Didn't we have a Tough time?
By TMX Archives on 30th Jan 08
Enough of the complaining, JD and the lads decide to go to both the Tough One and the Liverpool Supercross on the same day and a thoroughly good time was had by all... WE'VE said it before but it's definitely feast or famine in this job. Major events in Britain are, in the main, pretty thin at this time of the year and then – just like buses (so the saying goes) they all come along at once. And so, last weekend, we had The Tough One Extreme Enduro AND the Liverpool Supercross on the same day! And just to give some of the riders a hard timei there was also the little matter of the official ACU Awards Presentation on Saturday/ Saturday evening as well.
So, after a few seconds thought last Friday afternoon, deliberating whether to go to the Tough One or to the SX, the obvious conclusion was reached – stop wimping around and do both!
So it was up bright and early and head down the M6 before veering off along the M56 and then swinging south for Oswestry and Nantmawr Quarry.
The Tough One was everything that it said on the tin – it was tough!
You can read elsewhere all about it but the bottom line is there were a lot of lads well and truly caught out by the relentless nature of the course. Unlike in the majority of events, there was hardly two yards of the track where riders could relax. It was just one long continuous battle. In the Speed Trial, lads who had completed the Scott Trial in five-hours last October with no problem, found their hands ripped to shreds by blisters after just an hour and a half last Saturday.
In The Tough One proper, which followed, you could see riders whose arms, wrists and fingers had seized solid within a lap or two because of the relentless pressure on the bars, either pulling or pushing. And these are guys who can complete ‘normal' events without breaking sweat or getting out of their comfort zones.
It was a real eye-opener watching riders with different levels of fitness – and those with stamina. Michael Brown, David Knight and Taddy Blazusiak were awesome, as were lads like Paul Bolton who has been transformed from a good trials rider to a bit of a ‘Clubman' extreme Superstar – if such a thing exists.
Then there are riders like Justin ‘The Daddy' Wilson and Manxman Juan Knight. Both lads are on the sturdy side of stick thin and neither would claim to be able to run a hundred-yards in ten-seconds. But stamina? These big boys just kept on ploughing round that course, circulating at exactly the same pace on their final lap as on their first. And if it had been a 12-hour Tough One I would put money on them still racking up the laps come the end.
I have no idea how they do this.
With The Tough One over, and with a great atmosphere thanks to headlights blazing in the dark and a fireworks finale, it was time to run for the car and head on up the road to Birkenhead, dive under the Mersey tunnel, and join the Scousers at the sparkling brand new Echo Arena. Very pretty it looked too, all lit-up in blue lights as we rolled-up at around 8pm, an hour after the advertised start (although there were still people paying to get in).
Parking spaces were a bit thin though and it was the fifth floor of the multi-storey for us.
Again, read all about it in this issue. The highlight for those of us who had just turned up from the Tough One was watching Gordon Crockard – who finished eighth overall at Nantmawr – go straight out and finish second in the big race, getting quicker and quicker as the night went on. Doesn't look like Gordy will be short of fitness when he goes to America to contest the GNCC for BMW.
For a first-time promotion at a brand-new venue – the Echo Arena has only been officially open for a week – Liverpool was a fantastic success and with a near capacity crowd on Saturday night there's surely a great future for Supercross at the venue.
The fun and games was actually saved for exiting the multi-storey after the event.
From the fifth floor it took over half-an-hour but at least there was lots of silliness going on with a childish horn-blowing orchestra (the twin air-horns on the mighty editorial Mondeo lent their weight) augmented by enthusiastic tyre-screeching and thumping music blaring from the inevitable ‘Too Fast Too Furious' gang in their Vauxhall Novas. Good lads.
Back home for 1am – not a bad day out.