No time to feel Down!
By TMX Archives on 9th Apr 08
JD tells us about his visit to last weekend's Irish World Trials round where a jolly good time was had by all...
WHAT a brilliant event was last weekend's Irish World Trials round or, to give it its full official title, the FIM SPEA Trial World Championship Grand Prix of Ireland. Whatever you want to call it, it was a first class promotion and the organising Lightweight club, with the full co-operation of the North Down Council, did a great job. The official crowd figure for the three-day weekend was given as some 30,000 in total so all parties involved were well pleased.
From a personal point of view, while it is a pleasure to attend any big sporting event, even better when you are part of it, in whatever small way, a visit to Ireland is always eagerly looked forward to. I reckon I have more friends in Ireland than anywhere else in the world. I even know some of their names!
The fact is that you can't take two steps before you are accosted with a firm "What about you?” in strong Irish brogue. In my two days in Bangor I exchanged greetings, and sometimes involved conversations, with hundreds of people! Many of course I knew, some I recognised but couldn't come up with names to match the faces plus many I have honestly never met in my life before but left me with no doubt that we were actually bosom buddies.
Just occasionally I found myself looking slyly round to see if I had been set-up – these things have been known to happen. No, it is all just part of the Craic and it is great fun. Well worth the 5am rise and shine on Friday for the three-hour blast up to Stranraer for the boat. And for that matter the 3am return Sunday night after the fun and games were over. I was asked why I chose rocking and rolling on the Irish sea as opposed to doing the obvious and taking a short flight. The main reason is that I am notoriously untidy and forgetful! If I had flown to Belfast, I just know that to start with I wouldn't have taken anywhere near enough cold/ wet weather gear. My car, on the other hand, is packed with enough ‘stuff' accumulated over the years to allow me to live for a month, whatever the weather, so while I may have driven further than strictly necessary, in compensation I did have enough boots, wellies, coats and hats, plus of course all the ‘surprise' drinks and eats of various vintages that you invariably find rolling around on the floor (well, you do in my motors!) when you get hungry ands thirsty enough.
Boats are also much more social places than planes. On the return trip, after I had tested the cafe out, I settled down to write Sunday's report to give me a flier at work on Monday morning. French rider Jerome Bethune wandered over and asked if he could borrow the current copy of T+MX he had spotted. He sat down close by and was joined by his girlfriend and half a dozen pals and (believe it or not, and I don't care whether you do or don't but it is true!) they were soon all fighting over the paper. They elected the girl to read the story and
the lads remained absolutely quiet for about 20-minutes while she read our Luxembourg trial report out loud – word by individual word – in English!
Naturally, I got no work done. It was like watching and listening to Goldilocks (she was of course a gorgeous blond – aren't they all?) read to the three bears. When she had finished I applauded, "Tres Bien – but did you understand what you were reading?”
The giggling response? "No!”
We all laughed but the lads all reckoned that they got the jist of it and were made-up with the paper. There is no equivalent to T+MX in France you see, Britain is unique with a weekly off-road paper, and it was nice that the French guys were so enthusiastic about us.
As we docked, thankfully with none of the snow we had been threatened with in evidence, it was all down to a jolly good thrash across Scotland to the M6 in a ragged but enthusiastically driven convoy, sitting behind the lead Irish artic (well, it would be wouldn't it) driven by a guy who I would back against Michael Schumacher any day of the week. Funny how a truck, supposedly governed to 56mph, was tearing apart the convoy – and that was through the twisties...the Irish, don't you just love ‘em!