Steve Parrish
Ihave to start this month with Leon Haslam, and how unlucky he was in that final BSB weekend at Brands Hatch. I went down there and watched it start to unravel with his first race, which wasn’t disastrous, but it set the tone. I spoke to Leon after the second race and apparently the tyre spun on the rim so he had horrendous vibration from lap one, which is why he could only finish tenth, or whatever it was.
And then that last race, I was convinced Leon was going to be in front of Shane Byrne no matter what happened, being the fighter that he is. I was so looking forward to that one, it was one of those scripted races that whomever went over the line first, would be champion. But his brakes failed and he had that hideous accident. Leon reckons that at first he had pressure and then it just failed, which is peculiar as it’s a loose banjo or similar and has been put back into Brembo’s hands to find out what happened.
If the pads have been put back wrong, or air is in the system you have nothing from the second pull of the lever, but it sounds downright odd and is typical of Leon’s bad luck striking yet again. What truly terrified me was watching him slam into the barriers, it was horrible. But a combination of that special barrier and Leon’s airbag suit saved him, he’s a tough little buggar but even he admitted they both saved his bacon.
Airbags have got to be the way forward, not only in racing but for the road. I’m actually doing something with a UK company called Helite creating a jacket called the SP Air, SP being for ‘Steve Parrish’! It’s a lovely unit, it’ll be around £650, can be made to your own colour scheme etc. and is built to accommodate leathers with humps. It’s cheaper as it uses a lanyard, but then it’s guaranteed to go off if that thing gets pulled. Will be interesting to see how it gets on but, of course, I digress. Leon must have hit at around 100mph, and I can think of a lot of other British tracks where that happening doesn’t even bear thinking about.
I love all our British tracks, and the people that run them are good, decent people, but some could do with a bit of expansion now bikes are getting ever quicker. Brands would struggle to expand theirs in places though, as a lot of it is privately owned. I’m sure though, like introducing those special barriers, it’s something they always keep working on.
Anyway, a big well done to Josh Brookes too, and of course Shakey on winning the title, even if he didn’t expect it! BSB has done us proud this year, so let’s hope it carries on into 2018 and beyond.
As for MotoGP, I’m writing this just post Phillip Island, and prior to Sepang, but I think it’s reasonably safe to say that Andrea Dovizioso and Ducati have blown it. But then, I suppose, Leon had one hand on the BSB title, didn’t he? I get that corner speed is the Ducati’s big issue, and PI is a corner speed circuit but, with the greatest respect to Scott Redding, if he’s the best of the Ducatis something must be really wrong given Dovi’s speed this year.
Johann Zarco though, wow, was he stuffing it to everyone, which led them all to get nice and loose with a bit of argy bargy. You can only imagine what Rossi et al were shouting in their lids every time Zarco stuck it up the inside of them! I think he deserved a podium at least from all that effort, he looked gutted to finish fourth.
Regarding MotoGP, I’ve heard rumours BT Sport may not be showing it from 2019, and even if they do get it they’ll be trimming back their coverage. I also hear the football will be even more expensive, which is their cash cow, so maybe it’s not unbelievable. The Discovery group (which included Eurosport) are also slated to be interested, and not only in the coverage rights, but possibly buying Dorna too! At least if that happened, everything would be on one channel but I guess we’ll see.
Lastly, on one of our final days on holiday recently we had been invited to a hog roast. They had this great whacking pig being cooked and I got the pig’s head as my doggy bag treat. So the next day I put my hillbilly teeth in it and floated it in our community swimming pool. Let me tell you, that caused quite a stir! Till next month!