Steve Parrish ...................................
Steve’s back to make us laugh
S
I’m just coming to the end of my 10-day holiday in Majorca and it’s been an absolute scorcher. The UK heat wasn’t quite enough, so we thought we’d get over here and try to melt ourselves.
Anyway, getting back to it, I’ve had a busy month. I’ve been down at the Brooklands Museum for a live audience chat show with Maria Costello as my guest, and then I was straight to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. It’s one of my favourite events and it was great to be back after missing it last year… even better, we had the fans there to enjoy it with us, which makes all the difference. It’s just one of those events that brings everyone together, young and old, and for me it’s a throwback in time to the era gone by; getting to ride our old race bikes with a load of old mates. There’s no pressure either – it isn’t timed… we just get to pull some wheelies, do some burn -outs and then go and drink some more champagne. This year, Goodwood invited Travis Pastrana over as one of the celebrity guests and he took Kevin Schwantz’s championship-winning RGV for a run up the hill. He said he was going to try and pull some wheelies but when the power kicked in, it frightened the life out of him. He said he’d never ridden anything quite like it!
I’ve since covered the World Endurance round at Estoril with Eurosport and it was bloody brilliant. I have got to say, I’m getting more and more into endurance racing. It’s not a bad thing for anyone to get into, to be honest; there are factory rides out there, the top guys get paid well, and there is good prize money and bonuses… I can see why riders head that way! The race was ridiculous; every team that looked like they were going to win it, crashed. The SERT Suzuki team looked like it had the job in control and then Guintoli crashed.
Then it was YART Yamaha looking like it had things sewn up but crashed. BMW seemed to have it in the bag but crashed too.
Finally SRC Kawasaki was leading with 1½ hours to go, and with a two-lap lead we thought it was going to cruise it... and the fuel ran out.
In the end it was Honda who got the job done; a typical tortoise and hare story… over a second a lap off the pace but with brilliant pitstops and nothing going wrong, in the end winning by two laps.
This weekend I’m heading to Grimsthorpe Castle in Bourne for a classic car and bike show, and then I’m going to Donington on Sunday to test my Manx Norton. It’s at the Classic Racing Motorcycle Club race meeting but I’m not competing. I’ve been allowed to start at the back of the grid so I can give the old girl a run out.
I’ve got Richard Cooper joining me on the team also – he’s going to have a ride too. He just needs to pass his fitness test first following his time off after his leg injury.
And we’ve also got Leon Haslam’s charity golf day coming up, so I’m looking forward to it getting handed to me there… catch you next month.