Observation
It was straight off the back of a 12-hour night shift on the brake production line in the factory at Ferodo, Chapel en le Frith where this story began. After stamping the part number on 15,000 Ford brake pads over the 12 hours, it was a quick shower and a walk outside to be picked up by John Shirt Snr in his trusty ex-Parcel Line Mercedes 307 van. We then took a 28-hour drive, via Dover and the English Channel, to arrive at the Gas Gas factory in Gerona on Thursday afternoon. My bed was the bunk in the van.
Iwas very fortunate, through the Shirt family, to be included on many foreign excursions to the world rounds in the late ’80s. This trip was one of many I enjoyed. John Shirt Snr, seen here on the left in the swimming pool, had enjoyed success with the Majesty Yamaha and the ground-breaking mono-shock machine. A brilliant innovative engineer, he had moved to the then relatively small Gas Gas concern based in Gerona and started to import the machines 12 months earlier. John Jnr had moved from the ex-Eddy Lejeune four-stroke Honda to ride the Gas Gas machines they imported.
Our first port of call was the Gas Gas factory, where production of the new 250cc had just started with a small batch. John put one of these in the van to bring back to the UK for evaluation.
It was summertime in Spain, and it was red hot. All three of us were using the Mercedes van as our ‘hotel’. This picture is from a campsite where we met up with some other riders including
Robert Crawford.
On the Saturday, I was able to witness the Beta team, working out of the Jordi Tarres team truck, build, from scratch, a new prototype aluminium framed water-cooled Zero model for the great Spanish rider to compete on the next day. I was, as ever, curious, and when I asked for a picture of him with the machine and shaking hands with me, he duly obliged.
The front cover picture was 30 years ago. Little did I know that the relationship would endure the test of time and that all these years on, we would still be friends on the world championship scene in 2019. Jordi is working with TRS, and me as the editor of both Trial and Classic Trial magazines; it’s been some adventure for us both!
After ‘minding’ for John Jnr at the trial on Sunday it was the race back to the ferry on Sunday night and back to work at Ferodo on the Monday night! As they say, ‘living the dream’.