Donnington Park

Qualifying Round W.S.B.

Donnington 3rd May

The Cast Andy Bell Dave Bell Mark Graham and of course me.

This is a racing bike. They go round and round very fast, make a lot of noise and give me the horn.

Dave managed to obtain complementary tickets for the qualifying session so off we went. 150 miles on the A1/M1 is a nightmare, why don’t they build motorways with chicanes? And of course I managed to go the wrong way, which takes a special kind of skill possessed by few people.

above. This is a Kawasaki - I can tell 'cos it's green
right. Going fastly in 't corners

Eventually, dispite my best navigational endeavours, we made it to Donnington where fast bikes go roundy roundy.
I’m expecting us just to get through the gate for free but no, it’s into the centre section and up to a hospitality suite. Complete with a fridge full of beer. And us without tents or camping kit. Bollox.

So we had a couple of beers then went walkabout and ended up by the main straight (that no doubt has a proper name) to watch Foggy and the boys. What a noise, yeah Ducati’s do sound nice but the sound of a jap 4 at full chat is still something else. Makes your hair stand on end. Watching them brake all the way to the apex of a corner (oh-shit-I’m-gonna-die corner or something) with the bike kicked right over. In my minds eye I could see myself, two laps behind and still bouncing across some field.

Utterly humbled we slunk back up the A1 with our dreams of our own abilities shattered. Next time I’m going for the weekend. And I still don’t know which one was Foggy. Too many 916’s yer see, common as muck, bah, didn’t want one anyway...

A Ducati - and if you don't know that you really should get out more...