"The Pits"
  Brands Indy July 2008

My freshly serviced and MOT'd van coughed to a halt 20 miles out of Ipswich with a chronic misfire. In true YPM style I floored it to clear the plugs and as I throttled back it went "Kaboom" and blew off the rear box. It looked like time to put Plan B into action - drink the rest of my flask n call the breakdown truck. This was the Saturday before Brands and I was on my way to France to stock up on Baccy, Plonk, and buy a few groceries so I didn't look like a complete lush,,,, Tho why I should be bothered by that in the YPM paddock, "we drink pre-mix n soda" is a mystery.

So I arrived at Brands on Thursday complete with new plugs and exhaust, and ditched the euro mountain of Dunlop Gprs in the back. Having just been butt humped by Her Majesty's Customs n excise for 100 notes on a pair of mikuni 29mm Smoothbores for my GPZ I didn't want to find myself explaining how I came to have 32 rear tyres in my van. By 8pm Thurs. I was rolling out of Brands and off to a re-scheduled ferry. Turn left at Calais and Belgium is your next stop. Home of ,,, well Belgians ( Name three famous Belgians I dare you,,,, and Hercule Poirot is a fictional character - someone please explain that to Team Gibson), cheap fags n chocolate.                   

As I discovered, just as I smoked my last tab, open 24 hours is a mis-translation of 'we shut at 8'. So I crashed, or tried to in the back of the van outside the baccy shop and spent a nervous night wondering which of the Artics that thundered by in the night was going to collect me as the van rocked from side to side with every passing,,,,

By 7:55 I was outside the shop, lighter in hand, waiting for them to open, which they did at 8:10. I was sure they were waiting round the corner to see how long it would be before the addict started searching the pavement for smokeable dog-ends.

By 2:30 I was back at Brands and cup in hand made my way to the race office for the festival of excuses and outright shameful lies that is Scruitineering. If there's an award for the best presented YPM it goes to Mike Smith, compared to some of the rusty old nails that turned up in Scruitineering, and at least two were YPM's, it was spotless and fit for purpose.

Friday afternoon and I tried to catch up on some much missed sleep, so I closed the door and drew the curtains on my LRRT - tho I may as well have broadcast a announcement to please come knock on my door as 5 of you then did. Most of you who did can now add a few words of Gaelidh to you vocabulary, tho you may not wish to repeat them in polite company.

After the sat. morning scrute session I was detailed to drive the recovery van and didn't have to wait too long for my first customer of the day, a mini-twat that lobbed it into the kitty litter at paddock during practice. This did get me thinking about a compilation cd to play in the van,,, so if you find yourself in the recovery van, "You're listening to radio recovery 1 and this one is for you,,,,,". Tho I was denied little moment of Schardenfroide when Rangi binned it at druids and rather than endure much sarcasm he rode his bike back to the pits. I think he would have pushed it back.

I did have a question to ask of him anyway. One of our raffle prizes was a pair of Wolf kangaroo/titanium race gloves. I had no idea that titanium came from kangaroos and so asked our token Colonial to explain, which he then did in his usual laconic style "Why do you think titanium is so expensive,,, Have you any idea how difficult it is to train kangaroos to mine titanium".

Saturday evening's raffle was a major success. We raised over 750, a portion of which we gave to the Bemsee benevolent fund. This isn't the first time that the YPM has raised funds for the Ben Fund, nor will it be the last, and that's something we in the YPM should be proud of. Huge thanks to all who contributed prizes and to the girls for selling a truly staggering number of tickets.

Next round of "Jolly Hamsters Flying Circus" is Cadwell and I will be going along after all. So I shall see you all there, hopefully only in Scruitineering - but if you do find yourself in the back of recovery 1 I'll be playing "Shot down in flames" just for you.

This is George Watson, for "The Pits" rifling through my cd collection.