LYDDEN JULY 2009

I won't dwell on the twelve hour journey me and my son Jedd endured to get to Lydden on Friday night, suffice to say we were glad to get there! Lydden is a special meeting for us as it is a memorial meeting for Tim Johnson, our great friend and mentor. We were all blessed with great weather for the weekend as it only rained during the evening and night on Saturday. Gav couldn't make it to this meeting so the Ducati was kindly brought down by team Tetley. The bike had undergone a lot of work since the last meeting where the big end went so I was looking forward to getting out on it. Unfortunatly when I went out for practice the bike wasn't running well and I ended up missing both races on the Saturday. Luckily Andy Farrer had a look at it on the Sunday morning and I took it out for a test run in the first Sunday race and all seemed OK so on the second race of the day I gave it a good thrashing and had a great race, finishing forth.
Meanwhile the Rudge had been going well on both days and I think I finished third in all four races. I was pleased to see that I was also entered in the champion of champions race at the end of the day, alongside Trevor Johnson, Tim's brother. Trevor led the race right up until the end, with me behind him, and Trevor finished in second place and I was around sixth. Trevor had the dubious honour of awarding himself a trophy on the finishing line, which he had to do again for the sidecar champion of champions!
Talking of sidecars, we had the outfit at Lydden and were looking forward to some good racing. Unfortunatly the bike was only firing on one cylinder and dispite the fact that every sidecar racer in the paddock came to help at one time or another, we never managed to get it running on two. Eventually we went out for a race anyway but retired a lap or so before the end. We did manage to overtake someone which wasn't bad on one cylinder!
Phil had a fast off on his first race but got away with a bruised leg. He worked hard for the rest of the morning and managed to get the Bantam back together in time for the second race, and also ran in both Bantam races on the Sunday finishing third or forth.
Saturday night is barbie night at Lydden, all part of the Tim Johnson thing, and we all had third helpings of burgers and hot dogs as well as several glasses of real ale, with the barrells of beer supplied by Trevor.
As far as we were concerned it turned out to be a fantastic meeting and we all had a lot of fun.I will be posting a couple of photos later on today.