On The Edge Racing

A year on from our first meeting, On The Edge Racing set off to where it all began, Pembrey in South Wales.

Unfortunately, for this meeting Andy was unable to come along due to commitments back in Sheffield, so we were fortunate to have enlisted the services on the latest member of the team, John Wilkinson, over the winter. John will be coming to every meeting with us this year, working along side Andy and No: 27's new recruit Bruce. John will usually accompanied by his daughter Laurel, who we have also press-ganged into helping. It's easy to tell them apart, Laurel's younger, prettier, and doesn't have a beard.

When we arrived at Pembrey, after five and a half hours driving, all of it in torrential rain, were we surprised to find that all of our fellow sidecar competitors had been put in a separate paddock on the outside of the circuit. After asking around, we discovered that this was not because of Buddha's chronic BO, but because on the fact that half of the inner, main paddock resembled the Everglades on a bad day. This presented us with a dilemma, we were also due to ride (other peoples) solo's, so we had no choice but to go into the inner paddock. This provoked much abuse and accusation of snobbery, most of it coming from the female half of Team Eddy's! Once in the inner sanctum, we managed to locate the last piece of relatively dry tarmac and set about erecting our new awning, which resembles York Minster in scale, if not architecture.

On Saturday morning, practice went well, but the track was very cold, and there was little grip to be found anywhere. It wasn't just a problem for us, all of the other sidecar teams were finding it exactly the same.
Race 1 was dry,but still a bit cold. We started from 6th on the grid, and approached the first corner with the rest of the pack, only to be confronted by Damien and Nancy pointing the wrong way! I know that the Belgians drive on the wrong side on the road, but this did seem to be taking things a bit too far! In the ensuing mayhem, we did seem to come off a bit bit worse than a few other teams and lost touch with the main pack of bikes. We had a bit of a lonely race, and finished 7th. On the positive side, we were 2.5 seconds a lap quicker than last year, in worse conditions.

Race 2 started very well, but the conditions were a little more damp, and some of the moisture found it's way into our ignition system, causing a misfire that dropped us back through the field and got worse, in the end we were relieved just to finish, even though it was back in 14th place.

On the Sunday morning, John and I along with yet another helper, Fiona, tried to cure the misfire, but to no avail. We reluctantly took the decision to sit out the sidecar races for the rest of the day.

What could have been a dreadful day was salvaged to a great degree by the generosity of some fantastic people.

Paul Allender had agreed to let me ride his awesome Yamaha TZ750 in the Classic Parade. I've wanted to ride a big TZ since I was a kid, they have a reputation for being one of the scariest bikes every built, and I now know why they have that reputation. The bike is, without a doubt, the quickest thing I have ever ridden..........I thought someone had stolen the back straight. I can only begin to imagine what it would be like with someone even vaguely competent on board! The fact that Paul can regularly manage to put the thing on the podium (and keep it out of the gravel traps) proves that he is a rider of considerable talent......and a lot guts.

Not to be out-done, Shelli was riding Tony Dunnell's absolutely gorgeous 350 Manx Norton. Tony and his rider, Mike Carter, were incredibly kind to lend this beautiful, and very expensive, bike to a sidecar passenger who has never ridden a solo on the track. The fact that people are willing to do thing like this to allow Shelli to ride the bike that is her all time favourite just takes your breath away. Shelli reports that the bike was not a scary as she thought and handled beautifully.

So, what could have be a really disastrous weekend was saved by the generosity of other people....I guess that's what makes classic racing what it is.

I would also like to thank a guy called Barry Hayman, we've never met, but he took the trouble to contact us after the meeting and sent us some of the action shots of the outfit shown in the gallery. Top man.

It's Mallory Park next, for a one day meeting on the 2nd of May.

Regards
Nick