Gurriers (69 page)

“Okay, follow the signs for concentration, yeah, all the way until you see a roundy building that looks like a space ship. The ticket office is behind tha’. Try an’ stay together if yiz can ‘cos it gets tricky. People have gotten separated at this stage in the past an’ have been on their jack for the whole shebang. Remember concentration camp, that’s the back straight when ye get in. There’s a big concrete wall; we usually camp facing that, yeah. Okay, let’s go.” Shay’s speech had certainly put the frighteners on me; no way did I want to end up stranded on my own for the whole weekend. I stayed on his tail all the way, making sure that my mirrors were full of my compatriots also.

The traffic around the race track was chaotic and 95 per cent of it consisted of bikes. The going was slow, but Shay picked his way through. I had to nail it several times to close the gap after Shay had accelerated to make sure no French bikes got between
us, with the lads behind following suit to keep themselves with us. I know that this was not very considerate of us, but the pack had to stay together.

It took us as long to cover the two miles to the ticket office as it would have taken us to do 20 on the open road but we all made it together. We needed there to be little or no queue if we were going to get our tents up before the failing light abandoned us completely.

Our luck was out. There were about 200 people queueing in a giant marquee leading to the ten ticket hatches in loud but orderly lines that were divided by the same interlocking, freestanding barriers that you find on the streets of Dublin for crowd control on Paddy’s Day and other such occasions.

It was decided that Mick, Paddy and I would queue and get all the tickets while the rest of the lads would wait at the bikes, drinking cans and smoking joints. It was no coincidence that the three chosen to queue were first timers and as the only first timer to speak any French, I had no chance of dodging the chore.

Despite a bit of a harrumph at being landed with the job, the three of us didn’t have too bad a time in the queue. Things are never too bad anywhere that you have a lot of people that are delighted to be there. We had a can of beer each and Paddy made a joint while we were still towards the back of the queue and could only be noticed by our fellow bikers.

After 25 minutes we were at the hatch. I was, of course, the one doing the talking. This wouldn’t have been too difficult if it wasn’t for the other mission that I had been given. I was to try to get a badge for Al, who had to stay and work because he couldn’t afford to come with us. He couldn’t afford to miss the amount of money that was to be made in Lightning with seven couriers, including the three top-earners, away for a week.

Le Mans badges were prized possessions among my people. When you paid your 250 francs entrance fee you got a package. This package included: a paid sticker to put on your tent; a ticket into the race track for the whole weekend; six different
vouchers for food and drink redeemable at some of the outlets in the campsite and a programme and a pin-on metal badge.

The design of the badge changed every year. This year it was a circular piece of cast metal embossed with the details of the year and the image of a racing bike scraping around a bend. It was a nice badge, or “medal” as the boys called it. Vinno and Gizzard were both on their sixth medals and Shay was on his seventh. Al already had medals from the previous two years and had asked Vinno to try and get him this-year’s, a request that was duly passed on to me.

My intentions were to get the 19 packages - spending a total of 4,050 francs – and then spin her a yarn about our poor unfortunate friend at home that had smashed himself up in a motorbike crash and couldn’t be here with us and could we please have a badge for him. The trouble was that the French I learned in school never featured people getting smashed up in motor-bike crashes and I hadn’t a clue how to get my yarn across in French.

“Notre ami - chez nous - après la moto.” The amount of alcohol in my system was also detrimental to my search for the correct expressions. I decided to attempt to enlist the services of my neighbours.

“Pardonez moi monsieur, parlez vous Inglais?”

“Ah, roast beef!”

There were big laughs from his mates and some others within earshot.

“Roast beef?”

“You are English, yes?”

“No Irish. Irelandais?”

“Ah Irelandais.’

“Oui bacon and cabbage.”

“Pas du roast beef. Du bacon et cabbage!”

A cheer surrounded us, but the lady at the counter didn’t look at all happy.

It was time to get things moving.

“I am trying to tell her about my friend at home in Ireland.”

“Yes.”

“He paid for his boat fare over.”

“Yes.”

“Then he had a crash.”

“Oh, non monsieur.”

“It’s not so bad, just a broken leg, but I would be grateful to this lovely lady if she would give me an extra badge for my unfortunate friend.”

“Oui monsieur.”

There then followed a five minute exchange between the French biker and the ticket lady. She got up, walked over to some officious looking man and brought him back with her. Another exchange began between my new friend and the supervisor man. I could only pick up occasional words, but my friend was definitely doing his best to persuade the officials to give me an extra badge.

Eventually, after way too much commotion for such a simple request (which I later deduced to be a typical French trait), the official complied and gave me an extra badge. The whole area erupted in a joyous cheer. The French all around us started jumping up and down, singing loudly, slapping us on the backs and even hugging us. My new friend barely even heard me thank him in the commotion.

I jostled my way out of the queue with Mick and Paddy, surmising to myself that what just happened summed up the attitude of the place that weekend. Every occasion was an occasion for celebration and every celebration was full on party-time.

“Okay, lads, we’re goin’ through the barriers over there, yeah? The security guards are goin’ to put a sticker on yer bike and a sticker on yer lid. Both of these stickers have the same unique number on them. Ye don’t get ou’ of here unless these numbers match up. If you borrow someone’s bike to go to the shops or an’in, ye better borrow his lid as well. Gizzard learned that the hard way two years ago, didn’t ye Giz? He drove Al’s bike back from the pub with his own lid on ‘cos Al was locked an’ wanted to stay there drinkin’, ended up havin’ to knock down three security guards to get into the campsite!

Once we get through the barriers we have to go through the
woods to get to the road that leads up to the track. This is gonna ge’ a bit scary for the virgins ‘cos there’s gonna be mad drunken French bikers jumpin’ out in front of ye lookin’ for stunts an stuff.

Don’t panic. Do a couple of kill switch backfires or spin the back wheel a bit or beep a lot an’ they’ll gerrowa yer way. Watch ou’ for the frogs jumpin’ ou’ in fronta yiz when we get up to the top also. A lot of these have been around the same area for the past few years an’ know what our lot are up for. Last year a French bloke jumped out in front of Paddy Murray to get us to camp beside them after seein’ one of the reg’s in front of him. Unlucky for him, he picked the moment tha’ Paddy’s head was bein’ turned by a customised gixer an’ he got himself good and knocked down. He wasn’t hurt an’ Paddy kep’ the bike up so all was well. Watch out for blokes doin’ wheelies everywhere tha’ there’s tarmac under us also. Rie, end of speech, let’s go.”

Getting through the security barriers was another simple procedure made overly complicated by the officious French attitude and it was dark by the time we were driving through the forest section. The air was thick with the smell of the many wood fires burning all around the campsite.

There were hundreds of pedestrians in motorbike gear par-tying along the side of the road through the woods, shouting, cheering, singing and gesturing at the bikes for stunts. I saw one lunatic walking along with his leathers down around his knees with his underpants resting on top of them. He held one end of a stream of toilet paper clenched between the cheeks of his arse. The other end was on fire.

Next thing we knew, we were set upon. They seemed to come at us from the trees on either side of us, being joined by the ones already on the road in the same manner as an avalanche is joined by snow. Somebody looked at Shay’s reg. to see where we were from, then roared at the top of his voice, “Irelandais!”

A wave of excitement spread through them all as they all started shouting and singing while jumping up and down, “Irleandais, Irelandais, Irelandais! Allez, allez, allez!”

There were drunken, smoke-black faces only inches away
from mine screaming for me to do something, fists punching the air everywhere and lots of bodies in front of my bike. I was suddenly glad to have heard Shay’s speech because this would have been quite unnerving had I been totally unprepared for it. As it was, I complied as best I could with what these scary nutters wanted.

I started off doing a few kill switch backfires, which had the French jumping up and down with glee, then I clicked the bike into gear. Grabbed the front brake with all the power I could muster while holding the throttle wide open, squeezed my legs into the bike while trying to stand on my toes to take whatever weight I could off the back wheel (remembering that I was fully laden down) and gradually released the clutch to make the back wheel spin.

Jumping and cheering, the French that were in front of me moved aside. I eased off the throttle and released the front brake, causing me to jerk forward with a start, nudging one of the slower French to move in the process. It was my shoulder armour to his shoulder armour and, even though he had to be caught by his friends to prevent him from falling over, he didn’t stop cheering for a second.

The lads all had similar experiences and were cheered and saluted by the French. There was only one mishap. That was poor Ollie from Go Tapaidh on his Bros. He was spinning his back wheel just as I had, but his front wheel started to lose traction, sliding forwards even though still locked up. The correct thing to do in this situation is to ease off the throttle but Ollie panicked. He applied the back brake to stop himself moving forward.

The problem was at that moment his engine via the gears and the clutch system was applying a hell of a lot of power to his back wheel. When he hit the back brake it acted with a lot of stopping force while the power was still being applied.

Something had to give. It was his clutch - it burnt itself out with a horrendous smell of tortured engine in the couple of seconds it took Ollie to react and kill the throttle.

The French all scarpered out of way as soon as they realised
that he had seriously damaged his bike, leaving Ollie to limp after us at five miles an hour with his engine doing the same work it would normally do at 70 mph. Steve, James and Dave fell back and stayed with him until he got to the camping area.

Leaving the woods gave me the first real impression I got about how big the camping area was. I could see the big concrete wall of the back straight about three quarters of a mile ahead of me due to the street lights that ran the length of it. That three quarters of a mile was all campsite with about the same either side of me. Fires burned everywhere, dotting the distant darkness with oases of light as far as the eye could see in every direction. And the bikes! Every dot of light was surrounded by groups of bikes. There were bikes parked everywhere, bikes being tortured for amusement of others everywhere.

I had never seen or even imagined seeing so many motorbikes in the same place ever. New bikes, old bikes, fancy bikes, rat bikes and customised bikes. Anything that any level of twisted mind could concoct from two wheels and an engine was here. There were bikes with loads of mod bits attached, bikes with everything except the barest essentials chopped off, a clump of bikes that had all been tarred and feathered, bikes that had been parked by spinning the back wheel so much that it dug itself into a hole so deep that the swing-arm (the bit that the axel goes through) was actually touching the ground, holding the bike upright.

Everywhere I laid my eyes there was something to marvel at. It was like bike heaven - the place where all good bikers go when they died, but we were privileged enough to witness it while we were still living! I felt truly honoured to be there.

We made our way slowly up the road that ran up to the back wall and turned right on reaching the wall. About a 100 yards further on, there was a gap in the mud bank to our right which Shay led us all through, taking the next left onto one of the rough gravel tracks, parallel to the wall, that guided people through the vast camping areas.

I was fourth in line after Shay, Vinno, and Gizzard. I was
the one that Pierre jumped out in front of after seeing the Irish registrations on the others. He scared the shite out of me. I was moving along looking at all the bikes one minute and then,

“Irelandais! Irelandais! Restez vous ici, s’il vous plais! Please stay here, with us, we party also. Boom Boom. We have food, beer, music. Stay here!”

I had to come to a stop because he was bang smack in front of me by the time he finished. I beeped at the three others ahead. They stopped and turned. That was the signal. Everybody beside me piled in to the patch adjacent to Pierre’s’ group.