I had arranged a pub lunch in Scarborough for Sunday afternoon on my return from Bridlington, and met up with a couple of the lads from the jet skiing days. We sat in the pub over a few pints and a lovely meal, and laughed over past times, and what we had all been up to since then. It was really good to spend some time together again, and it seemed as if nothing had changed between us, the easy humour still there straight away.
As I sat there watching Bruce and Daz laughing over something together, I thought to myself, we really did laugh a lot during those years. We had a great team of people that either worked for us, or were regular visitors at the jet ski shop. It was a great part of my life. I will perhaps dig out some pictures of the jet ski years to put on the blog.
After lunch I suggested to Bruce that we should go up to Oliver’s Mount to watch some of the motorcycle racing, and along with his partner Liz and son Tyler, we drove up and parked as near as we could get. Oliver’s Mount is pretty close to the town centre, and has a fantastic view over the whole of Scarborough, and the road around the mount is used several times throughout the year as a motorcycle racing circuit.
Bruce an I used to race a sidecar together for a couple of seasons, back in 1989 and 1990, and we did pretty well at club racing level, winning a couple of trophies, including one first place cup that I am very proud of. We absolutely loved it, but it was an incredibly expensive hobby, and when Bruce fell off the sidecar towards the end of the second season and broke his arm, we decided to sell the bike, and never got round to getting another.
We still argue good-naturedly to this day about who was to blame for his high-speed fall, him saying that I was going into the corner far too quickly, and braked too sharply, me saying that that is the nature of racing, and he should have been holding on properly! We will never agree.
Bruce’s house is filled with all sorts of interesting memorabilia, and among the many interesting pictures on his walls are quite a few of our racing days:
At Oliver’s Mount we arrived towards the end of the racing day, in time to watch the last four races of the weekend, which were four of the big finals, 125cc, 250cc, The Gold Cup for the big bikes, and the Sidecars Final. Watching the preparations on the start line, and the start of the sidecar race brought back a few memories, and I could feel my heart in my chest as the flag dropped.
Bruce was obviously thinking the same as me, and as we headed back to the car, he said, “Maybe we could enter the classic sidecars category, and do a bit more racing together one day!”
Maybe one day we will!