Steve Parrish
Hello everyone, well, I finally did it and got married! It was a bit of a secret but I had said I’d never get married ever again, after the last one. With that one, I’d often put the wedding video in the player and watch it in reverse, so I could watch her getting back in the car and sodding off over and over again! Not this time, though. I’ve basically had her on lease for 13 years, and this is now the final balloon payment, so she should be cheaper than the last one! Amazingly she’s still here and agreed to marry me after all this time. I did however pop her on a set of scales when we were doing our vows, part of the deal being she doesn’t get too fat; the registrar’s face was a right picture! We just had a couple of witnesses there and that was it, as we’re going to hold a big party in the summer, get a hog roast on the go and invite everyone. See, we’re nice, we didn’t make people have to go out in the cold. I didn’t even tell my kids, bless them, not that they would have been overly bothered about missing it as it’ll be the party they, and everyone else for that matter, really cares about, right? Chips off the old block… I did enjoy Motorcycle Live at the NEC, it was a little bit down again this year, by about the same amount, around 5%. It’s what we expected, and I’ve said this all along but nobody ever listens to me – now motorcycling, MotoGP especially, isn’t seen by millions and millions every week, it’s not in the public consciousness as much. And this affects sales, folk going to shows and so on. Then there’s a bit of Brexit that hasn’t helped with prices going up, and a stack of other factors which affects it. That being said, a lot of traders had good shows, even CCM sold more than 200 bikes, which is astonishing. I think they look awesome, but what else out there is £10k? Quite a lot, and nice as they are, they seem as though for me personally they’d be fun for a bit, but not much more long after. However, it shows there are people spending money even on showpiece kit like the pretty new CCMs. Even the air-jackets went well, though I have no clue how many of the SP versions (for Steve Parrish) went. They sold well, the BMW touring type riders lapped them up and why not, because an air-bag is an amazing safety aid. It could even be mandatory in the future as it will save lives. There are recently departed racers, in fact, whose lives could have been saved had they had air-bag systems and with it coming more in the mainstream we could all be wearing them sooner rather than later.
I also did a shoot for Avon tyres recently on an old Suzuki Hayabusa. It was about 1ºC so I had to pull in to Castle Combe’s pits every three laps or so, but the Avons did okay even in those freezing temperatures and it was ace having the place all to myself. The next day I did a charity ride in Bristol dressed as Santa and it was astonishing. They raised £16k with about a thousand bikes riding, it was spectacular, though probably not much for anyone trying to do anything as we basically shut Bristol down! Sorry folks, but it was for charity!
It was nice to see Jonny Rea whooping MotoGP arse at the recent joint test once again. You forget how close these things can be; even the BSB boys were only around three seconds off, which is incredible. I reckon Rea will do okay in the BBC SPOTY this year, I’m going up myself. Look what happened with Foggy and the jungle thing, it was all bikers voting. Fingers crossed for Jonny!
I see Honda have signed Hutchy and Lee Johnston for the roads in 2018. They should have the bikes sorted this time around, though no John McGuinness wasn’t a huge shock. I think I heard Honda had offered him some kind of ambassadorial role, which he apparently turned down, although I could have dreamt that, or caught it overhearing folk speaking at the NEC, or I could have made it all up – don’t take it as gospel, I’m old! I reckon he could turn up every year, win the TT Zero and keep notching up his tally, but we’ll see.
My best gag at the NEC, was a wad of £10 looking tissues which a few people thought were real. Till next month!