Born Under a Bad Sign
By TMX Archives on 20th Apr 06
Words by Gordon Crockard Photo by SuttyMonday morning after the first GP at Zolder and here I am at the desk getting on with recalling the recent month's events. Words by Gordon Crockard Photo by Sutty Monday morning after the first GP at Zolder and here I am at the desk getting on with recalling the recent month's events. Like many things in life I'd say my motocross report lately has been a little up and down. A quick summary would be: 1 Hawkstone - Good 2 Lyng - Good 3 Culham - Not so good 4 Zolder - So far away from good I can't explain! To be more specific I'm chuffed with my riding and fitness although I've yet to reap the rewards of my work. My time will come... At Hawkstone I gave myself too much work to do by wasting my good starts through first lap crashes. Coming from the back of the pack is a great way to get to know all the other riders' new riding kits and race numbers but not really much use for earning a few quid and paying the bills. But I had fun and didn't get hurt so for a day's sport I can't ask for much more. Lyng was a little more frustrating as it was a British championship round and I can't afford mistakes if I am serious about racing to win. Podium was my target and I just missed it. Fourth at the flag of the first moto was great but I really was desperate to squeeze past James Noble for third. During the early laps of the second moto I pushed hard to get by the bunch in front of me as I was determined to make the top three. In hindsight I pushed a little too much perhaps and slipped off the old girl twice. Any ideas I had about making the podium were over and I came in sixth. NOT HAPPY! The next weekend there was a round of the Wulfsport British Masters series at Culham. Good dry weather was welcome and a sign of spring around the corner put a smile on my face. I got a fifth and a fourth and left the Oxford track looking to make a few changes internally with positive progress being the target. We had a weekend free after that which was used to pack up all our bikes, spares and equipment and travel across to Belgium to prepare some things for the opening GP at Zolder. A day at Doma working on a new exhaust system was had on the Monday, something I personally don't have to get so involved in although I like helping if possible. We were practising on Tuesday at Honda Park near Balen and then at a new track I was told about on Wednesday close to Brussels which was cool. Thursday I got to the GP and parked up in the Tarmac paddock which was just what the doctor ordered as it totally poured down with rain for hours on end. The track was very wet and extremely soft underfoot which meant many deep ruts on the agenda as far as riding conditions go. I had a pretty good crash in first practice on this tabletop - you were taking off and landing in really deep ruts and, of course, when I landed in the ruts my poor wee 450 just bogged in solid and I flew over the bars like a gymnast. The track wasn't really any fun to ride but I still was excited about the race and felt confident inside. The next part I'm finding hard to write about in a way that makes it clear to understand what exactly happened. In many ways I can see my story being interpreted as lame excuses for lack of personal performance on my part. I'll proceed anyhow... Firstly, the technical control had problems with running their noise testing on Friday because it was raining and it's not a fair and consistent test. So we returned on Saturday morning to get tested but yet again it was raining and it's not a fair consistent test. So we returned later to get tested but yet again it was raining so still no passed exhausts and therefore no scrutineered stickers on the bikes to prove it. Going out for first and second practices I passed through the technical control tent each time and the stewards clearly saw that I had no sticker on my exhaust. For qualifying Ian brought the spare bike to have as back-up in case the race bike had a problem. On the second lap or so my exhaust came loose and was flapping all over the place, then it smashed up my rear brake and I lost all the fluid from it. I came into the pit box to get the second bike and the stewards strongly argued that it was not legal for me to take the second bike onto the track as it wasn't through noise control. Neither was my race bike but they let me ride that! We robbed parts from the spare bike to try and fix the race bike and I returned to the track to do my qualifying lap with no rear brake, a repaired exhaust and only six minutes remaining. I had no chance and failed to qualify for the races as the top 30 get through and I only managed 33rd. Being one of the first campers into the 'living area' paddock I was totally blocked in and getting out wasn't going to happen until Sunday night. I painfully watched the races and was filled with anger as I saw my rivals take the points right from under my nose. To top it off I ran out of diesel racing to catch the ferry home after the race and had to pay 176 Euros to have a rescue guy bring me some diesel. By now you must be thinking I'm Mr Misery Magnet and you're never going to read my depressing column ever again. I say this because you may have labelled me as a professional motocross rider who gets paid to race bikes and that's the best job in the world so how could I ever complain about anything related to that? Yes, it is great to make my living racing bikes but that still doesn't make it easy. We all have our own problems sometimes but often things happen for a reason so I'm over that and looking forward to Canada Heights and even more so the next GP in Spain. Por favor!