Forgotten Era British Championship   - Snetterton - September 23rd 2001

Next up was my first visit to Snetterton for the penultimate rounds of the British Championship. We didn’t need to do much to the bike thankfully and headed off via Heysham on the Friday morning, with a nice six-hour drive ahead of us.

Richard Presscot and Mick Charnock – two guys we met earlier on in the year, were doing the meeting as well, and they had arranged a garage for us and a space in the track day held on the Saturday.

When we got there, they wouldn’t let me go in the track day because – wait for it – I don’t have a road license! I’ve never had a bloody road bike in my life and they weren’t listening to reason, rules are rules and that was that. However, I managed to sneak out later on in the day and got a couple of laps in, which were helpful to say the least.

So – Race day. It bucketed it down. I mean, rain bouncing off the deck, and people were crashing left, right and centre. I bet there were a few people with not as much optimism as me, or faith in me, thinking that it wouldn’t be long before the orange RG was in the gravel.

Well they weren’t too far wrong, but I didn’t actually crash. In the end, because of the weather and all the hold ups, I only got one race. To my amazement, I led from the line and pulled away from the group. It wasn’t long however, before that man Gourlay was on my case, and I had to keep pushing.

I was feeling good, but it was difficult and the beast was wheel spinning everywhere. Two laps to go, and Lea was still too far behind to make a pass and my first win in the championship was looking like it might come in the strangest of circumstances.

So, like I said, one lap to go, but then disaster struck. I headed into Russell’s a bit to hard and lost the front end I ended up on one of the rumble strips, and bang it went into a bit of a hop and into a gravel pit. It didn’t bog down, and I somehow kept it going enough to get out and back on the track. It was a miracle I didn’t end up on my head, but Lea was long gone, and I had to ride round to take yet another second place, but it could have been worse I suppose.

I don’t think I have ever ridden in the rain as bad as that, and it was unbelievable how many crashes there were. Infact there where so many stoppages the race program could not be completed and this being a double pointer and only one championship race run.