Gurriers (76 page)

The approach to the roundabout was fast. That was in my favour. I knew I could out brake Shay with my lighter bike, but Charlie’s bike was a fraction lighter again and he was between Shay and me. I knew Charlie would be going for it on the brakes to take Shay and Charlie was a hell of a brave pilot, but this was my day and he wasn’t going to get in my way. I was determined to out balls him on the brakes and get past the two of them and into pole position at this roundabout. My decision did have some calculation in it as well as the blind burning ambition to
prove myself.

With the approach being so fast and remembering all the muck savages that used this road, the powers that be had decided to put warning markings on the road in the form of thick yellow lines stretching across the road at five metre intervals for the last hundred metres or so. The natural reaction on reaching these lines was to slow down of course, which I had always done until recently.

It was the time that I had forgotten to drop a job off in Sandy-ford on the way to Bray and not realised it until I was dropping off in Bray. I rang Aidan immediately (with Bray being outside radio range) and caught him in a particularly stressed out condition screaming at Mick and someone else on the radio (I think it was Naoise) for forgetting to pick something up and me on the phone simultaneously for forgetting to drop this one off.

“We give youse gobshites pens to write the fucking jobs down... How the fuck did you forget the Ulster bank; it’s not as if it’s a little fuckin’ place… Seven Mick if you call me again I’ll have your bag an’ radio. I’m dealin’ with some other fuckin’ eejits… No I don’t fuckin’ want you to go back for it but don’t let this happen again … you’re lucky I’ve no fucking work in Bray because I have had enough of the whole fuckin’ lot of yez. Get straight to fuckin’ Sandyford... and youse monkeys can fuck of laughing or I’ll make sure none of yez makes fuck all today… okay seven go ahead …”

As I heard him fling his phone into its cradle, my blood was boiling. This fucking arsehole had no right to talk to me, Naoise, Mick and whoever was in the base laughing at him in such an ignorant and foul manner.

Storming out of the office and onto my bike, fuming to myself, I vowed to get to Sandyford from Bray quicker than the fucking wanker could imagine just to teach him not to shout at me like that. The truth of the matter is that an infuriated driver drives faster than a calm one and the fat little fuck was doing this job better by freaking us out on the odd occasion, but angry drivers tend to be distracted by the object of their anger, leaving them with less attention for the road, making them much more
dangerous and a lot more likely to have a crash. That’s exactly what nearly happened to me. Being so angry at the way I had been spoken to, I was going much too fast through reasonably heavy traffic (although it was moving along pretty quickly) with the end result of me doing about 90 when I hit the first yellow line, realising way too late that the traffic I had been passing had slowed down to a crawl at this point and a standstill a little further on where it was yielding to the traffic on the roundabout. I thought I was dead, full on both brakes, banging down through the gears, sitting up dead straight to catch as much wind as possible. I was sure I was going into the roundabout traffic.

I could feel that sickly cold sweat of “this is bad shit and it’s happening to you”, mixed with the eye bulging adrenalin rush of “you are in extreme danger” for the few seconds that I was giving it full braking power. To my amazement I actually stopped about five feet before the roundabout. I couldn’t believe it! All the negative stuff in my head was replaced with a nervous, shaky, lucky-to-be-alive feeling.

I don’t know if the yellow lines had helped me slow down or if my judgement of my braking distance at that sort of speed had been deliberately over cautious, but from that day on I had pushed it further and further each time I approached this roundabout, marking my braking point each time.

The last time I had taken it I had let three lines go at a 100 mph before braking. I hadn’t been able to stop in time on that occasion, but I had been able to see that there was no traffic on or approaching the roundabout and I had used both lanes to get such an angle of approach as to be able to employ evasive manoeuvres had anything suddenly appeared on a collision course. I had also slowed down sufficiently to ensure that I would be able to throw the bike around the outer ring of the roundabout if it had come on top. It hadn’t in this case which enabled me to lash on the power before I even got to the roundabout and speed through it in two fast sweeping leans. This was the sort of approach I needed today.

There were only a few cars on the approach to the roundabout today and I could see from well back that they were well spaced out and distributed evenly between the two lanes; it was going to be possible to weave through them at high speed.

The words, “Okay, Sean, this is not a drill! You know you can do this!” ran through my mind. I eased off slightly in the 20 odd metres coming up to the first yellow line, bringing my speed from 115 down to a ton and weaving past two cars in the process.

I had been watching Charlie also and had seen his brake light go on fractionally before the first yellow line. I was definitely going to gain on him here (providing I didn’t crash in the process).

I approached the first yellow line and I braked hard, sitting bolt upright, banging down through the gearbox but still travelling at about twice the speed limit, I realised that I had left my braking just a fraction later than I should have.

I was coming up on Charlie fast, and he was already on top of Shay!

I had to get as far right as possible and quickly if I was going to avoid taking my two friends out of it and there were still three more cars between me and the rapidly approaching roundabout. Charlie was now level with Shay to his right in the process of overtaking him and possibly unaware of the speed I was coming up on them at (although I felt sure Shay had noticed me in his mirrors) and there was one slow moving car for me to get past before I could swing right to overtake him.

This was going to be close. The question was whether I could get past the car with enough time to swing far enough right to avoid disaster.

The driver of the car might have seen me in their mirrors (I was going too fast to notice whether it was a he or a she) and realised what was going on or else just did it out of the panic of having fast moving motorbikes everywhere, but he (or she) slammed on the brakes. This gave me all the space I needed.

I eased off the brakes for a split second and flung the machine as hard to the right as I could before immediately applying them at full force once again. This got me nicely into the space
cleared by the sensible motorist’s braking and off the collision course with my buddies, being beside them in a line beside as opposed to behind them. But I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I was still going way too fast and I was going to have to use every inch of the road going around the roundabout to avoid crashing into it.

I complimented myself for having high quality tyres in tip top condition (you never know when you’re going to need your rubber to save your skin so the best policy is to have the best possible tyres at all times) and thanked my lucky stars that there was no traffic on the roundabout as I swung past Shay, who seemed to be moving backwards.

My heart was pounding like a jackhammer as is only to be expected when driving so dangerously, but I could see my way through the hazards my speed had created for me and on to glory. I took the last two cars (one in each lane) on the far right at the same time as Charlie went between them when we were about five metres away from the roundabout; at that stage I would have been about 15 metres at full brakes away from bringing the machine to a standstill, but I had the situation well under control.

Then my worst nightmare was realised. Some flashy little bastard in a red Peugeot 106 came flying onto the roundabout doing about 40 from the Shankill entrance onto it and into a direct collision course with me and probably Charlie too, although he was going to hit me before going into Charlie’s path. The situation required me to perform evasive manoeuvres and fast.

My left thumb was on the horn button immediately and my left foot banged the gears into first, as I flung my body hard and fast to the left, hoping and praying that Charlie was doing the same. He was!

As the gears did their best to bring the back wheel to a stop while I was leaning over there was so much sideways force on the back tyre that it lost traction. This was not a bad thing in this case though, because it had the effect of turning the bike at a more sideways angle to the car. Also, the motorist swerved over
towards the roundabout when he heard the horn and slammed on his brakes when he saw what was about to happen.

The end result of all of this was that the bike hit the car at an angle, scraping along the side of it and then carrying on, with me (almost uninjured) regaining control very quickly. I wasn’t out of danger yet though, I still had Charlie behind me to worry about, now that I was effectively going straight across in front of any traffic coming onto the roundabout. That meant Charlie (and possibly Shay too).

I wasn’t too worried about the cars; if they travelled at the speed limit they would have had loads of time to stop upon seeing the danger – but there was real danger of being T-boned by one of my compatriots. The only thing to do was swing my weight to the right as hard as I could and hope that would be enough. I even slid my arse over to the right the way the racers do to get more turn on it.

As my machine was dragged back on course I felt an unmerciful bang on my left foot, which because of the way I was hanging off the other side of the machine, was the highest point of the machine-rider combination on the far left. In other words, this was the only thing that Charlie hit as he took his own evasive manoevers. Shay was now on top of Charlie, but he had braked and positioned himself not to be a danger to either of us.

Charlie and I both regained control and position by the time we exited the roundabout and the race went on. As far I was concerned, this was a lesson on approaching roundabouts for the driver of the red Peugeot. I knew that my reg was well dirty and that he wouldn’t have got my number. All I had to do now was to put some distance between me and him.

Charlie didn’t seem to be driving quite as hard after the incident at the roundabout and I wasn’t exactly balls out myself between the shock of the incident and checking my mirrors for a red Peugeot. Shay didn’t seem bothered about overtaking either of us. I knew we were going to get loads of slagging in the pub:

“Nearly bleedin’ killin’ each other tryin so bleedin’ hard to overtake little aul’ me!”

I could hear him in my head already.

It wasn’t far down the road when the XBRs reappeared in my mirrors - flat out and burning oil with the effect of a smoke screen behind them.

The next set of lights (the first of the day), were just after turning red as we approached them. This meant that we were all going to start the Stillorgan Road dice together. This was something to relish even though my confidence had had the shit kicked out of it half a mile back. As I came to a stop, I felt sure that the car driver was going to catch me here. I needn’t have worried. Vinno pulled up between me and Charlie, with John to my right and Shay to my left.

“Did somebody hit that 106 back there?“ Vinno roared over the engine noises.

“That fucking lunatic there smacked off it,” Charlie jerked his thumb in my direction.

“And then that clown smacked off me!” was the best defence I could muster up.

“Where is he anyway?”

John took the opportunity to get his say in, “He’s right back where youse fuckers left him, white knucklin’ the steerin’ wheel with both hands and starin’ strai’ in front of ‘ im like a fuckin zombie! Obvious case of shock. Yiz cunts!” he grinned.

Well, thank God for that! It must have been his first collision incident. I felt a slight pang of sympathy for him but reasoned with myself that I probably did him a favour in the long run. Better for him to be shocked by me bouncing off him than to have it done by some dead child under one of his wheels further down the line.

I noticed Vinno and Shay sharing a what-can-you-do-with-these-kids look between themselves, tight lipped and eyes rolling with a slight tilt of the head. Oh yes, I was going to get hockeyed out of it when the slagging began.

“Whats the fuckin’ story with these fuckin’ lights anyway?” roared Charlie (who had also caught the look and knew he was well tied in with the lackery) impatient to be moving again after nearly 40 seconds motionless. I saw the opposite light go orange
and I tapped the bike into first ready to throttle and release clutch. Just before the light went green, I saw two more bike lights in my mirrors. Paddy and Mick were joining the fray at the right time.

By the time our light went green the others would have been about a 100 metres away from it but that meant nothing to us; all five of us had bolted off wide open as soon as the other lights had gone red and were well ahead of the two 250s.

I had managed to get off just before the others. I had got a great start with some fine clutch-throttle coordination. The XBRs on either side of me were still there, but Charlie was the one I was watching out of the corner of my eye. We were coming up to the first car, which was in the left lane, followed by two cars (one in each lane) about 50 metres in front and we were stretched five abreast across both lanes.