Gurriers (74 page)

We made our way back towards the uphill vantage point to watch the racing while listening to the rest of the concert, realising as soon as we had left the crowd how much the temperature had plummeted while we were jumping around. It was freezing cold and it wasn’t even 11 o’clock yet.

“Is it always this cold here, Leo?” Mick asked, as he zipped his jacked up as high as it would go. Everybody was doing the same, and clicking every fastener closed also, including pockets, to maximise each jacket’s resistance to the cold.

“This is the coldest I’ve ever known it, man. Last year we were all runnin’ around in our t-shirts ‘til it got dark.”

“It was on two weeks later in April last year, an’ the days were bright and nights cloudy.” Shay- a little bit drunk on top of everything else - repeated the previous year’s metrological reports.

“D’ye reckon it’s cold enough for ice on the track?”

“Not yet, but at four or five in the morning, who knows.”

We didn’t stay put for much of the concert, exposed as we were in that spot.

We made our way down to the back of the grandstand where the shelter combined with the heat from the various hot food stands and the body heat from several thousand people, generated a much better ambient temperature.

I bought myself a Honda t–shirt with an SP1 on it. The SP1 was the race version of the Gizzard’s Firestorm. It had the same engine, only recently developed by Honda to be a ground-breaking development in motorbike technology. Led by the Gizzard, we were all happy to cheer them on.

We meandered our way through the stalls without too many delays. A couple of the lads got baguettes with chips and steak
in them but they were eaten while moving along as the pack moved on to the end of the grandstand and the twisty bits that led up to the start/finish straight. The campsites began on the other side of the twisty bits, with manned gates leading out to them.

We were still a long way from our spot, barely half way through the lap, but the beauty of being in the camping area, apart from the sociable element, was the fires. We worked our way from fire to fire, just saying a quick “bon soir” at some and staying for joints and beers at others, depending on the amount of craic available with the different groups of campers.

There was no negative element of any sort, nobody begrudged anybody a bit of heat at their fire on this night in this place, it’s just that some groups of French are crazier and a better laugh than others. Some groups had engines on pallets that they were determined to blow up; some had bikes that they were determined to destroy (mostly mopeds and step throughs that had arrived in vans at this, their final resting place). Some were dishing out beer to everybody and some were out of their heads.

We buzzed off all of them.

It was nearly one o’clock by the time we got back to our own camping area, all laden down with stolen firewood, of course. Pierre and his friends had put our boxes of beer on top of the car roof and punctured the boxes on all sides to let the cold air circulate among the bottles and cans which was a great idea. The French beer was horrible at room temperature on the campsite, but quite drinkable when cold enough.

Steve, Gerry and James made some tuna and sweet-corn baguettes with mayonnaise and magic mushrooms for the group, which were much appreciated. Mad Tom broke out the acid again while several of us skinned up. We were all drinking beer when Seamus exited his tent with a bottle of Jack Daniels, which did the “swig” rounds twice with scarcely half of it being consumed.

“Somebody’s not drinkin’ his fuckin’ share of whiskey, boys. This bottle should be empty by now!”

Somebody else wasn’t. I had squeezed my lips tightly each time I held the bottle up to them, not wanting to drink whiskey after 12 hours of beer and lots of drugs, but just one person not drinking doesn’t account for half a bottle being left. I wondered how many people around the fire had done the same.

I felt myself wane, as I finished my portion of druggy tuna baguette. I felt that the only thing that was keeping me awake was the ever present, heart quickening noise of the motorbike race, which was still going on (of course) only feet away on the other side of the back wall. I was exhausted and the race wasn’t half over.

“Here, brother Sean,” Vinno appeared on my shoulder proffering a money-bag full of white powder. “Lick your finger, dip it in here and rub it on your gums. That’ll keep ye with us.”

The coke did what it was supposed to do and perked me up, just in time for me to grab toilet roll for the dash to the jacks. The mushrooms and the acid were kicking in by the time I made it back to the camp fire. I was happy to grab a beer, skin up and gaze into the fire while sparking up and soaking in all that was going on around me.

My drug-addled brain determined that I was going to display endurance as an ambassador to my country and to my profession. I was not going to allow myself any sleep until I had walked another lap of this wonderful track on this freezing night.

The perception of time tends to get warped under the influence of drugs so I’m not sure how long I gazed into the fire determining to endure, but I drank two beers and skinned up another joint while doing so.

Every time I looked at my watch, all I could see was a face laughing at me, so instead of giving myself five minutes or any crap like that I just picked my moment and jumped to my feet.

What the occasion needed was a big “rally the troops”’ speech to get my comrades on their toes in solidarity. I planted my feet firmly, braced my shoulders and “Lap anybody?” was all that made it out of my twisted mouth.

My vision became blurred, as I attempted a sweeping glance
encompassing the entire group and I nearly lost my balance. It looked as if I was going to have to decide whether to soldier on alone with my mission or else forget about it and sit back down.

My knees were about to give way beneath me when somebody shouted,

“That’s a great idea, Shy Boy. Anyone else up for it?” Shay saved the day. The Irish would endure.

“Yeah Okay.”

“I’ll go along also.”

“Just let me finish this joint an’ I’ll join yez.”

Mad Tom, Eamonn and Vinno were also going to join us. By the time Vinno had finished the joint, Leo, Mick and Kevin were also on board.

As the eight of us left the fire and wearily ambled towards the entrance to the track, I promised myself that if I was too wrecked by the time I reached the Dunlop Bridge, I was going to turn back for the campsite, which would be the equivalent of about a quarter instead of a full lap’s walk.

An incident at the entrance scuppered that idea though. One of the skeleton crew of four security guards heard the clink of two bottles of beer in Vinno’s jacket pocket as we approached them and asked him to empty them. Vinno just ignored him and kept walking, so the security guard made a blocking gesture by raising his arm at chest level in front of Vinno, babbling in French about it being “interdit” to bring bottles onto the track. I have to admit, this was not the cleverest thing to do when outnumbered two to one by acid-fuelled couriers.

Vinno grabbed his arm and roared, “It’s on top!”

The next instant the security guard was on the deck and we were all on the right side of the barrier. We all stood and stared back at them menacingly, as his comrades picked him up and wisely opted not to pursue the matter any further. No fucking way was I going through that gate again without back-up, so I decided that it was the whole lap for me and that was that.

“Do you think they’ll hassle us in the morning, Vinno?”

“Nah, they’ll just say that the English don’t have any respect for their rules.”

As it happened, I got a second (or possibly a third) wind as soon as we got to see the racers. It was cold enough for ice crystals to form on the lesser used parts of the track off the race lines and any racer that went even a little astray found himself having to save himself, often spectacularly.

There was great drama at every bend. One of the racers narrowly avoided a high side at the garage hairpin by hanging on to his handlebars for dear life, as his legs went up in the air. He managed to hold on and land his arse back in the saddle but the bike had gone so far off course that he ended up in the gravel trap at the apex of the hairpin. He let the machine roll until it was almost at a stop and then nailed the throttle to turn the bike through 180 degrees doughnut style and then make his way back to the track. He got a huge cheer from the 140 odd spectators that were there for it.

I was half expecting the track to be empty of spectators, but it was far from it. There were a lot less than on the previous laps, but there were still plenty there to enjoy the racing with and to comment to and to stare crazily acid-style at. With so many people there, even if one in 20 were going to watch during the early hours that would still be 5,000 spectators.

The first crash we saw was on the long sweeping left hand bend called the magic roundabout. The racer came in too fast for the track condition and low sided the bike into the gravel trap. However, showing amazing guts and skill, he hung onto the bike with his left hand and kept the clutch engaged, preventing the engine from cutting out. He just lay there till the marshals got to him, but as soon as the machine was vertical again he hobbled onto it and away under many well earned salutations from the admiring spectators.

Then it was over the Dunlop Bridge for the third time, the stage looking eerily quiet and empty, but the bikes were still working as hard as ever through the tricky bits - even harder actually when you took the lower levels of traction into account.

We only stayed for a little while though. It had been a cold
place to spectate at eleven, it was damn freezing now at whatever it was o’clock (I had decided to give up looking at my watch because I felt it was mocking me).

We gave the stalls a miss this time and walked along the front of the grandstand, looking across into the pits as we did. We saw two bikes change riders, one of whom collapsed as soon as he had his leg off the bike. Then we sat in the grandstand to make a few joints for the next part of our journey - the twisty bits at the bottom of the start/finish straight.

Just like the garage on our side of the track, the racers pushed it to the very limit through the twisty bits to get as good a run as possible onto the straight. We stayed at the twisty bits for 15 freezing cold minutes, the longest we stayed at any part of the track on this lap. During that time we saw three crashes, two low sides and one high-side. None of them resumed the race as they were all injured.

We followed roughly the same course back to our site, but didn’t recognise any of the people. I would imagine that the crazier, more intoxicated ones that we buzzed off earlier were asleep. That meant that we had out endured them.

Go on the Irish!

Exhausted as we were we still managed to grab some firewood on the way back. Before scrambling to the welcome embrace of exhausted sleep, I had one more thing to do that I had never done before then and thankfully have never had to do since. I had to break off the ice that had formed on my tent. That done, I put on my helmet, climbed into my sleeping bag and laid back. Not only did the helmet make a good pillow, it helped insulate my head also.

Just as I was about to lose consciousness, I distinguished the sound of the SP1 V-twin engine apparently overtaking one of the in-line fours.

“Go on the Gizzard.”

I woke up in a panic, thinking that I was knocked out after having a crash, but the race noise and the increasingly familiar interior of my tent had me reassured in no time that things were well. Or as good as things could be expected considering the
amount of punishment I had been inflicting upon myself.

I took my helmet off and lay there for a while listening to my friends buzzing off each other around the fire while doing my best to combat the drug abuse wooziness combined with the hangover that was going on inside my head. I decided that what I needed was a joint. I also decided that I felt extremely warm.

By the time I had climbed out of my sleeping bag and removed my leathers and jacket, I had decided to join my friends now and skin up the “curer” that I felt I needed. I also planned to be prepared for the sprint to the toilet that I felt sure would be necessary very shortly after adopting a vertical pose.

I was struck by the glorious sunshine on exiting the tent. Gerry, Seamus and Macker were preparing what was left of the food. Paddy and Dave were in the process of skinning up a joint between them due to the gentle spring breeze that demanded the joint to be held while burned into. Joe, James, Robbie, Steve and Ollie sat in a quietly suffering group that looked so punished by their adventures so far that I felt sure that, had this been the streets of Dublin, the Simon Community people would have snatched them and dragged them off to be cleaned, fed and rested. They all had beers though.

I noticed as I plonked myself beside Paddy and Dave, that I was the only one of the last lap team awake. I treated myself to a little inward grin before I addressed my friends.

“Yiz shoulda seen the amount of crashes we saw on the lap that we did in the early hours.” I got hold of everybody’s attention with the tales of the track from our last lap.

I deliberately left the tale about muscling our way through the security guards for Vinno to tell, with him being the main player and all.