Team Ixion Race Report

Rider: Roger Ford
Bike: DiamondBack Topanga 21-speed

Track: Brands Hatch Paddock Entrance
Date: 16/04/2001

Oh great. This time I managed to have a major crash and put myself out of commission for the weekend without even sitting on the race bike. How? ...

It was Duncan's fault. He asked me to drop some tickets at the gate. So I headed off on the paddock pushbike (which is actually a fairly decent mountain bike) to do so. On the way back I thought it only polite to see who was in the Kentagon bar. Andy Denyer was, so I thought I'd better stop for a pint. That one went down a bit quick, so I had another. By then Andy had finished his pint, and insisted on buying me another. Then Sol and James turned up, and bought me another.

So four pints later, I thought I'd better head back to the garages on the mountain bike. It was quite dark, but I could just about see the route back across the track to the GP paddock. It's all downhill, so I was fair hurtling down towards the garages. I could see the route down, I could see the paddock, and I could see the control tower which I obviously needed to keep left of. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the fence half way across the entrance road, in the shadow of the tower.

One minute I'm on the bike, next I'm picking myself up off the floor and wondering what's leaking, as there's water coming from somewhere and pouring down my face. Dark red warm water. Ah...

Sol plays first-aid man, but gives up when he discovers lumps of gravel embedded in my scalp. Andy Davis plays the hero, and drives us to Queen Mary A&E. Where we spend the next 11 hours. Yes, eleven bloody hours. We got there at 12:20, and I wasn't seen by a doctor until 8:30 in the morning. Then it took a couple more hours before a nurse started working on me, and another hour to remove all the gravel and glue the various holes up.

Sod all chance of getting a crash helmet on, with all those partly healed scabs and glued up holes, so no riding for me this weekend.

Bugger!