“………TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY”

As a result of everyone (ok, some of you) rallying around, we managed sixty full-day and eight half-day riders for Snetterton. Whoever you are/were, thanks for turning up because although we made a loss on the day it wasn’t sufficiently serious to prevent us continuing next year. We live to fight another day.

Particular thanks to Simon Wilkinson for single-handedly bringing eight Snap on Tools dealers (or that’s what it looked like) and to the ZRX boys who came mob handed and one Kevin Maxted, who we hadn’t met before, but want to meet again, for organising a group of six riders for Advanced.

The weather was significant: pretty horrible until about 10am when it stopped drizzling—and fantastic thereafter. The wind blew (as it does at Snet) and the circuit was dry by 11.30 and then stayed dry under blue skies with fleecy clouds for the rest of the day. Eat your heart out Peter Myles—travelled all the way up, paid for the hotel and then drove home to Surrey straight after breakfast!

So horrible was it at 8.45 that I received no criticism whatsoever for a slightly late start to, and less hurried than usual delivery of the briefing. Even then only three Advanced riders went out for the first session of the day after the lovely young ladies of the Snetterton staff had affixed their wristbands to prove they had been briefed.

I had failed to get my bike off the trailer before the briefing and the time taken to do that as well as getting into leathers and wet gear afterwards meant that I wasn’t ready for the beginning of the Novice session. I was therefore somewhat relieved, when peering up the pit lane at where I should have been, to see that only seven novices turned up for their acclimatisation rounds in the wet and that there were enough instructors for them. A goodly bunch of the novices (plus those wimps from Advanced) had decided that the canteen (whoops, sorry, Restaurant) was far preferable to the circuit at that time of the day.

This was no bad thing as despite having record numbers of instructors there on the day at least three of them had genuine difficulties getting out on circuit for those first “ducks in a row” sessions. In fact Chief Instructor Mike Edwards didn’t get out until nearly lunchtime as a result of the cover on an upside down relay on his Cagiva Raptor 650 keeping the water in rather than out. Fortunately Clive Herdman (not riding as a result of a bad back) was able to diagnose the problem, which was then sorted easily—empty the water bath, blow vigorously on the relay, reinstall the right way up.

Our now resident tyre vendor and fitter did very well out of the weather—roaring trade in wets until 11am, huge business in swapping them back thereafter. I only hope that everyone he sold them to had brought their bikes on trailers or in vans. At least I didn’t see anyone setting off to ride home at the end of the day with a couple of spare tyres slung over their shoulders!

Strangely all our accidents occurred whilst the track was wet or drying. Now as someone who has previously fallen at Snetterton myself whilst misjudging the rate at which the tarmac was drying I can hardly point the finger, so this is just an observation, but usually no one falls in the wet, as they are all being too careful. The accident report book shows that eight people came off, all but one blaming it on “slides”. The one, John Holden poor chap, was “knocked off from behind”. That is such a rare occasion at a Folly day that it is worthy of mention. It must be years since one rider took another out—Matthew we know who you are! To be honest though, no one, not even John, has suggested to me that Matt was being silly.

Another Matt, this time Simmons, also fell. This is noteworthy only because I saw him and others using the delicate technique of four feet of inch and a half steel tube as lever and several feet (booted) to hold his CBR 400 down whilst persuading the r/h clip-on to regain its original shape. It worked, and he was back on circuit later that morning.

Peter Banner either fell off or nearly fell off his red Ducati 999. Even he does not know which. Exiting Bombhole it would seem that the bike fell on its right hand side, cause unknown, trapping Peter’s right calf between footrest assembly and track. I have seen the bruise. Peter’s leg, finding this uncomfortable, kicked reflexively and the next thing he knew he was back in the saddle thundering into Coram Curves. I suspect he should not count on the same thing happening next time!

Someone else had a narrow escape observed by me in mid afternoon. Somehow they managed to overcook Riches (right-hander at the end of the start/finish straight) and left the circuit at a tangent on their older style GSXR 600 (bulbous rear to seat unit) rather than approaching Sear on the tarmac. I watched as they rode off a couple of hundred yards into the fields without falling off—remarkable display of skill.

None of these unfortunate happenings however qualifies for event of the day award, which has to go to VFR Club member “Gav” who literally flew over the circuit and waggled the wings of his RAF Tormado at us as he did so. You may not have seen it but you certainly heard it!

The other thing that was a bit different was the attendance of three lady riders, Deb Cartwright, Hazel Drury and Susie Grayson. Now we regularly have femes (pronounced feams, short for females) in attendance but never before have they all been riders in the advanced group and been able to show the rest of us how to do it so well. Susie, memorable for her startlingly pink hair, was riding a Suzuki SV 650 racer and has ambitions to race. In connection with Feisty Racing she is trying to encourage more women into bike racing. Anyone interested should go look at her www.bikegirl.co.uk website. Hazel managed to fall off but fixed the bike and got out there again. As a GP and a member of “Quick Quacks” bike club she was presumably able to diagnose herself as fit to carry on. There is a rumour, unconfirmed by the accident book, that Deb fell off too—on someone else’s bike. Can’t be true, we know they are such safe riders.

During the day instructor Tim Jones found time for a theory masterclass on Snetterton racecraft for the girls and various hangers on in pitlane garage 12.

Thanks are due as usual to the Chief Marshall Tom and the rest of the staff at the circuit for faultless support. Being an MSV circuit it’s necessary to produce licences and sign individual indemnities but that process was dealt with very efficiently. Good food and friendly service in the restaurant too. General view seems to be that the old Brands Hatch group circuits are much more user friendly since MSV took over.

Very special thanks to Peter Fox who is standing down as an officer, Mr Website and Mr E-communications after years of sterling service. Peter is survived by father Ian who will continue to keep us on the financial straight and narrow and wife Justine whose dulcet tones will continue to answer the Follyphone and whose commanding (but delightful) presence at the end of the pit lane would otherwise be sorely missed. Peter’s replacements Richard Morris and Jeff Brown will take up office at the annual planning meeting in October. We hope to see Peter at our days next year—just ambling around the paddock or having fun out there.

Finally to the housekeeping – first photos. If you missed that knee down moment or even cornering upright in the wet, do not despair – an e-mailed description of your bike and your leathers to Stuart on snorris@netcomuk.co.uk will bring proofs to choose from.

Secondly, we wish to canvass your opinions:

As you all know despite being perhaps genuinely "The best track day organiser in the world" we always have to scratch around for numbers. Experience tells us that once we have attracted someone then unless they don't like trackdays or are a headbanger they tend to come back time and again. Unfortunately however, because of our low advertising spend and small size we lose out to the bigger players who can always attract more new riders than we can and often undercut us. We work on such tight margins that if we have to discount to compete we lose money. If we lose too much we don't have deposits for the following year.

We are considering offering a 10% discount on day prices to anyone who has not ridden with us before (the database should stop cheating!)in the hope that this will encourage more new riders and thus swell the regulars. Whilst we would rather offer a discount to regulars it doesn't work with our economics--we already only charge them cost, we would get less new riders and would only be encouraging those who come to us anyway. As a consequence numbers would fall overall and so would revenue--prices would have to rise and we would be into a vicious circle.

The result of the proposed discount would be that we would be able to advertise days at about £10 less than the opposition whilst selling the majority of places at the same prices as them. We believe that most of those attracted by the offer would be prepared to pay the extra to come back once they had experienced Folly quality. Extra numbers would thus enable us to maintain the normal prices to the same levels as now despite the discount given to first timers.

Because offering discounts to new riders rather than regulars (who can always take advantage of the block booking discount if they are prepared to take over the hassle of gathering in the cash and paying us with one cheque) is odd and might be regarded as discriminating against our supporters we want to canvass your opinion on it. Please let us know by e-mail to follypricesurvey @ megalith.plus.com if you would object if we introduced such a scheme or alternatively if you think its a good idea. If you are not bothered provided it doesn't cost you more then no response is needed.

Whadythink?

Finally, we have our planning meeting at the end of October at which we will plan for next year. We anticipate six or seven days again and will be sending out a full programme with hotel details in late January or February. This year and for most days it was possible to book quite late (which is not good for Ian’s equilibrium), not so for the hotels which were getting booked out weeks if not months in advance—there were 25 people at the Breckland Lodge the night before Snetterton. Get those bookings in early next year.

Geoff.

Any comments on the day or this newsletter (not bookings) noisygeoff @ megalith.plus.com.

Views or suggestions on our instructors/instructing to mike.edwards @ biketrackdays.co.uk.