Steve Parrish
Steve’s back to make us laugh
I’d be lying if I said I’d been flat out over the last few weeks. It’s been more bit-ing and bob-ing, to be honest. I guess the highlight has been testing my Manx Norton at Donignton Park the other week with Richard Cooper. I rode it on the Saturday and just did a test parade, and Coops rode it on the Sunday. They let him start the race from the back of the grid and he went onto finish second, so that shut me up as far as excuses are concerned… he’s still not 100% with his leg – far from it, in fact – but these old bikes don’t take half as much wrestling round a race track compared to a modern superstock 1000 or such like, so he was okay with that.
I joined Leon Haslam for his charity golf tournament last week in Nottingham, raising money for children born prematurely, and it was great to be a part of. It was a refreshing change to not win the ‘shit golfer award’. I probably should have done, to be fair, but there was one chap who was a little bit worse than me... somehow.
I was over at Grimsthorpe Castle the other week, and what a lovely place that is. It was a classic bike and car show, and I ended up placing a bid on an old police car from Eastern Germany… it had the siren and lights – the full works. It’s probably a good job I didn’t win... the locals would have loved that!
In other news, my son Joe has passed his bike licence. It was about time, I guess, but I think when he kept seeing me come home in a wheelchair and stuff like that put him off as a young lad. I’ve just had a new cataract lens put in my eye... the ol’ eyesight needed a bit of tweaking, so that’s sorted that. I’m like an old car – stuff keeps going wrong, and bit by bit I’m having a revamp. The doctors wouldn’t let me do anything for a week, but the next day I was playing tennis, so thought I best cover it up. I devised a new protective set-up which allowed me to play... mind you, I did get a few funny looks.
The commentary job has gone a bit quiet but I’ve been enjoying watching the racing properly. The second GP in Austria was exciting to watch at the end of the race. I was honestly surprised to see everyone go in to change their tyres with three or four laps to go, but fair play to Binder – that took some minerals to stay out and stick with it on cold wet slicks. He deserved that one. Race two at Donington BSB was a bit wild; we’ve never seen so many penalties being dished out in BSB. The racing has become so intense. The bikes are so well matched and the safety of the racewear and circuits is at its all-time best. It just seems that some of the riders are taking liberties with it all. I hope there is some more respect shown at Cadwell... there’s not a lot of room around there. Time will tell.
Catch you all next month.