Club stand and Tom the Viking

Photo: Dave Jackson

Amazing paint job

Photo: Dave Jackson

Attendance on the Saturday was adversely affected by two separate accidents on the A249, the second and most serious of which, we found out on Sunday, involved a trader who had nipped off the site on a bike.
We fielded 8 bikes on Saturday with Gary's T160 very much to the fore which may have helped him in winning a "highly commended" rosette. he thought that he had been pipped to the main prize in that class by a lavishly painted Daytona 955 but to everyone's surprise, when the cups were being given out (by the great Eddie Kidd no less) his number was called! Thus he sprang forward to claim his trophy and get his photo taken. In fact there was also a local TV crew there, so by Sunday morning there were reported sightings of Gary on TV the previous evening! The Vintage Japanese club won Best Stand with an impressive layout that featured upward lighting but the bikes were so clean that they could not have been ridden for a long time, let alone to the event!
It was a slow start on Sunday but some early arrivals were showing an interest. Tank was much impressed by one punter's comment that his mate with a Trident 750 had notched up 125,000 miles in 10 years. The crowds soon started pouring in, so that the Sunday attendance was much higher than the day before and there were several enquiries about membership.
On Saturday I spotted a couple of stalls offering leather repairs so when I went back the next day I took a handful of cloth badges that I had collected and got them sewn on to the intended garments properly, like.
Tom Friar became the happy recipient of a deluxe, glow-in-the-dark green skull T-shirt courtesy of the generosity of Mr. Biggs (which he wore at the Pied Bull on the following Tuesday - necessitating forays out into the dark car park to check for glow effect). They were a wallet-tightening £25 by the way! Further on the shopping front Tom bought some light strings to go on his bike which were also deployed by Tuesday, making a faint blue glow in the corner of the car park. There were two or three short, sharp showers of rain which we managed to avoid and there was enough going on to make the time pass at a steady rate until by a quarter to five the club stand was packed into old Tom's car and we were waiting for the all-clear from John the organiser to vacate the hall and head for home, enjoying a last burst of sunshine on the way.