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Wednesday, 24 May 2006 |
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 Al getting some shut eye So here we are in England again. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, so I thought while I’ve got the chance to sit down and write something I’d better fill you in a bit.
Me and Alex are both staying with our mates Ray and Loraine in England at the moment, and we’ll be here (well in Europe anyways) for the next 3 weeks or so until round 4 of the WEC in Belgium.
I guess this trips story began at the airport in Sydney, so I‘ll start from there…
Last year for Christmas me and Al both got a swag each from the folks. They thought they’d be good to roll out in a quite spot somewhere during the 24 hour races, so with all our riding gear already in Europe from the last trip, we decided to bring them along this time.
The only problem was that they actually weighed about 9kgs each and we were only allowed a 20kg limit each to check in. I was also bringing with me a new set of Joe Rocket Leathers and Joe Rocket Boots plus of course the clothes ect that I needed for this trip.
Al was supposed to be just bringing his clothes so I thought we’d be sweet, but when he wheeled his bag out I nearly fell over. He decided to pack his whole wardrobe and his hair care kit was bigger than the one the Back Street Boys have!
As a result we were 18kgs over weight. After some sweet talking, and an enormous amount of bullshit, the girls at the counter let us through. Nice.
26 hours later at 5am Tuesday morning, and we were in Heathrow, swags and all.
A 2hour bus trip to Stansted followed by a 2hour flight to Spain and we were in Alicante, Spain.
It was from here till Thursday that me and Al had decided to wing it. After some deep thought we agreed to press on and get to Albacete that night. Another bus was needed to get to the Alicante town centre where we were to find the train station. The walk however from the bus stop to the train station with all our crap we were carrying was like crossing the Himalayas…… it was a mission.
 Don't wake Damo A 4hour wait for the 2hour train trip was next. By the time we got to Albacete train station it was 10pm.
Without any hotel booked we were getting ready to squeeze ourselves and Al’s hair care kit into our swags and sleep in the park somewhere, but luckily enough we found a joint, had the best showers of our lives and crashed out.
The next day we hung out with Al’s team mate and last year’s Phase One Junior rider Marko Rothlaan, but by the afternoon we were getting pretty bored. To do something for fun, I came up with the idea of letting Al cut my hair if I could cut his. He was up for it so it was off to the shops to buy some clippers.
 Damo's Mullet by Alex
 The new looks..... hhmmmm
My team mate Warwick Nowland was playing funny buggers and tried to convince the team to only let him do the 2nd qualifier on Saturday morning and let us stay in bed, but I wasn’t having it and was up for as much track time as possible. This meant a big day for the riders and the team, but that’s what we’re here for isn’t it? We all went quicker as a result and were ready for a descent race.  At the start
A descent result is what we got in the end I suppose, we finished 4th. Not fantastic but not too bad. We moved from 9th to 6th in the World Endurance Championship standings, and left the place with all bikes and riders in one piece.
If you read Warwick’s race report you’d probably think we could’ve won the race had Christer and I been quicker, and if the team had done a better job, but the truth is all 3 teams in front of us rode faster than us including Warwick. Enough said.
Al had a good ride with his Kawasaki team and ended up 10th after a few drama’s with the pit stops.
After the race finished at 2am, me and a few of the Phase One boys weren’t done so we packed up and hit the town. I remember seeing 9am on my watch when the night club shut, it was one funny night out that’s for sure. Don’t know how Damian Rowley (Phase One Junior rider) got to the airport by lunch time Sunday!
Monday was a repeat return trip for me and Al to the Alicante airport, before flying back to England.
This basically brings us up to the current date.
 Looking forward to Belgium
We’ll be here in Europe now, as I mentioned, until the next race in Belgium. Not sure exactly of our plans for the next couple of weeks, but I know they’ll include some hard training for the both of us as we’re real keen kick some ass and prove a point or two. I’m really looking forward to it.
Will let you know how it goes.
All the best,
Damo.
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