LIFE’S A BEACH
Skegness isn’t all about sandcastles and sun cream. Once a year the sound of motocross engines drowns out the sound of the 2p machines, and the smell of exhaust fumes and fear overpowers the acrid stench of candyfloss and vomit, for one reason – the annual Skegness Beach Race.
When the lads told me that we were going to go racing on Skegness’ award-winning beach, I thought they must have gone mad. My last memory of Skegness beach involved riding a reasonably unhealthy looking donkey to the pier and back for about £1.20, some 25 years ago, but the 2019 Skegness Beach Race was to be a little bit less equine in its nature… ok, a lot less equine. You see, there is a lot more to the Lincolnshire seaside town than donkey rides, slot machines and caravan parks. Every year for the last 10 years over 25,000 people flock to the coast to watch a few hundred men (and a fair few women) race their motocross bikes, enduro bikes, quads and even sidecars around a course of hills, puddles, sand dunes and ruts for an hour-and-a-half, or if you are really brave, three hours.
The hour-and-a-half ‘Clubman’ race is held on the Saturday of an action-packed weekend and for some strange reason, Dangerous Bruce, Frodo and I decided it would be a really good idea to have a go. We each got hold of a bike, found ourselves some matching ‘Team Fast
Bikes’ riding kit and tried to get a bit of practice in – we would soon find out though, that nothing can really prepare you for the carnage that beach races like these typically involve.
And since its nearly Christmas, and since we all know how much Skegness has to offer the holidaymaker or weekend away-er, we decided it would only be right to make a proper weekend of it. After all, static caravan rentals are 10 a penny in the off-season and we knew there would be no shortage of watering holes, even if only to quench the thirst of the indigenous folk. And for a few extra laughs, we dragged ex Fast Bikes road tester and Weston Beach Race veteran (well, he’s done it once) Al Fagan out of his retirement home to show us how it’s done. So with a caravan booked, the bikes prepped and loaded in the van with a few bottles of rum to calm the nerves, we headed off to the East Coast, Skeggy-bound to get downright dirty, and then to get drunk. This is how we got on…
Before we got to Skeggy, we’d done our best to get as prepared as we possibly could, with a day at an off-road centre to get used to the bikes, a day at Fat Cat Motoparc in Doncaster (a deep, sandy track) to get used to riding in soft sand, and a few hours in the workshop getting the bikes prepped for the event. Bruce and I had gone for KTM’s 350 EXC-F and 300 EXC TPI respectively, both enduro bikes, with enduro tyres and side stands. The side stands needed to be removed for the race and we decided it was in our best interest to whip the enduro tyres off and kit the bikes out with some more appropriate rubber, too. Finding sand tyres to fit our 18-inch rear enduro wheels proved to be a little tricky, but little Frodo was on to a winner with his KTM 250 SX-F, which sports a 19-inch rear wheel. We had a little scour of the net for a decent set of sand tyres for him and discovered that the tyres which won Weston Beach Race earlier this year were Kenda’s Sand Mad rear tyre and Southwick II soft terrain front – they sounded like the perfect tyres for the job, so when he ordered a set, Bruce and I got him to order us a pair of Southwick IIs each (they don’t make a Sand Mad to fit the 18-inch enduro wheels in the EXC) whist he was at it.
With the tyres fitted, side-stands removed and our names narcissistically ironed on to the back of our new shirts we were ready. Ready to have our arses kicked.
I did a fair amount of motocross as a kid, and I’ve got a bit of experience doing enduros too, but I’ve never done a beach race and the actual race start isn’t like anything I have ever seen before. There were four holding pens, each with 50 or so riders in, in number order. I was number 56 (numbers were allocated in the order that you entered, except the top 10, which are seeded according to where they finished in last year’s event), so in pen two. In a strange twist, the race actually starts before it’s begun – they open the pens one by one, and then it’s a mad dash to the actual start; the quicker you get to the start, the better position you will be in when the race begins in earnest. When the floodgates to our pen opened, I pushed and barged my way as near to the front as I could until I made it to the start gate. I couldn’t see Frodo or Dangerous Bruce and I was in front of them coming out the pen, so I know they hadn’t overtaken me on the mad dash to the line. I hadn’t been nervous up to this point, but the mass of motorbikes and bodies, all pushing and forcing their way as close to the front as they could possibly get, made the situation seem really real. What on earth were we doing there, and what had possessed us to take part in such a bonkers event? In fact, there were all sorts of questions I kept asking myself, as the rest of the 168 starters piled in around me.
After what seemed like about 20 minutes, but was probably nearer two, the Heras fence was pulled open and I became part of the mass of off-road bikes hurtling towards the first corner. Miraculously, I made it around the first turn unscathed, but the next obstacle was a dune as big as a house. Given a run-up, the soft, sandy dune mightn’t have been such a mountain to climb, but the mass of bikes at its foot, its summit and everywhere in between (both upright and otherwise), meant that a run-up wasn’t going to happen. I saw a gap, dropped the clutch and hoped for the best, but it wasn’t to be. I got halfway up, before proceeding to dig a big hole with my back tyre. I was stuck, and despite it taking far too much precious time and precious energy to drag the KTM out of the whole it was in, I finally make my way over the top of the first real challenge. Is this what it was going to be like, I thought to myself?
Well things didn’t get much better any time soon and I found myself on the floor at almost every corner around lap one of the 4.5km sand track. But I wasn’t the only one; everywhere you looked there were bikes upside down, bikes pointing the wrong way and bikes with steam billowing from every orifice. It was utter chaos, and there we were, in the midst of it all!
The course was absolutely brutal with hills and dunes in quick succession and as the race went on, the terrain became all the more challenging. The soft sand quickly became rutted and the tops of many of the dunes eroded away – but it didn’t make them any easier to summit. As the ruts grew deeper, every part of the track became more of a challenge and after an hour I found myself really flagging. There was a long straight which ran parallel with the waterline that I looked forward to every lap – it was the only place that you got a chance to have a bit of respite, even if it was only for 10 or 15 seconds.
After an hour or so of racing, the KTM’s fuel light illuminated so I finished the lap I was on and came into the pits. The pit area was nothing flash – a fenced off area where fuelling up is permitted. Luckily, a kind stranger held my bike whilst I glugged as much fuel as I h h In r n n uick swig of water I was back on my not so merr way. It’s surprising how much a two-minute break nd a mouthful of water rejuvenate you and I left the s with a new lease of life. My last five or so laps re undoubtedly my fastest laps, as I’d almost got the ng of how to ride in the deep, soft sand. Don’t get wrong, I’m no Ricky Carmichael, but I felt as tho h I was riding the sand as it was supposed to be rid n, with as much throttle as I could muster and load of wheelspin.
With what must e been about 10 minutes or so to go, I really was r dy to see the chequered flag. My arms were sore and legs were aching, and when I rolled over the las dune on the final lap to take the chequered flag, I fel a mixture of relief, tiredness and pain. I’d done it. I’d shed Skeggy Beach Race 2019.
N w, out of Bruce, Fagan, Frodo and myself, I know I’d s off first, and I passed them all at least once during the race, so I knew I was (at the very least) a lap in front of them. There was a really mixed bag of abilities there, though. I found I was quite a bit faster than some riders, but there were plenty that would pass me as if I were stood still. I reckon I passed roughly the same amount of people that passed me though, so I would have estimated my finishing position would have been around about the halfway mark.
Unfortunately though, due to some confusion before the race, my timing transponder hadn’t been fitted so none of my laps had been counted. What a bummer! This meant there was no way of telling how fast I had gone, how many laps I’d completed, or where the hell I had finished the race. But I wasn’t too upset about it, because I’d had an absolute blast!
And when the others told me about how their races went, it put my troubles into perspective. Frodo only managed a lap before he crashed and tried to saw his leg off with someone else’s rear sprocket, and Dangerous Bruce kept having to stop to let his engine cool down. An hour-and-a-half of beach racing is a real slog, not just for man but for machine too, and I can only admire the bravery of the lads that started Sunday’s three-hour race.
Fortunately for the publicans of Skegness we hadn’t entered Sunday’s race. After spending a good hour cleaning all the sand off the bikes and out of our unmentionables, we put on our dancing shoes and went to paint the town red. There is nothing like the taste of a refreshing, cold beer after a long day busting your guts, so as you can imagine the four of us indulged ourselves and made the most of our weekend away, and Skeg-vegas didn’t disappoint. In fact all weekend long, Skegness kept amazing me – one minute I was racing around the beach as fast as I could, the next I was dancing pissed in the alleyways, trying to avoid the CCTV.
And if that wasn’t enough fun for one weekend, we managed to catch some of the ‘Elite’ riders taking to the sand on Sunday, and what an eye-opener that was. The hills that I had been gently rolling up and then back down were taken as flat-out jumps by them. It was really impressive to see, but I soon realised that I’ve got a lot to learn if I wanted to be a proper beach racer.