Post by elsie1411 on Jul 27, 2010 21:49:27 GMT 1
THE SILVERSTONE CLASSIC EVENT 23-25 JULY 2010
By Laurence Catchpole and Jools Roberts
Earlier during the year, Silverstone Circuit contacted our erstwhile leader Weaver as they were inviting the club to take part in the Silverstone Classic. This was the first time that the LC Club had been invited to this classic car event and we were one of only two bike clubs to attend the other being the Harley Owners Club who had a massive presence. After all, Harleys are the bikes that we all aspire to own and run one day! (Jools, I didn’t realise Harley made a 350LC) This event has been run for a number of years and is 100% car orientated and was previously known as the Coys International Historic Festival.
With the re-branding of Silverstone as the premier UK based circuit for both car and bike racing, I do believe that we were invited as a club due to the fact that the club has been visible at the Classic Car & Bike Show at the NEC.
It wasn’t long before Weaver had posted the details of this event on the club forum and living locally to the circuit, I expressed an early interest in attending.
As the weekend dawned upon us, Weaver asked me to co-ordinate the event in his absence. The club trailer was delivered to my home in Brackley on 20 July. Subsequent communication between us established that John Hay (Johnny 485 off the forum) would be able to tow the trailer the 6 miles from Brackley to the circuit on his way up from Croydon – no problem.
As the event was a Friday to Sunday event, John came up from Croydon on Thursday afternoon to set up. Unfortunately, I was told earlier that I was unable to have the Friday off but I met John at Silverstone on Thursday after work in the pouring rain. This is where things started to go a bit tits-up. The organisation for this event was a little dodgy to say the least. It started badly when we were given free camping for our tents on a tarmac car-park! On Friday morning, the organisers seemed to have forgotten to give us an actual plot and John spent around 3hours and drove about 20 miles around the circuit trying to find someone to tell us where we were supposed to be. Eventually we were allocated a plot/stand beside the live action events track and a pikey fair. (Horrible thoughts of the Ding-Ding Rally at pikey central HQ of Billing Aquadrome of 2008 sprung to mind) We spent the majority of Friday manning the club stand waiting for others to turn up. We had our 2 bikes on display in the dustiest place you could imagine on the circuit. The bikes were covered in dust and we were well away from the beaten track, which was not a good thing. John and I weren’t best pleased but we soldiered on in what can only be described as very inclement weather. (Jools it pissed it down if the sound the other end of the phone was anything to go by)
Weaver advised us that the club gazebo was left in his lock-up in dreary and sad Corby. John and I then thought we’re in big trouble if the weather stays the same for the whole weekend. The thought did cross our minds to call it a day and forget the weekend if it stayed the same. However, we hatched a plan.
John came over to Brackley with me to get the trailer and we managed to load his bike plus all the club bumff into the trailer and transported it to the campsite on the circuit. We were bloody soaked at this stage! During this intervening period, a decision was made, and Weaver contacted, to purchase a new marquee for the club. John and I went to Halfords, B&Q and Homebase in Banbury (we’re still soaked) in search of a suitable, affordable marquee. We got the one from Homebase as it best suited our (sorry, the club’s) needs – people and bikes could be sheltered from any shit weather should it come our way. Job done. The weather then improved so we headed back to Silverstone to set up John’s tent.
Things got a bit tricky here as when you get an engineer and a pen-pusher trying to erect a new tent, things go terribly wrong! The tent was erect but certainly floppy and neither of us could fathom out where we’d gone wrong. Alas, a geodesic tent requires the supporting poles to “cross-over”. This is the bit we ignored. After an hour or so, we eventually got the tent up correctly. It was getting too dark to get the marquee set up on the Thursday so we decided to leave it until the Friday. We then pissed off to the McDonalds in Towcester – nice!
John had an early start on the Friday morning as he knew that I couldn’t help on the Friday due to work and neither of us were sure when any of the other club members would show up to assist. Fortunately, by 830am, I’d asked to take a day off and authorisation came through. I let John know but he’d already been allocated to our “pitch” and he’d assembled the marquee up all on his own! Fantastic effort.
John and I spent the majority of Friday manning the club stand with our 2 bikes on display in the dustiest place you could imagine on the circuit between a pikey fair and the de Dion three-wheeler vintage trikes – great! The bikes were covered in dust and we were well away from the beaten track, which was not a good thing. However, we managed to sell a T-shirt, 3 mugs and 2 club patches in the 3 days we were at this wretched pitch (2 t-shirts Jools, Amy twisted my arm again) . We spread the word, damaged the ozone layer when we fired up both bikes which then helped draw the crowds (max of about 6 people)!!! I still couldn’t believe we were parked so close to those pikey b*****ds!
To kill time, John had a look over my 250 LC and noticed that the clocks were fitted wrongly. He got his toolkit out and remedied the problem. The bike looks so much better as a result of John’s technical ability and handywork. I remarked that John has a better toolkit with him in his car than I had in my garage! We both were pissing ourselves with laughter especially when I told him that my complete toolkit is off my Honda VFR!!!
Neither John or I could really leave the club stand during the Friday until Tracey or Mike Daws arrived, and soon after, Laurence and Amy Catchpole arrived together. It wasn’t too long before we locked up the club stand and bikes and headed off to set up the tents and neck a few beers. Jools then headed home and John ,Amy and myself ended up having a trip around the pits looking at some of the classic race bikes. It was surprising how easily these TZ owner’s can be upset! All I said to one of them was that I wouldn’t mind borrowing his barrels to put on my elsie as they seem wasted on the old Kenny Roberts replica bike. How was I supposed to know that it was actually Kenny’s Daytona winning machine and that it was pretty much irreplaceable!
On returning to the campsite, I managed to get a good nights sleep under canvas but it appears that quite a few people nearby struggled to drop off at all! Why don’t people wear earplugs when camping. God only knows!
Breakfast Saturday morning went down a treat at 6.30 but even that almost ended in an international incident when I managed to drop a set of saucepans in the van right besides a group of French Harley riders who had only just managed to doze off after that nights mysterious loud noise. Rob Hammond had just arrived at the circuit to join us with his wife, dropped his bikes off first thing and Jools turned up from Brackley at 10.30 which completed the stand.
The club stand were graced with the following machines;
Laurence – 2 x 350LC
Johnny – 485 Banshee LC
Rob – 1 x LC350 & 1 x TZR250 racer
Tracey – RD350N YPVS
Mike – Fazer 600 MK1
Jools – 250LC
As we were quite away from the main body of the show the numbers of people coming to look at the bikes was pretty small but Johns bike had a steady stream of people asking questions and the TZ owner came over for a look and a chat and we were invited to ride over the next day.
It was soon beer o’clock so back to the campsite to get changed and head out for the nights main attractions - Ruth Lorenzo, Daniel Johnson and the mighty JEDWARD from the X Factor.
That wasted 10 minutes so next, find something for tea, Amy and John opted for pizza and I being lead by beer rather than common sense, went for lamb and potato curry. Now a word of warning - if the meat in your curry has holes through it it’s a sure bet it’s recycled kebab and as such, has a very strange effect on the untrained stomach. Let’s just say that everyone except me, had a good nights sleep and breakfast was definitely off the menu.
Sunday started as Saturday a few people passing by so a couple of us took our bikes across into the main part of the show and parked up by the CRMC pavilion. Now what a difference. A crowd gathered around the LC’s almost immediately including a Japanese gentleman who had a smile a mile wide who shot about 30-40 pics of the 2 bikes.
We grabbed a quick pasty
then intended to go back to the stand but we got roped into marshalling for the Classic Racing Motorcycle Club.
John, Amy and I spent the race on the pit wall. What a pleasure to see 30 odd classic race bikes flying into the first corner sideways from 10 feet away and what a great bunch they are. They also have kindly invited our club to attend the CRMC meeting at Snetterton on 11-12 Sep 2010, with access all areas and I will post up all the details. Thanks Tracey, Mike and Jools for looking after the stand while we were gone. We were only going for a few minutes but got back 2 hours later! Overall, it was a great weekend. Jools had met and spoken to Mick Grant with his RG500 Suzuki on the Saturday and had also spoken to others involved with the CRMC.
We cleared up at about 4.30 as the corner we were in started to pack up and go home. Weaver turned up at about 5.00 to collect the trailer and to see how the show went. All those whom attended had enjoyed themselves albeit there were problems as has already been mentioned.
Laurence & Jools
Artical stolen from POWERBAND CRAZY- the worlds best LC magazine
By Laurence Catchpole and Jools Roberts
Earlier during the year, Silverstone Circuit contacted our erstwhile leader Weaver as they were inviting the club to take part in the Silverstone Classic. This was the first time that the LC Club had been invited to this classic car event and we were one of only two bike clubs to attend the other being the Harley Owners Club who had a massive presence. After all, Harleys are the bikes that we all aspire to own and run one day! (Jools, I didn’t realise Harley made a 350LC) This event has been run for a number of years and is 100% car orientated and was previously known as the Coys International Historic Festival.
With the re-branding of Silverstone as the premier UK based circuit for both car and bike racing, I do believe that we were invited as a club due to the fact that the club has been visible at the Classic Car & Bike Show at the NEC.
It wasn’t long before Weaver had posted the details of this event on the club forum and living locally to the circuit, I expressed an early interest in attending.
As the weekend dawned upon us, Weaver asked me to co-ordinate the event in his absence. The club trailer was delivered to my home in Brackley on 20 July. Subsequent communication between us established that John Hay (Johnny 485 off the forum) would be able to tow the trailer the 6 miles from Brackley to the circuit on his way up from Croydon – no problem.
As the event was a Friday to Sunday event, John came up from Croydon on Thursday afternoon to set up. Unfortunately, I was told earlier that I was unable to have the Friday off but I met John at Silverstone on Thursday after work in the pouring rain. This is where things started to go a bit tits-up. The organisation for this event was a little dodgy to say the least. It started badly when we were given free camping for our tents on a tarmac car-park! On Friday morning, the organisers seemed to have forgotten to give us an actual plot and John spent around 3hours and drove about 20 miles around the circuit trying to find someone to tell us where we were supposed to be. Eventually we were allocated a plot/stand beside the live action events track and a pikey fair. (Horrible thoughts of the Ding-Ding Rally at pikey central HQ of Billing Aquadrome of 2008 sprung to mind) We spent the majority of Friday manning the club stand waiting for others to turn up. We had our 2 bikes on display in the dustiest place you could imagine on the circuit. The bikes were covered in dust and we were well away from the beaten track, which was not a good thing. John and I weren’t best pleased but we soldiered on in what can only be described as very inclement weather. (Jools it pissed it down if the sound the other end of the phone was anything to go by)
Weaver advised us that the club gazebo was left in his lock-up in dreary and sad Corby. John and I then thought we’re in big trouble if the weather stays the same for the whole weekend. The thought did cross our minds to call it a day and forget the weekend if it stayed the same. However, we hatched a plan.
John came over to Brackley with me to get the trailer and we managed to load his bike plus all the club bumff into the trailer and transported it to the campsite on the circuit. We were bloody soaked at this stage! During this intervening period, a decision was made, and Weaver contacted, to purchase a new marquee for the club. John and I went to Halfords, B&Q and Homebase in Banbury (we’re still soaked) in search of a suitable, affordable marquee. We got the one from Homebase as it best suited our (sorry, the club’s) needs – people and bikes could be sheltered from any shit weather should it come our way. Job done. The weather then improved so we headed back to Silverstone to set up John’s tent.
Things got a bit tricky here as when you get an engineer and a pen-pusher trying to erect a new tent, things go terribly wrong! The tent was erect but certainly floppy and neither of us could fathom out where we’d gone wrong. Alas, a geodesic tent requires the supporting poles to “cross-over”. This is the bit we ignored. After an hour or so, we eventually got the tent up correctly. It was getting too dark to get the marquee set up on the Thursday so we decided to leave it until the Friday. We then pissed off to the McDonalds in Towcester – nice!
John had an early start on the Friday morning as he knew that I couldn’t help on the Friday due to work and neither of us were sure when any of the other club members would show up to assist. Fortunately, by 830am, I’d asked to take a day off and authorisation came through. I let John know but he’d already been allocated to our “pitch” and he’d assembled the marquee up all on his own! Fantastic effort.
John and I spent the majority of Friday manning the club stand with our 2 bikes on display in the dustiest place you could imagine on the circuit between a pikey fair and the de Dion three-wheeler vintage trikes – great! The bikes were covered in dust and we were well away from the beaten track, which was not a good thing. However, we managed to sell a T-shirt, 3 mugs and 2 club patches in the 3 days we were at this wretched pitch (2 t-shirts Jools, Amy twisted my arm again) . We spread the word, damaged the ozone layer when we fired up both bikes which then helped draw the crowds (max of about 6 people)!!! I still couldn’t believe we were parked so close to those pikey b*****ds!
To kill time, John had a look over my 250 LC and noticed that the clocks were fitted wrongly. He got his toolkit out and remedied the problem. The bike looks so much better as a result of John’s technical ability and handywork. I remarked that John has a better toolkit with him in his car than I had in my garage! We both were pissing ourselves with laughter especially when I told him that my complete toolkit is off my Honda VFR!!!
Neither John or I could really leave the club stand during the Friday until Tracey or Mike Daws arrived, and soon after, Laurence and Amy Catchpole arrived together. It wasn’t too long before we locked up the club stand and bikes and headed off to set up the tents and neck a few beers. Jools then headed home and John ,Amy and myself ended up having a trip around the pits looking at some of the classic race bikes. It was surprising how easily these TZ owner’s can be upset! All I said to one of them was that I wouldn’t mind borrowing his barrels to put on my elsie as they seem wasted on the old Kenny Roberts replica bike. How was I supposed to know that it was actually Kenny’s Daytona winning machine and that it was pretty much irreplaceable!
On returning to the campsite, I managed to get a good nights sleep under canvas but it appears that quite a few people nearby struggled to drop off at all! Why don’t people wear earplugs when camping. God only knows!
Breakfast Saturday morning went down a treat at 6.30 but even that almost ended in an international incident when I managed to drop a set of saucepans in the van right besides a group of French Harley riders who had only just managed to doze off after that nights mysterious loud noise. Rob Hammond had just arrived at the circuit to join us with his wife, dropped his bikes off first thing and Jools turned up from Brackley at 10.30 which completed the stand.
The club stand were graced with the following machines;
Laurence – 2 x 350LC
Johnny – 485 Banshee LC
Rob – 1 x LC350 & 1 x TZR250 racer
Tracey – RD350N YPVS
Mike – Fazer 600 MK1
Jools – 250LC
As we were quite away from the main body of the show the numbers of people coming to look at the bikes was pretty small but Johns bike had a steady stream of people asking questions and the TZ owner came over for a look and a chat and we were invited to ride over the next day.
It was soon beer o’clock so back to the campsite to get changed and head out for the nights main attractions - Ruth Lorenzo, Daniel Johnson and the mighty JEDWARD from the X Factor.
That wasted 10 minutes so next, find something for tea, Amy and John opted for pizza and I being lead by beer rather than common sense, went for lamb and potato curry. Now a word of warning - if the meat in your curry has holes through it it’s a sure bet it’s recycled kebab and as such, has a very strange effect on the untrained stomach. Let’s just say that everyone except me, had a good nights sleep and breakfast was definitely off the menu.
Sunday started as Saturday a few people passing by so a couple of us took our bikes across into the main part of the show and parked up by the CRMC pavilion. Now what a difference. A crowd gathered around the LC’s almost immediately including a Japanese gentleman who had a smile a mile wide who shot about 30-40 pics of the 2 bikes.
We grabbed a quick pasty
then intended to go back to the stand but we got roped into marshalling for the Classic Racing Motorcycle Club.
John, Amy and I spent the race on the pit wall. What a pleasure to see 30 odd classic race bikes flying into the first corner sideways from 10 feet away and what a great bunch they are. They also have kindly invited our club to attend the CRMC meeting at Snetterton on 11-12 Sep 2010, with access all areas and I will post up all the details. Thanks Tracey, Mike and Jools for looking after the stand while we were gone. We were only going for a few minutes but got back 2 hours later! Overall, it was a great weekend. Jools had met and spoken to Mick Grant with his RG500 Suzuki on the Saturday and had also spoken to others involved with the CRMC.
We cleared up at about 4.30 as the corner we were in started to pack up and go home. Weaver turned up at about 5.00 to collect the trailer and to see how the show went. All those whom attended had enjoyed themselves albeit there were problems as has already been mentioned.
Laurence & Jools
Artical stolen from POWERBAND CRAZY- the worlds best LC magazine
