My First Race Meeting on the AJS 500 cc Single

THIS IS the first story I ever wrote. True, it was written some time in 1980 and even got published. The yarn was centred on a weekend in June 1979, and my first ever race meeting. The manuscript was handwritten before being typed out by the secretary of the Historic Racing Register, then Roneoed up on a Roneo machine (don’t ask), hand-folded and stapled into the scruffy-looking club Newsletter ‘Valve Bounce’. It was the piece that got me into this writin’ gig.

More than three decades after it was published, the easiest way to republish it would be to use some flash OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program on this shiny new Mac I’m bashing now, dig out the old club newsletter, scan the bastard in, then correct the increasingly rare but nonetheless inevitable miss-takes. But what I wrote for a motorcycle racing club’s newsletter three decades ago focussed mainly on events on the racetrack. While those efforts in themselves were comical enough, the really interesting things I remember now are the ludicrous situations I found myself in: 1, getting to Winton Raceway in Victoria; 2, partying on the Saturday night between race days; and 3, the trip back to Sydney.

So in fact, it’s a totally different story. Suffice to say, the race action I wrote about involved (in dot points):

• Falling off the bike halfway around my first-ever lap of practice and bending the gear lever around the foot peg.
• Straightening the gear lever with a lump hammer and causing some internal grief to the gearbox, which would not show up until the first corner of my first-ever race.
• Actually leaving the petrol tap off and running out of petrol the instant the flag dropped for the off.
• Pushing the bike after the disappearing pack until collapsing to a level low enough to notice the switched-off fuel tap, then finally getting underway, all the way up into top gear, from where it locked in and never returned.
• Completing that first race, and then starting the next three races on Saturday afternoon with a top-gear-only AJS 500 cc single.

Yep, that sure was a lot of fun, but here goes with the real story:

To say I wasn’t quite ready for my first race meeting was a gross understatement—more to the point, the bike wasn’t ready either. Of course, I only had about three week’s notice that I was about to begin my racing career. A crazy mate of mine named Old Rod was sick of my constant bleating that I’d like to give this road racing caper a nudge. One afternoon, Old Rod arrived at my place telling me to sign this, tick that and write these answers to those questions there and pay him this amount of money.

“Huh, what… where?” Was all I could stutter, but within a half an hour, I had apparently obtained an Auto Cycle Union Open Road Racing Licence and entered the All-Historic Race Meeting at Winton Raceway in Victoria.

Fine, just fine. Here sat a broke, 24-year-old bloke with two motor bikes. One was a nice 750 Norton Commando; the other, a decrepit old 1950 AJS 500 single. In truth, good ol’ Ajay was my favourite bike but he’d experienced his fair share of ups and downs. At that point of his life, he was in one of his ‘down’ periods. Let’s not beat around the bush, the Ajay was a pile of shit and shouldn’t have even been on the road, let alone a racetrack. It was still shiny, but…

No matter, I would fix him, and began that minute stripping him down and rebuilding what I could for the money I could afford. The situation didn’t look good, especially as Old Rod was all but calling me a poof if I didn’t think I could ride the Ajay from Sydney to almost Melbourne, race for two days, then ride the bastard home again in time for work on Monday.

A quick strip down exposed most of the obvious problems: bad brakes, bad steering head bearings, fork bushes, seals, swingarm bearings, leaking head gasket, and the worst Kojak of a bald bastard back tyre ever with slivers of carcass showing through. All the major mechanical problems were solved quite easily, but paying for a new tyre meant no money to spend on stupid stuff like food and petrol for a weekend to Winton.

Luckily, a mate, Rocky, worked at Spooner’s Motorcycles in Brookvale. They mostly sold brand new Jap bikes and a popular model was the SR500 Yamaha single. The 19-inch front tyre on an SR500 was the most unpopular Bridgestone ‘Mag Mopus’, and because buyers of new Jap bikes had a lot of sense, they always changed the tyres to something British like Dunlop K81s or Avon Roadrunners. There were racks of brand-new and unloved Mag Mopi and Rocky said: “Bring the back wheel down and we’ll chuck a newie on for you.”

Dumbest economy measure I’ve ever taken as events panned out.

So there I was, Thursday lunchtime before my race weekend, the bike was race-ready complete with its new, 40 percent crappier back tyre and I made an executive decision—deciding against riding to Winton Racetrack and buying a ute instead.

My Dad worked in the city; a quick phone call ahead and a blast on the Norton and I was in Dad’s office borrowing $400 to buy a ute. Good Ol’ Dad was always keen to get me off two and onto four wheels, so he coughed up the dosh quick smart. Little did he know he was actually helping me to ride a motorbike faster than ever before.

Thursday was auction day a Debiens Motor Auctions, and I got there in time to see an XT Ford Ute motoring down the chute to go under the hammer. Basically, a long line of sale vehicles were idled through a building, stopping briefly below the auctioneer’s flailing hammer.

Roughest pre-purchase inspection I’ve ever carried out—crawling along beside the creeping car as it moved closer and closer to the auction block, and walking backwards while checking under the bonnet with the auction house driver yelling at me that ‘he couldn’t see.’

Three hundred and ninety dollars later, I was loading the Commando into the back and driving home.

A check of the oil, water and tyre pressures and my beaut new yoot was ready for Winton! Oh, I forgot, being young and relatively stupid, the first thing I did was to head down to The Steyne Hotel at Manly Beach for a few ales. I was talking to the extremely cute Karin when my tyre-supplying mate Rocky rocked over and sorta interrupted: “So you’re going to Winton in Victoria to race your AJS?” he asked.

“Yep, bought myself a ute and I’m leaving tomorrow,” I proudly boasted.

“Want some pit crew?” he enquired.

“Sure, why not?” I answered.

“Can I come too?” Karin asked.

“Hell yeah!” I said, grinning wildly and straightening the necktie I wasn’t wearing.

Friday arvo was spent picking up Rocky, picking up Karin and loading bikes; oh yeah—bikes—plural. When Old Rod, the cagey old bugger, found out I’d bought a ute, suddenly I was taking one of his bikes as well so his asthmatic Renault 16 only had to struggle with one on the trailer. And we were off on an adventure.

We drove through the night; the Falcon ute was an absolute beaut, purring its way down the deadly Hume Highway—two bikes in the back, two blokes in the front and a very cute Karin stuck in the middle.

By Holbrook, (near enough to the Victorian border) I’d had it, and although it was the wee small hours of a very chilly winter’s morn, a stop was elected and a motel selected.

I still can’t believe the brass neck I had when I suggested to Rocky, “Someone would have to mind the bikes and he could have first shift.”

A good time was had by me, but not being one to forget me mates, I brought a hot coffee out to Rocky just as the sun was coming up. I thought he was frozen solid, poor bloke, as he was sitting bolt upright in the front of the ute and his eyes were open and staring straight ahead. There was a layer of ice on the bikes and an inch of solid ice on the ute’s windscreen. Had to drive down the shoulder on the wrong side of the road with my head out the window to get to the servo for some water to splash on the screen.

It was a short haul to Winton, but on the way, a blue Bee-Em flashed past—Skraps on his R75 with The Doctor on pillion had made a last minute decision to ride to Winton and pit crew for their mates, God bless ’em!

Apart from the comedy act that was my first-ever race track experience, nothing much happened until the cessation of Saturday’s racing, when we all kinda wondered what one does on the Saturday night between race days. We settled on organising a motel room in nearby Wangaratta for Karin and me, but as always, thinking of me mates, we swung a plan into action. We, the happily unmarried couple, would sort out our little love nest, then later, under the cover of darkness, three boofheads in the shape of Rocky, Skraps and The Doctor, would sneak in and lay their fart sacks on the floor and at least sleep indoors in a nasty Victorian winter. That was the plan. The blue Bee-Em was parked around the back and we set off to town for some food and alcohol. Five in the front of a Falcon ute doesn’t sound reasonable, but it definitely is possible.

We found a pub, murdered some T-bone steaks and drank some beer. Perfect night, I say. And then Rocky took it upon himself to be the tequila provider and continually appeared with five new tequilas, five slices of lemon and one salt shaker.

With hindsight, I’m identifying that point in time as when the night went quite to shit.

Leaving the pub, the five front seat ute passengers all had ideas as to which direction our motel was. The only consensus was that the other four reckoned it was this way, while I reckoned it was ‘back that way.’ I was the captain and owner of this scurvy landship and the mutinous bastards were all questioning my authority. As a result, we were all arguing while travelling along the gutter at about 15-miles-per-hour when a strange vision loomed on the horizon. It was a Victorian cop car, complete with Victorian cops manning a Victorian-style speed trap, with all the fancy trip wires across the road or whatever it was they used back then in 1979. As we neared the cop car, an executive decision was taken, and that was to do nothing out of the ordinary and don’t make any sudden moves for fear of looking suspicious.

So, as we held our speed at the same 15-miles-per-hour, the right blinker was activated, the non-suspicious vehicle diverged right, out around the cop car, where the left blinker was activated and the said vehicle diverged left and continued along the gutter at a steady 15-miles-per-hour. We all thought we were gone for a row of shithouses, but the cops didn’t seem to care. And then when out of sight, we dipped under a railway bridge, only to discover a sign stating “Sydney X number of km.”

“You bastards!” I declared. “I knew we were heading the wrong way!”

Basically, we hand to chuck a uey, then drive back down the same road past the same police, but we did it at the sign-posted 60 km/h.

“Don’t attract attention by looking at them,” I advised my four passengers. “Look straight ahead.” It was only when I stopped looking at the cops and turned my head back around that I realised the other four bastards were staring straight at the cops too.

I don’t know what it was, maybe it was an interstate thing, but those cops just stared straight back and didn’t do any really cop stuff, like jumping in their car and chasing us and booking us from here to Christmas.

The planned quiet arrival by two and a quiet sneak-in by three at the motel didn’t work so well either, as the ute mysteriously drove up and over the concrete bollard and the cans of a dropped slab of beer were rolling around on the concrete.

Short version: We had a party in our motel room, the other guests didn’t like us and the motel manager truly hated us.

Sunday’s racing went off without a hitch, and being able to start races in first gear and having the luxury of all four gears in the Ajay’s old Burman gearbox felt like an unfair advantage. I didn’t fall off and gained mostly high midfield places. The main thing was that I was now totally hooked on motorcycle racing.

After the last race on Sunday, we packed up quick smart for an early exit. Skraps came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea: figuring it was a long way for Karin to travel for a motorcycle weekend and not get a ride on a two wheeler, he thought he’d oblige and give her a brief pillion ride to Wangaratta, where we’d fill the ute with juice for the long drive back to Sydney Town. With the ute full, we waited for Skraps’ arrival to deposit one Karin and remove The Doctor from the passenger list.

When the Bee Em hove into view, Skraps was doing this great pantomime action of searching for us in the servo on the other side of the road. Despite Rocky, The Doctor and me all yelling “Oi!” and Karin tapping on his shoulder while pointing to us, the Skrapster completely failed to see us, then hit the gas and hightailed it out of ‘Wang’ like a man possessed.

“I think he’s trying to sheriff the girl,” Rocky opined as we leapt into the ute and hooned off after him. It was understandable—when you have to pillion someone interstate, cute little females make much better travelling companions than big, smelly blokes. I mean, they’re lighter and more compact, so that means better fuel consumption, plus they burp, fart and eat a whole lot less.

With all fluids replenished to brimming, the ute was champing at the bit for a fast haul home as we flashed across rural Victoria. No matter how many times we glimpsed the speck on the horizon that we knew to be Skraps, Karin and the blue Bee Em, we just couldn’t close the gap. We were leapfrogging lines of cars in the vain chase and, interestingly, a few cars back, there was a bright orange XC Falcon that seemed to dog our every overtaking manoeuvre. When we finally got a bit of clear ground with no traffic ahead but the suspect’s Bee Em, we dropped the hammer down, which made the Victorian copper in the unmarked, bright orange XC Ford Highway Patrol car activate his hidden lights and siren. Dohhh! I hate that.

Now, when NSW cops pull you over, they’ll ask the standard cop question: “Do you realise you were speeding back there?” Naturally, there are only two possible answers: either A, “No, I didn’t realise I WAS speeding, or B, “Yes, I realise I WAS speeding, but here’s the reason I WAS.” See? You’ve just admitted guilt and dropped yourself in it whichever answer you choose.

This Victorian cop had a more creative, southern approach. He said: “If you can give me a good enough reason to explain why you were travelling at (no need to repeat it here) kilometres per hour, I may not book you.”

The cop was playing the game so I joined in. “Well, Senior Constable,” I replied as cheerily as I could. “This ute has a slight problem in the cooling system, and as you know, if you can get either a good down hill run or at best, a bit of clear space, you get up to a certain speed, leave it in top gear, switch the motor off and coast to a stop. (I was not making this up as I went, it really does work with old shit boxes with suss radiators) With the motor still turning over and the water pump working, it cools it down a treat.”

The copper simply stared a mocking death stare.

“Is that a fact?” he asked. “And I suppose if we walked to the front of the car and opened the bonnet, we’d see an overheating motor?”

“Sure will,” I said confidently, as I opened the driver’s door to pop the bonnet. Before I could complete the task, the radiator cap’s 14 PSI rating had been breached; right on time, the pressure release blew and the radiator went ‘PPPPSHHHHHHHT’ as it bubbled and spat rusty water onto the gravel verge of the Hume Highway.

“So, you weren’t bullshitting, then?” the copper asked.

“Honest as the day is long, Senior Constable.” I said with hand on heart.

“And that method really works to cool down an overheated engine,” was his next question.

“Usually,” I added, before venturing further. “Are you still going to book me?”

“Yeah!” he said, almost laughing at my optimism. “But the good thing is, you don’t have to pay the fine if you don’t want to.”

“Really?” I asked.

“As long as you don’t want to ever return to Victoria, you’ll be sweet. But if you do, don’t get arrested, or you’ll find there’s a warrant out for non-payment of fines and you’ll go to jail.”

Just great! Of all the lousy cops in the lousy state of Victoria, I had to get the comedian.

We never did catch up to Skraps and Karin, what with all the sticking to speed limits and the like, but I did hear a funny story from Karin a few days later. Seems the Skrapster had made it almost all the way to Sydney, riding like a madman to ‘try to catch up the others in the ute’ despite Karin’s plea that they passed us back in Wangaratta. And I don’t think Karin actually believed Skraps when he complained of ‘headaches from the headlight dazzle’ and that the best approach was to ‘maybe get a motel room around about Camden’ because he ‘couldn’t make it the rest of the way home without a rest stop.’ The sleazy, connivin’ bastard… although the story did seem vaguely familiar!

And she really smirked when it dawned on Skraps that the cost of the motel room was a waste of money and he definitely didn’t get what he was hoping for.

I thought that would’ve been the final wash-up of one of the better weekends in my life, but no, I was wrong. About eight months later, I was at home, on the nest with a girlfriend, when a very authoritative-sounding fist began bashing on the front door. I opened the door to a very large and ugly NSW Police Sergeant. 

“I take it this is you,” he boomed, thrusting an official-looking document under my schnozzle while pointing out the part with my name on it. “There’s the correct address, there’s the offending vehicle and have we got the trifecta?”

“Umm, yeah, what’s all this about?” I asked.

“You were booked for speeding in Victoria and I’m giving you a another chance to pay the fine,” he explained quite reasonably.

“But the copper said I didn’t have to pay the fine if I didn’t ever want to go back to Victoria,” I bleated.

“I’m right with you on that score, son,” the copper grinned. “But, just like New South Wales, Victoria is broke too, and they’d rather you just cough up the dosh instead of all that bullshit like arresting you and stacking on court cases and all that crap.”

Great, of all the lousy Police Sergeants in the lousy state of NSW, I had to get the comedian here, too. I was lucky to have the sort of cash he spoke of in the wallet and quickly paid the fine, with no extra penalty or collection fee, which I thought was way cool, when you realise how they do things these days.

And with that, my first-ever race weekend was finally over, but I was still hooked on motorbike racing.

Road Tales by Kelly Ashton.