Jays Jottings - Marmande 2009
After a years break, it was a trip to Marmande this year, we had booked about 7 months in advance via British Airways from Gatwick to Bordeaux, the price was pretty good, and its free drinks on the plane with BA too!
Only problem is the flight takes off at 07.25 from Gatwick which is 2 hours away, so the theory was early to bed after the Best Pairs at High Easter, but the pubs never shut early, and you cant possibly leave the pub before it has closed. So it was just 3 hours sleep and up at 03.00, its still dark at that time!
The crew this time was myself, Bert and Steve. Les Rumsey and his crew (Bobs videos, his son Pete, and Dave Rumsey) had booked the same flights as us so we met them at the airport. The good thing about an early start is that the Dartford Bridge is FREE.
So it was down to the Long Stay Car Park at Gatwick – (Its cheaper if you book one month in advance – but we didn’t!) The bus runs every 10 mins and journey takes 7 minutes, so that’s another 17 minutes I could have had in bed. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Travelling around the M25 to Gatwick is always a bit dodgy – one accident and a hold up, and you miss your flight, we usually see at least one in the rear view mirror after changing lanes, we never use indicators on the motorway because the traffic following us is supposed to anticipate our lane moves (its in the Highway Code!)
Security is always interesting, Bert takes extra care following the confiscation of a 10 inch screwdriver that he had hidden in the bottom of his bag the other year, he didn’t realize that x - rays can see through things!
I got a clear this time, but Bert got pulled on some safety matches that weren’t safety matches and a bottle of water that he hadn’t even opened, and Steve Brace got pulled on some hair shampoo in a clear glass unlabelled container (I am not likely to get pulled on hair shampoo am I?). Security asked Steve Brace what the green liquid was in the glass container, but before he could reply, Bert chipped in with the word “semtex”. Good job security had a sense of humour that morning!
We had a full English breakfast at the airport and waited for our departure gate to appear on the board, its amazing – its says that some gates take 25 minutes to walk to, but the number of the gate does not appear until 20 minutes before the gate closes! Bert wandered off to the Gents, when he came out, me and Steve had disappeared, and so had his bag – well you can’t leave them unattended can you? Bert hunted around for us (probably thinking the Gents had 2 exits and he had come out of the wrong one) He eventually spotted us and his worried face turned into a smile like a child that had just been given some sweets when he spotted us!
When we got to the gate, we met Paul Cooper and Richard Hall, they had ridden at Glasgow the night before and then jetted down to Gatwick for the flight connection to Bordeaux – rather them than me!
So onto the plane, we had pre booked the emergency over wing exit seats for more leg room and Les Rumsey’s party was 2 rows in front of us, They deliberately put Bob Ruffle in the window seat – he hates flying! Bob actually told us that he had no fear of flying at all, only of crashing!!! Nice one! Bob pulled the blind down before take off in case he glanced out of the window, but the Stewardess quickly told him it had to be up!
Pete sat on an aisle seat with a French lady beside him, we told him he may be in luck, looked like worse luck from where I was sitting. The plane seemed to take a low trajectory from take off, and normally the seat belt lights go off within 5 minutes, but the lights stayed on and we stayed low, Les diagnosed a misfire and reckoned a plug needed changing! After 10 minutes the French lady needed the ladies room, she stood up to go and Pete moved aside but they were both told to sit down as the seat belt light was still on.
Five minutes later she wanted to go again, she stood up and this time Pete told her to sit down, along with the rest of us shouting “Sit Down”!
Eventually we landed at Bordeaux, Paul Cooper and Richard Hall had to run through arrivals to catch their lift to the track where they arrived just in time for the final session of practice. We had to wait ages to be allocated a car hire vehicle when we had already booked it in advance, that did not go down too well!
Les paid the extra damage waiver at the airport but I had already taken out an annual policy which did the same thing, but disadvantage of that is that you have to pay for any damage first and then claim it back!
As it happened I found several scratches on the car and brought the form back to get it signed. More about that later……………….. So it was down the motorway to the track, hoping to see the last minutes of practice (but also avoiding any speed cameras!)
Practice was done when we got there but we had a walk round and chatted to some English riders, on return to the hire car an hour later someone had swiped the door and back wing with a long gash and left some navy blue paint too – GREAT EH?
Off to the hotel in Marmande, a nice one with air conditioning and a swimming pool too, it was about 27 degrees, so I had a dip, some nice scenery around the pool too! Steve and Bert forgot to bring their swimming trunks - they said I didn’t tell them about the swimming pool – as if!
At 6pm myself and Steve went to watch the non international practice, but Bert was so tired he decided to stay in the hotel room and sleep instead!
Winning Caption
See Jay's having trouble with His Piles again, not the best way to put
em back.
Later we went back to the hotel to pick Bert up and Steve found his socks had been thrown out of the window onto a flat roof, best place for them I said!
Back to the track for the start of the meeting, by this time the temperature had dropped from about 28 degrees to 18 degrees and there was a strong wind blowing, and as it got dark, thunder and lighting appeared in the distance.
The racing was fast and furious as usual, but the dust was bad at times, after the first race the crowd on the pits bend went ballistic ‘cos they couldn’t see anything at all and booed and cat whistled loudly, the referee, fearing for his life, promptly put some water down!
The British boys rode very well, you have to be a brave rider to ride Marmande successfully as it involves going VERY close to the fence to straighten out the bends.
Just before midnight and with 6 races left to go I went and got our waterproofs from the car, we had got fed up of sheltering from the odd raindrop prior to that time under a cardboard box! During that interval me and Les bumped into Trevor Banks, who lives out that way these days and they had a good old chin wag, I commented that the rain appeared to be getting a bit heavier, and then it really chucked it down, cloud burst style.
After ten minutes Les noticed his feet were getting wet, there was a stream running through the tent we were in! The crowd decided to leave at this point, on mass, 20,000 people all heading for the exit at the same time! I dread to think what confusion there was on the meadow car parks, the exits were slightly uphill!
We sat tight, we couldn’t move anyway. Where were Steve and Bert? I had the car keys in my pocket, maybe they were standing outside the car waiting for me! The storm was now overhead, and then we had a power cut too! But it wasn’t dark, the lightening was so intense it was almost daylight!
After an hour the rain backed off a bit, enough for us to transfer from the refreshment tent to the pits area, where we found Steve and Bert, we had just got there and cloud burst number 2 started, even heavier than the first one! Some riders were trying to load their bikes in the vans and gave up - they got drenched! Paul Cooper had left his sunroof open in his van and it was like a fish tank without the glass sides!
After a further hour it eased off and we went back to the car, on arrival at the hotel we found the power was off there too, and there was not enough light to input the key code to get in the door, had we got a torch – no we hadn’t!
Someone else arrived and we got in and found the Charlie Saunders camp there having a coffee in the emergency lighting, we joined them and helped ourselves to some breakfast that had been laid out for early departees! We went to bed about 2.30am!
The next day was a leisurely day for us with the plane departing at 5.30pm, we had a drive back towards Bordeaux along the back roads, we had a look at the track at Lamonthe Landerrone, near La Reole a speedway type track (but 6 riders on the line) on a side hill, owned and built by a former rider in his back garden, he came out and chatted to us! His name escapes me – but he rode at Collier Street a couple of times. Plan for 2010 – go and watch a meeting at this track!
We didn’t visit the La Reole track – we went there for a meeting that was fogged off a couple of years ago! We did go into the town of La Reole for a beer though, there was a huge car park that was crowd barriered off and we walked down the slope to the River Girronne. Next think – a loud screech of tyres and the sound of breaking glass, it was Les Rumsey – doing the same leisurely drive back to Bordeaux as us, he had driven over a plastic bag in the car park – as you would - and it was full of glass bottles!
I asked Les if he had stopped at the other track, but he hadn’t even seen it (just a blur at Les’s speed I guess!)
We had a couple of beers in a café and then I suggested we visit Morizes track too, which was not far away, by the time we reached Morizes, Les had been there, couldn’t find the track and was already leaving the village! Les doesn’t do patience!
We made our way back to Bourdeaux and ended up eating a McDonalds, when in France, eat as the English do!
A little bird told me that Les had a bit of trouble opening the fuel cap on his hire car, they spent ages searching for the release button and couldn’t find one, and when they tried to pull the flap open it would not release, some colourful language followed and then finally someone pressed the flap and hey presto it opened!
Security at the airport found a bottle of red wine in Pete’s hand luggage and confiscated it! I got done at security this time too, they took my bag apart and took great interest in my electric shaver, but when they found it was just an electric shaver (allegedly) they gave up on me. Was I worried – yes I was!
Bert decided not to repeat his previous demonstration at Bordeaux airport of appearing to walk through a pane of glass as though it wasn’t there – very disappointing!
We boarded the plane to find that everyone on the plane was offered Bobs Videos personal choice of staple diet - parrot food! The free snack they handed out was biscuits and seeds mixed, I threw mine straight over to Bob – 3 rows in front of me – Yuk!
As we landed we came over the M23 where we had a good view of a stationery 3 lanes of traffic heading northbound, the way we needed to get home!
Welcome back to England!