Jays Jottings
 
Grass Track  - the story of the 2009 season

March
The season usually starts in March with a few practice meetings and a few brave clubs gamble on the weather and put a meeting on. Indeed the Fenland club put on a practice day at Kings Lynn Speedway on 1st March only to see overnight rain make the track impossible, an early season disappointment for all involved.

The credit crunch was expected to hit grass track racing just like everything else, it doesn’t appear to have affected attendances too much, but many riders are struggling to find the cash to enter and travel to meetings every week, so they seem to be picking and choosing their meetings, good prize money on offer always helps entice the top riders to enter a meeting !

April
I didn’t come out of my winter hibernation until 12 April when I travelled up to Wainfleet near Skegness for the first meeting as assistant clerk of the course, 6 weeks later I was back there again for another meeting and it was at that second meeting that the unfortunate Richard Ashworth was involved in a serious accident on a 350cc solo machine that resulted in him being airlifted to hospital.
Like many other accidents in grass track racing, it was an unfortunate sequence of events with Richard initially colliding with another rider before being thrown across the track and landing in front of another rider that could not avoid him. Richard’s condition continues to improve but it is a long haul and the whole sport wishes him well.
More sad news emerged during early season when Phil Stoneman, a 1,000cc sidecar passenger, who was seriously injured in the Masters at Rhodes Minnis in 2008 announced that he was to have part of his leg amputated just below the knee, a benefit meeting for Phil has since been held in Cornwall, that is typical of the sport, it always rallies around and supports those in need.
Enough of the bad news!  April also saw a meeting run by the Woodbridge club which formed Round 1 of the Eastern Centre Championships, believe it or not several races at this meeting were split into 2 because of DUST

(Dust is public enemy number one for the sport!)  April also saw the running of the Champion of Champions meeting by the Astra Club, its always a top entry and this year was no different with Joe Screen making a rare appearance and Paul Hurry returned from a year out with an injured arm to take the spoils on the day. Another returnee to the sport was the popular Lewis Denham, he was back after time out with a recurring shoulder injury.

May
Generally a quiet month, but Frittenden club deserve a mention for their end of May Bank Holiday meeting, the small club pulled in a massive crowd, so they must have done something right, the meeting was a good one so it was a good shot in the arm for the sport in general.

Good fortune in Kent went down the pan a week later when the National Kent Kracker failed to live up to expectations, mostly due to a small bumpy track that cut up badly, combined with a baking hot day that caused a lot of dust to rise, the club watered regularly, but watering makes the track slippery and isn’t popular with the riders! The Club sensibly withdrew their offer to run the South East Championships at the same venue on 11 October.  Fortunately Astra and GTSA clubs dived in to rescue the event and planned to run it jointly at Capel Le Ferne on the scheduled date.

June
The English weather had a big say the following week at the Jon Underwood memorial meeting a week later.  Jon was a young grass track start who lost his life in a road accident whilst travelling back from a meeting abroad to compete in the National Championships the following day.
The memorial meeting is put together by Colin Sweby and friends to raise money for the Headway Charity. Half way through the meeting this year the heavens opened and the track was flooded in less than 20 minutes, but with great ingenuity, the officials moved the bends in 12 metres at each end of the oval circuit and the track was ready for racing just 45 minutes after the downpour caused the stoppage, the virgin grass on the revised bends providing a lot more grip than the original track which was now too slippery to even stand on!

A week later, it was another mighty step forward for the sport with the reintroduction of the Inter Centre Team Championship by the Dunmow Club in the Ugley bowl after an absence of the event from the calendar of some 9 years., Four different Centres won five different events and the friendly atmosphere at the event was as good as it always used to be, and no protests either!!!

Next was the Under 21 Championship, would returnee and 3 times winner Lewis Denham topple last years champion Jamie Rodgers? The answer was a resounding NO with Rodgers unbeaten on the day and Charlie Saunders beating Denham to 2nd place on the rostrum. The Under 21 meeting saw the best race of the season when Steve Daw locked horns Tim Nobes, wow what a race! The pair entered each bend faster and faster and changed lines whilst never being more than a yard apart!  Alas the race ended in tears, as many feared, when, after Daw dived inside on the far bend, and then went wide, Nobes found himself forced into the deep and as his bike lost speed rapidly he was thrown over the handlebars, Fortunately for Tim he wasn’t injured, but it was 2 bikes wrecked in 2 weeks for him!    

Fenland Club ran a successful 2-day event near Huntingdon with Youth and Vintage on the Saturday, and mainstream adults on the Sunday. It was a brand new track and both days went very well for the club, a number of people camped over on the Saturday evening, and Gary Southgate eventually got the sky dish in the beer tent pointing to the right satellite so everyone could watch the Cardiff Grand Prix, a brilliant free service jointly provided by the Club and Bars 4 Events. Bernie Waterfield had a day to forget on the Saturday when he pulled back off the start line to stop his clutch from overheating, as he turned away from the start gate at walking pace and released the clutch he failed to see a single line of stakes and ropes separating the track exit from the start gate (a good health and safety precaution added following a risk assessment that morning!) and the rope had him off at walking pace, but he broke his collarbone as he went down, a really unlucky accident, but Bernie joked with the first aiders that there was no way they were going to cut his leathers off, and he would take them off himself, despite the pain, AFTER someone had given him a cigarette!!!

July
The National Best Pairs held at High Easter had a disappointing entry but nonetheless the racing was generally excellent although the number of riders in a few heats was very low.
There was a bit of a hold up towards the end of the meeting when a Left Hand sidecar passenger was injured and the Paramedic had to accompany him to hospital, it meant that the National part of the competition had to stop until he was back, but the non national part could continue – a strange quirk in the rules for the casual spectator to take in!

Straight after the Best Pairs a number of grass track supporters travelled to France (Bordeaux region) to watch a World Long Track Round at Marmande. Its starts at 9.oopm out there and the whole town turns up to watch and the crowd is around 20,000 people, there is loud music and pom pom girls in between each race and the evening ends at around 1.00am with a spectacular firework display – well there wasn’t this year, the event was rained off with a cloudburst at midnight!

The Lester Goodwin memorial meeting was staged by Frittenden the following week and a good sized crowd witnessed some excellent racing, Frittenden appear to be a club that are moving onwards and upwards in the rankings – well done to those people involved in that club, will we see a national event there next year? It was at this event that I saw (and was almost closest to) the most horrific looking accident that I have seen so far this season, Martin Cuff and Steve North were on a left handed sidecar on full chat when it entered the straight, but it drifted wide and either the running board or the handlebars caught a stake, breaking the stake in two, but turning the machine sharp right and through the two sets of ropes, it was a non spectator area so there were no more ropes there, but the top rope pulled Martin Cuff off the bike by his neck and knocked Steve North from his sitting position in the sidecar, but his foot was caught in the toe loop and he was dragged 50 yards or so by his foot, thank god for cut-outs on these machines !
Unbelievably, both got up and walked away uninjured, but rumours were that Martin Cuff would not need to shave his neck for a few weeks!

And so off to Yorkshire for the Masters Challenge (or the qualifier as we are used to calling it!) at Pickering, a super track and super organization, with quality racing to match it. Favourite to qualify in the solos, Martin Sturgeon was sidelined with a bee sting on his hand – but luckily he was given a wild card.  Trevor Colvin broke some ribs and his sternum (Breast bone) when his chair went over and also Kevin Colbourne injured a shoulder when the famous Godden engined machine went skywards, and what goes up must come down. It’s a long way from Essex to Yorkshire, the fish and chips up there was nice, and so was the Essex beer when we got back on Sunday night – just minutes before closing time!

August
The month started with a vintage meeting run by the Southend Club at a seventies venue, Purleigh Barns Farm in Latchingdon, Essex.
A large crowd attended on a nice warm day, its what grass track racing is all about, a nice picnic for the spectator in a meadow with some hot action on the track to watch on a Sunday afternoon. (It’s amazing what a simple poster on a main road will do for attendances!)
Darren Porter broke his collar bone at this meeting on a solo 350cc machine, Darren is a newcomer to the sport and will soon learn that if you have to get off a solo machine in a hurry – get off the left hand side!!!!

Talking of Hurry, we saw Paul in action the following week at the Mick Steer Memorial meeting run by GTSA Racing Ltd in Kent, Paul took the 350cc and 500cc honours. Young Georgie Wood showed once again that Four Strokes rule ok in the 250cc class whilst the main event of the day, the 1,000cc right handers was taken by Rob Wilson and Terry Saunters who took an amazing trophy away with them in memory of the man that created the Steer frame, I think Rob took away a few bob too, less what he spent at the bar afterwards! (I missed a trick there – I didn’t bump into him when he was at the bar!!!) It was good to see Duncan Tolhurst at this meeting, he continues to improve after his bad smash in Ludinghausen, Germany, 2 years ago and it was a nice touch for someone to suggest he went on the riders parade before the meeting.

The Pre 75 championships were held in Dorset and as a last minute decision I decide to venture down to them, a 320 mile round trip, a long way to take my dog for a walk! Practice was just ending as I arrived so a quick U turn took me ½ mile down the road to a pub that was doing Sunday lunches - my first roast dinner since April!

During the following midweek it was off to La Reole in France for the 1,000cc FIM Gold Trophy, Ryanair from Stansted to Bergerac gave me a cheap trip. Super racing at the event, I must admit that I thought it may be a procession on such a big track (with us tailing the Aussies!) but it was far from that – especially on the first bend!

Many thanks to Myles Simmons for loaning me a corkscrew, Ryanair wouldn’t let me take one in my hand baggage, and you need one of those when in France!

And so to one of the major events in the Grass Track Calender, the Wainfleet Poacher. With brilliant entertainment always put on for the Saturday night we travelled up on the Saturday and made a weekend of it. Brilliant racing as normal, and very little for me to do on the day, I think the only incident was someone rolling at the start, and the race was stopped for that reason.

The following day I made it down to Frittenden, where I thought it would be a nice easy day as a marshall, but a serious accident involving some spectators resulted in a significant pile of paperwork! 

September
Fenland ran the 3rd and final qualifying round of the 500cc sidecar championship, the points were close before the event, the racing was fast and furious, Scott Dunn was lucky to escape injury when he overturned as he tussled for the lead with Nick Radley, and at the end of the day the points were still very close. The day ended with a protest to adjudicate upon, it was very hot in the caravan as it was dealt with – and the bar was in sight too!

Wimborne presented a two-day meeting incorporating the UEM final for 500cc sidecars. An ambitious event following on from last years running of the semi final.
Sean Harvey and Danny Hogg managed to get on the rostrum which was a brilliant result considering that the continentals have dominated the event for many years. Afterwards, instead of assisting with beer sales, it was assisting Dick Sullivan with measuring of the first 3 engines!

The following it was back to Stansted Airport for a Ryanair flight down to New quay (they should be paying for all the free advertising in this article) for the Masters Final.
The track didn’t look too wonderful when entering the field, a steam engine rally earlier in the year when the field was wet had not done it any favours. Despite how the track looked, it rode really well and there were plenty of incidents to keep the crowd interested.
Poor Jason Handley didn’t even make it to the first bend in his first race, coming a big one as riders bunched after leaving the start line. The sidecar Masters winners were Mark and Tom Cossar (after a tie on points) and the solo was Lewis Denham, back to top form after being plagued with a shoulder injury.

The final week of the month was the GTSA event at Doddinghurst, a picturesquetrack, and a hot day too, I was glad to get a marshalling position under the shadeof a tree! The ground was so hard it was a job to replace any markers that came out!

October

On 29th September, a Tuesday morning, I had a call from Rob Bradley “Could I beClerk at Pickering for the National Finals the following Sunday”, they had been cancelled a few days earlier as the ground had been so dry in Kent they could not get the stakes in and be satisfied that would be safe enough for an event. 
So off to Pickering on the Saturday for the second time this season. How the club managed to put the event on in just a week beggars belief but hats off to them, they did it and it was a brilliant event without hardly any queries directed to the clerk of the course on the day, very unusual for a National Championship!

Next week it was down to Danebury for the National Youth Championships on the Saturday, I was Chief Technical for this event and was kept busy with questions about tyres and brakes! I also acted as rider liaisons officer and had two protests to facilitate, so it was a busy day indeed.The following day it was up to Kent for another GTSA event, the autumn weather had broken and it was not too pleasant standing outside at all, standing under the tree made no difference to temperature or moisture this time! (It’s interesting standing under there, some riders think no-one is watching them – but they are!!!)
The track was very tricky by the end of the day and the 500cc final was run 3 times (I think there were 5 riders down on the top bend on one occasion) and it was touch and go if the other finals would be run. But they were run, and they ran without incident so it was proved to be a good decision.

Next Sunday it was off to Woodchurch in Kent to a KYGTRA youth meeting, a very friendly (with some riders lending their bikes to their rivals) but competitive meeting on a smashing track.
The final meeting of the season was to be the Frittenden Finale. The Sunday weather forecast was awful, but you can never not travel to an event on the weather forecast can you?  Ok, spectators can, but officials cant! So we ventured down through heavy rain on the M20, and sat in the car on arrival for 2 hours before the inevitable decision was taken, at that point the track would have only been fit for water skiing!

And so the 2009 Grass Track season came to a close, it was a very good one in my book, despite the recession, the boot sales, sky TV and all the other distractions that the sport continues to fight against!

Only thing that was promised during the 2009 season that never materialized, was the female streaker that was discussed intently on the grass track website  - ah well – maybe in 2010 perhaps?

Jay 

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