A day at the races

On Sunday, John and I went on a daytrip to watch our sponsored racer, Jamie Wilkins, storm the track at Snetterton.

The ride there was bright and (very) early, and so we were able to take advantage of the lack of traffic to enjoy some country bends and faster roads.  Before we knew it we were passing signs welcoming us to Norfolk, and we were at the track.

Jamie was pretty highly strung when we met him at the gate … not dissimilar to those cans you open and the springy snakes leap out!  But that’s understandable when you have such a passion to win … as Jamie put it “I just hate losing” – and in his book, coming second is losing!

Jamie’s races were so exciting … the first was a testament to how hard this guy works – to jump from 10th to 7th to 3rd in consecutive laps to make up for going wide at that bend earlier on was just stunning!  The second race was proper nail-biting stuff – I lost track of how many times he and Andy Denyer swapped positions through the race.  But Jamie went all out and bagged another win and yet another interview & photo shoot on the podium.

We pottered around the paddocks in between Jamie’s races, and were really impressed at the friendliness and general fun feeling of the place.  People were quite happy to chat to us about their bikes, vans, set-ups etc, and it was lovely how many racers had family and friends cheering them on.

We got some great photos of Jamie battling with his main rival at the chicane, and have since been sent some stunners of Jamie at another corner further round by Bedford photographer Tony Margiocchi.

The ride home started embarrassingly (stalling in the paddocks 😳) but it soon picked up and despite some hairy filtering in the Norfolk/Cambridge traffic due to an accident holding up a large section of the A11, we arrived home a couple of hours later with big grins under the helmets, still very chuffed with the Daytona and the GS.  Now I just need to learn how to get my knee sliders more like John’s and Jamie’s and less like the bricks they currently are.