BIlly Apple Interview

Here's a LINK to an interview I did with Billy Apple, a New Zealand artist, about an exhibition he's put on at the Christchurch Art Gallery. The exhibition features the only Britten V1000 that is still actually raced.

That's me and Billy (above) having a beer upstairs at Smash Palace. (Photo by John Collie)

HFoS vs VMX Chch

Wow it's been a while. I've been busy as hell since returning to work and I've also been trying to aclimatize to the winter here! Anyway I've been squeezing a bit of motorcycle related activity in...
A week or so ago now me and some of the lads went vintage motocross racing. We'd met a guy out at the rained-out Day in the Dirt event and he'd told us about these motocross meets that happen. They're organized by some local club who's name I can't quite remember right now? But yeah Bad Evil got the info for us, we all got up real early, dragged our shitty dirt bikes out of the sheds and headed for this field somewhere out off West Coast Road...

And what a day! The weather was great for start. That helped. The four of us who went had a great time even though none of us have ever done anything like this before. In fact we're all fairly new to dirt bikes at all! So I guess it was all kinda freaky at times, especially since we were the slowest there by miles, and we had what looked like 10 year old kids flying past us on 400ccKTMs and stuff like that!? We were supposed to be in classes, but they didn't seem to be too anal about that. It was kinda a free-for-all it seemed? Although we definitely avoided the modern big-cc races. Shit were they faaaaassssst. Anyway I made this stupid movie... I always use the go pro and then can't be fucked editing it together!? Mainly I just made this for the boys to see, but thought I might as well chuck it up here. It's kinda embarrassing I guess, but there you have it, our first day out VMXing... have I mentioned the week worth of all-over-body-pain that came afterwards?

Day in The Dirt 2015

Went to the annual Day in The Dirt at Ellesmere Speedway yesterday but it got rained out. We went last year and raced our bikes, but this year I didn't wanna risk getting hurt and not being able to go ride around the USA in 3 weeks! So I decided I'd go and film Joe and Bad racing instead. We got up early, drove all the way there, fucked about for a while, and then drive home. Pretty uneventful, but I wanted to try and do something with the footage because I'm still trying to suss out this Go Pro thang!? Filmed in glorious Shake-O-Vision... of course. (Soundtrack borrowed from the one and only Andre Williams – 'Bacon Fat', 1956)

Methven Street Races 2014

Went for a ride with the lads to the Methven Street Races in the weekend. First day it hasn't rained in about three fucking weeks! So great to get out for a good blast on the Triumph again. The roads were still a bit wet on the way out, but it's mostly bloody straight so didn't really matter.

We were pretty keen to see Campbell Johnson racing his Kwaka. Campbell's only recently got into road racing (used to race dirt bikes), and he's been doing really well... here he is on the Kawasaki, #76, at Methven:

Campbell got a few third places right up the ass of ol' man Ornsby, and then managed to pick him off in the final race getting 2nd (just behind a very hot BSA Rocket III).

Checkin out the pits was awesome as usual. I was particularly impressed by the number of real old bangers there this time. I've seen a couple of these there before, but it seems like every year there's another one or two there. Watching these race is a real pleasure!

Took off after the last race and went to Hororata for a beer and a pie... (and took a selfie on Jimi's camera on the way)

Local history

'Cornering in race at Brighton Racecourse'  [1910?]
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File Reference CCL PhotoCD 1, IMG0045

Doing some research at the Christchurch City Library Archives and found this! Thought given last weekend's events I'd better put it up here. I've heard about speedway events at New Brighton a long time ago, but this is the first 'evidence' I've seen. From what I've heard though it sounds like speedway went on for quite a while over there?

Day in The Dirt 2014

 Bad Evil, Joe and I went out to the annual 'Day in the Dirt' at Ellesmere Speedway on Sunday. We went last year and saw that it was a kinda' casual 'run-what-you-brung' kind of affair and the flat-trackers had looked... well, kinda slow to be honest. So we'd had the genius idea to try and enter our dirtbikes this year!

We'd talked about it quite a bit but had pretty much chickened out by a week or two before the event... little did I know though that Joe had actually taken our idle chit-chat very seriously and had transformed his road bike, a 500cc Triumph bitsa, into a track bike! So, upon, hearing this I realised we couldn't wuss out and convinced Bad that we better fuckin get up early on Sunday and get our arses to the track.

Getting there I all but chickened out again as the other bikes started to show up. There were some pretty serious bloody machines – the winning bike I didn't actually get a photo of somehow, but it was a fire-breathing ex-police CB650, and the sound of it alone was enough to make me wanna go home.

Anyway it was too late to pull out obviously and we were gonna have to man up and try this shit out. There was a little more anxiety when they told us we had to remove our front brakes... but again, too late to differ eh! I felt a little better when Brent and his mate showed up with their Vespas (although these were no normal Vespas! Souped-up, fucked-up, flat-trackin' scooters!).

We had a 4 lap practice, which helped a little with the nerves... remember I've never raced anything in my life!... and then the first race – in which I got second to last and Bad got last. We both had the smallest bikes there (a 185 and a 175cc) so that wasn't entirely unexpected, but Bad's bike wasn't running right and he was a bit pissed about that, knowing he wasn't gonna do much better. I on the other hand, felt like I could have been faster...

Following that first race my confidence picked up somewhat and I wasn't constantly looking over my shoulder worried about being lapped by some mad bastard on an 850cc 140HP Yamaha (gold bike 4th photo down)! I started getting the feel of the dirt and slowly improved my ability to carry some speed through the corners (without actually really drifting properly I must admit). Race by race I improved my finishes and ended up coming 4th in the last race. Which I was pretty happy with given the size of my bike and my total lack of experience.

Joe on the other hand was a fucking natural! He and his Triumph were constantly in the front pack and he even got a 2nd in one race. By Sunday night he was already in Trademe looking for a HD Sportster to build into a flat-tracker.

I have to admit it was really fucking exciting and felt quite addictive. It's been hard to think about anything else since... I reckon I might do a few more of these (hopefully we'll be at another one in Ashburton soon) on the xl185, but if I'm still digging it as much as I am now I reckin I'm in the market for a proper flat-tracker!?

Photos above are mine, photos below are from TJPhotos.co.nz (Thanks TJ! Great to have some good photos to remember this with.) I'm #74 in black leathers, Bad is the orange bike with the white flame-proof race suit (!?), and Joe is in the white top with black sleeves.

Sound of Thunder 2014

Went to the annual Sound of Thunder event at Ruapuna yesterday with Jimi, Joe, and Malcolm. Unfortunately I couldn't hang about all day cause I started teaching again next day and had a whole pile of work to do in preparation for that. Anyway it was good to see a few races and some of the bikes out there. Marty Winders, who I got to know last year when he helped me out with fitting the T150 tank to the Thruxton, was racing his green machine Triumph Speed Triple. Made me realise the only thing better than watching motorcycle racing is watching it when there's someone you know in it!

Anyway, hopefully I can spend longer at the track next time!?