T & V and Good and Bad at the Manx 2010

This year, none of the Dunstable lot were riding the Manx, but young Tim Venables, son of Brian and Tori had entered. He was doing very well in the local Manx championship, so was expected to get good results at the Manx. T went over for the fortnight, while I went over on the Sunday at the start of race week. I wanted to put in a bit of trail riding. Heysham is an awful long way on a CCM seat! (At least the return trip was in the van.)

The weather had been excellent for practice week, and was perfect Monday morning for the Newcomers race. A couple of us went up to Creg-Ny-Baa with a pit board for Tim. Tim went well, pulling out a 6 second lead on the first lap, and maintained this over the 4 laps to win by 10 seconds. I had planned to do a few trails in the afternoon, but had to go to the beer tent to celebrate instead!

Tuesday weather was perfect again. I did a couple of easy lanes up to the Creg, then took the lane up to Windy Corner. Then backwards on the TT course to Mountain Box, and across the moors and down to Ginger Hall. From Ballaugh there's a lane back up the mountain, and it was up here I noticed the exhaust getting a bit louder. Stopping at the top I found a crack developing in the silencer which I swiftly bodged up with some old fencing wire! From the top of the moors it was down the Millenium Way and onto the road at Crosby, then to St. Johns. From there a lane goes up and over the hills between Foxdale and Glenmaye, leading to a couple of other lanes on the top, and eventually to a lovely little moorland track which drops down to Port Erin. I met T and Pete there and we had lunch - Beer and Pasty - before retracing my way back to St. Johns to meet up with T again for an ice cream. I think I covered about 80-90 miles in perfect weather - so a very pleasant day's trail riding.

On Wednesday we went back up to the Creg with the pit board for Tim in the Junior. Perfect weather again, but when his name wasn't mentioned on the radio commentary from Glen Helen or the Hairpin we knew something was wrong. Turns out he crashed somewhere near Greeba on the first lap, and was airlifted to Nobles hospital. Later in the day, he was transferred to Liverpool, where he still is at the time of writing. He was badly beaten up in the crash, but the good news is that he is very very slowly improving so we can only wish him well.