Comment (June)
By TMX Archives on 15th May 03
It was bloody Tony Marshall who set the ball rolling last year when he knackered his knee testing '03 KTMs for us. It was bloody Tony Marshall who set the ball rolling last year when he knackered his knee testing '03 KTMs for us. We then had a nice little interlude (short break, perhaps?) before not-so-new-boy Sutty bounced himself down the Trax track like something out of Dambusters, breaking a few ribs, followed by Doc Wobbly doing his tibia in Atlanta. Then KTM's Kevin Burk (okay, he doesn't work for dbr but he is our mate) goes and smashes his tibia into five pieces on a 250EXC, followed close behind by our local AMCA monkey Kev The Rev who snapped both wrists landing his CR250 into a deep rut. Next our Icelandic mate Thor sustained serious monkey butt trail riding in the Dominican Republic (no broken bones so it doesn't really count - it's just an excuse to run the picture) and Chris Brock did his scaphoid. Finally, Jeff Perrett smashed a few mirrors and Designer Dave broke the end off his pencil before I fractured my big toe (in medical jargon 'thumb-toe') on the Isle of Man. I actually did my toe in a racing accident...I was racing to the nearest gorse bush to empty my bladder of a few pints of Stella when my left foot got seriously out-of-shape on a technical off-camber uphill. Obviously, I lied through my teeth and told her indoors someone ran over it (sorry Huck, you got the blame - and believe me you're in deep ***t when she catches up with you)... Apart from a couple of five-minute stopovers at Douglas Airport (I didn't think we still had grass airstrips in this country) to drop-off passengers en-route to Belfast, the KWS round was my first visit to the IoM since a school trip 20-odd years ago. Although it was a slightly depleted Pro line-up that made the four-hour ferry crossing, the racing was still bang-on and I picked up a couple of priceless bits of information on two of our future MX stars. 1) Chad Yarranton can put away a steak in the time it takes Swordy to do a quick lap of Lyng and 2) Adam Chatfield is special (well, that's what he told me). On a more serious note, Tony Marshall's back in action this month with our exclusive test on Paul Cooper's Multitek Honda - and he even managed a day in the saddle without hurting himself. Tone, Jeff P and Sutty hooked up with Karl Prestwood and the gang at Elsworth for a downright scary day on Coop's rocketship - one of the fastest two-strokes on the planet. The verdict was, to be honest, no surprise. There are loads of riders out there who think they could dramatically improve their results on a bike like Coops'. It's fairly simple logic - faster bike equals faster lap times. D'oh! The reality is there are very few people who could get on Coops' bike and manage even a couple of laps before pounding themselves into the hardpack. Race bikes - especially strokers - like this are truly dangerous weapons in the right hands. And very dangerous weapons - to their pilots - in the wrong ones... Finally this month, I picked up the phone the other day to discover Capt Kurt Nicoll on the other end of the line. KTM's Director of the Universe had read the lead story in our May issue concerning Coops' non-entry in the Dutch GP and felt compelled to comment. "My experience is that Sonia's always done a damn good job in that office," said Kurt, fighting the corner of the ACU's MX secretary. Over the last few years I've dealt with Sonia on a fairly regular basis as well and fully agree with Kurt that she does do a damn good job. To my mind the criticism was aimed slightly further up the ACU food chain... And finally, finally this month, I received an email of commentators' cock-ups from the likes of such household names as Murray Walker and John Motson. But one really stood out. Talking about WSB ace Colin Edwards' tyre choice, the commentator said: "Colin had a hard on in practice earlier and I bet he wished he had a hard on now." And the guilty party? Step forward Sir Jack Burnicle... Jack, we love you!