Steve Parrish
Parrish’s take on all things bike-racing.
It’s fair to say since my last column that things have been pretty damn awesome. I managed to avoid the cold and dismal weather for a bit and head over to South Africa, and it was one of the very best trips I’ve had in a long time.
See, usually when I’m racing anywhere, it’s only ever airport, hotel, race track and repeat, but this year I stayed on for a couple of weeks extra and it was absolutely spot on. Firstly though, the racing was bloody awesome. The track is called East London and it sort of reminds me of an old school Mallory Park – you know, like it was back in the ’80s. It’s a bit basic, but it’s still good, and has some blisteringly fast corners as well for good measure, which is hard work on an old RG500. In all fairness though, between us the bike had been properly restored and was in a better nick than I was!
From there on out we went along to loads of different places, but one of the best has to be Kruger National Park. If you haven’t been, you need to go. I’m not a massive animal person, but it was spectacular to be driving alongside cheetahs, elephants, zebras and goodness knows what else! Stuff like that was amazing, and then to top it off we went fishing. I can never seem to keep out of trouble, and on my first attempt I went to cast the bait out to sea and ended up catching the hook on one of the Scottish racers that was with us! Not ideal in the slightest if you ask me, but what can you do. Now all that fun and games are over, I’ve got a couple of weeks before I pack my bags and head on over to the other side of the world for some more gallivanting in Australia and New Zealand. I’m absolutely buzzing for that and it can’t come quick enough, but on the flipside, at least there’s been some testing and racing to keep us occupied.
As always, what on earth can we say about Jonathan Rea? The man is just ridiculous, and even with these imposed rev limits and other bits, it’s insane that he finished that much faster in testing. I tip my hat to the bloke. Then again though, it’s great to see Alex going faster, and if Chaz can live up to the potential that we know he’s capable of, he’s easily going to be a strong contender as well – they just need to get that V4 working perfectly. It’s all well and good having all that power, but if you can’t use it, then what’s the point?
On the subject of power, the lads in MotoGP have been hard at work as well. It’s good to see Yamaha getting back up there, and with injuries everywhere it’s making things quite interesting to say the least, and especially in the Honda camp. In all honesty though, I think it’s anyone’s game this year. Bring on the racing season.