Boys and their Toys...

Well, there's something for you!  I hadn't even typed anything other than the title when I was complimented about publishing my latest post!

Microsoft and Internet issues aside, here goes what I actually wanted to say...

Before I continue, however, let me mention that this article started it's life somewhere in March of this year and has now (finally?) seen the light of day about 8 months later!  Sorry for that, but there have been quite a number of events taking place in my life in the last couple of months......

We'll get around to that a little later.

The Pretoria Bikers Council were treated to some time on a race track on a sunny Sunday morning in March.  The track in question is Red Star Raceway.  In a newsletter I wrote earleir today, I mention that the racetrack is found in the middle of nowhere...

But this is a little nasty, because you can actually find the spot where the track is on Google Maps, even though Google Maps only shows the spot and not the track!  The problem, of course, is when the Google images were taken, the racetrack was not there yet!

We left Midas in Silverton with about 40 bikes and some cars and backup vehicles in tow.  The trip there was a little slow for some of us, but that's because we were sweeping for the group and had to make sure we got everyone to each of the turn-offs and assembly points along the route.

We arrived just after 8 and the registration process was in progress already.  Everyone that wanted to go onto the track had to sign an indemnity form (for legal reasons, of course) and the the bikes were scrutineered.  This process is to make sure that only "good condition" bikes ride on the track and it is, of course, all about safety.

I noticed the scrutineering team telling one guy that they would not allow him on the track until a team of mechanics had a look at his bike's front brakes, because the pads were a little worn.  Credit to the organisers for having a van on hand with some of the more popular bike's spares, because within 25 minutes the guy was back with brand new brake pads fitted and his bike passed scrutineering and he could join the rest fo the guys on the track.

Although the day is not a race day, boys will be boys and we ended up chasing eachother around the track anyway.  More for pride's sake than for any other specific reason, because there was no trophy at stake here!  (As one of the Marshalls kept on reminding us, all the MotoGP and World Superbike contracts had already been settled, so we had nobody to impress, except ourselves and our spectators.)

Needless to say, I enjoyed the day immensely, but by the time I started lap three of the second session, the fuel light started blinking its warning at me, which meant I had about 2 litres of fuel left!  Fortunately, there's a fuel station just 3 km down the road from the race track, so I exited the track, rode straight through the pits, out the gate and got onto the highway.

Filled up the bike and made a very (il)legal cross-over onto the other side of the highway and headed back to the track.  It was at this moment that I remembered...One of my friends, Willie, had put his GPS into my jacket pocket, because he wanted to compare his top speed of 174km/h, reached down the back straight of the circuit on his F800 GS BMW, with mine.


Of course, I used the opportunity of an open highway and whacked the throttle as wide as it would go and reached the turn-off to the track in virtually no time at all. By the time I got back, though, the session for my group was over and I was just in time to pull into the pits with the rest of the group coming off the track.

As I walked over to Willie I, nonchalantly, took the GPS out of my pocket and showed him the top speed of 209km/h. Once he caught his breath and stammered through a miriad of excuses, I couldn't hold it any more and burst out laughing...which is when you find out whether your friend has a sense of humour, or not!

Fortunately Willie has a very good sense of humour, but he insisted that I do it for real the next time round, which I did during the next session. The result? I'd rather not talk about it, since I only managed a little faster than his top speed. My excuse? Willie is a track instructor and I'm not.

Moving on...

By the time we headed home I had some time to reflect on the fact that boys will be boys and that some mature adults will be boys too. This was when I was reminded of a beautiful saying: "Growing Old is non-negotiable.  Growing UP, however, is optional!"

May I never grow up!