1min 33sec laps, which to anyone that knows Cadwell will know they’re some half-decent times, especially on a classic motorcycle. The thing’s a right weapon. And it needs to be. I’m not going to try and make out the TT went how I had planned, but I’m hoping to make amends at the Classic. With a decent bike on my side, I know there’s scope to be right up at the pointy end and that’s what I’m gunning for, so watch this space. Are you heading over? If so, pop along and say hello. I don’t bite, unless you’re female and attractive. Unless my missus is reading this, in which case just ignore that last remark altogether. Right, that’s me done. I’ve got people to see and bags to pack, so I’m outta here.