WHEN I LOOK BACK at my motorcycling life I very much doubt that many two-wheeled adventures will stick in the mind quite like my trip to Assen. This wasn’t for a MotoGP or SBK race but rather a two-day trackday with a bunch of mates. There were six of us in all on a variety of 1000cc bikes, except for one poor sap on a Ducati 748SP. Despite being many tens of horsepower down and the rider being many tens of kilos up, the abused Ducati did a surprisingly good job of sticking with the group on the motorway, especially on the manic return trip, without spewing any of its essential reciprocating parts onto the ground: more of that later.
The date was 30th August 2001, the time was 4.30am and the weather was absolutely shitbox.
The time didn’t matter much though as I’d hardly slept a wink, what with worrying about whether I’d packed everything and listening to the biblical rain thrashing against the window like we were being shot with gravel by a belligerent neighbour.
Oh, also I was as sick as a shot dog.
My head, bones and joints ached like I’d fallen down a very long and very uncarpeted flight of concrete stairs. Even my skin hurt.
Little did I know this was the onset of what would become acute blood poisoning in the coming days, courtesy of a nasty gash I’d got slicing my foot open on a rock the week before.
To say I was in two minds as to whether I should go would be a massive understatement, not helped by the fact that my wife had told me, literally the day before, that she was expecting our first child. Even under normal circumstances whenever I went to a track she would wave me off at the door in floods of tears, convinced the next time she
