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[Chuffster]

Having rather a busy time of it at the moment and now have a sick bandit to boot. I have blown one of the fork seals, its spewing a fair amount of fork oil, it won't last long at this rate. The bike is not exactly running right either, definately time for a service. So I have booked her in to a local mechanic for attention. A service, fork seals, head bearings are all on the list. Lets hope she comes back ready for more action. She is an old girl and now has just shy of 58,000 miles on the clock. I don't think I shall be peg scraping n the right much more, I did manage to produce a shower of sparks the other day, but, its now borderline if the main tyre is actually in contact with the road when I do it. Perhaps time to calm down a tad.

At the weekend, after things conspired against me on Saturday, i got down to Lydden Hill to watch the Bemsee racers in action. Fortunately the weather was dry, just inclemently cold in the wind. There were lots of thrills and spills on the day, the spills we could do without and I hope all riders are on the road to recovery. The racing was hot in most classes, especially Tony Rand in Dyna Pros who was really leaning on someone at the hairpin in the first race, they both got round the corner and he managed the pass on the outside of the last corner, a very brave move. He did not fair quite so good in the second race, he went cartwheeling at paddock. Rider ok but bike is rather second hand to say the least.

Thunderbikes were their usual entertaining self, its great from a spectators point of view to see such a different array of bikes out there competing against each other. The MZ's put on a show, the front two, numbers 95 and 3, seemed a class apart. The clubman minitwins saw the first outing for the rookies, as well as some previous runners. Again, good close racing at times. The leader of the last race binned it, as did a few others during the race, typical MiniTwins really. Forza extreme ran, not sure why really, only 10 entrants. This did not exactly make for a great spectacle, especially considering the complete differences in rider ability out there. The YPM'ers strutted their stuff as well, the bikes may be 20 years old but they still go ok. We also had the 400 classes running, more exciting racing. Ricardo Ballerini was sporting his new sponsorshipped bike and going as well as ever.

We also saw the first round of the sidecar championships. This was a real treat as we had the world champions in the shape of the Reeves brothers running. They have team mates in the shape of the Heggarty brothers for the coming season. Boy, do they go, starting at the back, they soon carved their way through the rest of the outfits. It was obviously practice time, they pulled off on the last lap and didn't take championship points away from the other runners. Having watched these go round again, I still can not wait for another go at it.