Camera. Action, Lights - How The West Was Won

Good evening Pilgrims...
It's been a busy old time at the blog, with plenty of things going on. Namely, since we last spoke, plans for a charity calendar raising funds for Macmillan are well underway. It's a charity dear to my heart, they supported our family when my Grandad was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and were there supporting right to the end. Too many people we know are diagnosed with this
awful disease, and it's my thing to help those that help those poor buggers that get the dreaded C every year.

FRIDAY 22nd JUNE
Went for a beer with the Janners, Rowe Bros, in the People's Republic of Camborne, with Somersetians Mike Priddle(14) and Chris Mikulla (522). Fat was chewed, and names were bounded about, and Ross was abused about his new under the thumb status, from brother Liam, who was quite lairy!

SATURDAY 23rd JUNE
Practically followed 522 home to Weston, as went to go and see some friends who have have just had a new born. It was heaving, and taking the wrong roundabout, ended up on the sea front just as the Weston Air Show was under way. Highlight of which was the Red Arrows, but I was on a taxi run for one of Lamp Club Juniors, who'd come back from her hols in Bulgaria. Whilst on the A38, I get a phone call from the cousin saying that the flight was early, due to the Red Arrows needing to take off. A nice spot of dovetailing!

SUNDAY 24th JUNE
So off to St Day for the first of the 2 qualifying rounds. A few travellers including Sam Wagner (823) who was on a Westcountry world tour, miles from his Darlington base! Bill Batten and Neil Hooper were still in Emergency Ward 10, so Saloon World Champ Eddie Darby took the Batten car out for a spin (or 2!). Heat 1 went the way of the yellow top Dan Moss (797), five years on from when his father Jeremy took the major race (it was raining!), with a last bend punt between Mikulla and Richard Beere (254) saw Beere take it on the line. Heat 2 was a bit more brutal, but it was semi St Day regular Jack Aldridge (921) who took Heat 2. With a few big name local casualties the Consi was a lively affair. Nathan Maidment (935) was out in the Stephen Gilbert (soon to be 542) car as his was/is without motor. He led away Dale Moon (302) with the pair of them trading places. I thought to myself, there's gonna be tears in a minute! Fortunately, it was the nearest man to the track, Liam Rowe (605) who took the consolation, avoiding any young gun hiccups. Final time and it turned out to be a fairly lively one, with some controversy. After a trip up for Russ Alpin (22) over and out, rolling, brought out the cautions. Mark Gibbs (270) led them away, and Rowe broke away from the reds. Meanwhile further back, a little feud that had been brewing in the heats between Justin Fisher (315) and Dave Sansom (352). However Sansom waded in on Fisher, taking Paul Moss (979) as collateral damage in an assualt of huge magnitude. Moss ended up in the ambulance with a severely bruised foot, and Sansom ended up trailered, pending further Board of Control action. After this incidient the racing turned into a game of cat and mouse, as Rowe hunted Gibbs, as going into the final corner saw the opportunity for a nudge, but thought better of it as it was just too close.... Wagner rounded out the top 3 and proclaimed that he was going to persuade his dad to move down here so he could race here as he loved the track so much! For Gibbs it was an impressive win, and a return to blue, as the Staffordshire driver didn't potter about. The GN saw a good blue top battle between Paul Rice (890) and Jamie Avery (126) which the latter took the win.


MONDAY 24th JUNE
The Monday between QRs sees the "emmets" usually frequent a beach somewhere. But as the opportunity arose to take some pics for the calendar it was awesome. Sam Wagner (823) was the first such driver to offer his car to a girl in a bikini. Sadly, the shot we wanted wasn't available without too many prying eyes, jobsworth attendants, so a trip on the moors was the cry. The Cornish village of Minions on Bodmin Moor was the destination. Not exactly Fistral Beach, and certainly not sunny.  Meet Becky, she's a runner up in Miss Cornwall and budding model. And a trooper, must come from the fact that she's also a Young Farmer. The poor lass near enough froze, as she posed and pouted around the Darlington driver's car. His sister Janis had more layers on to compensate!




Later on, in St Austell, at the Neil Truran BBQ, Barry Goldin's non appearance at the World QR at St Day meant that the crown of Brisca F2 BBQ Champion passed to Micky Brennan, combined with sous chef Sam Wagner...

taking the Micky!

TUESDAY 25th JUNE

Care in the Community gets sexy....Perfect advert for Santogen Gold

Bradders wins the race but Higgy comes first!

Stock car on a school night. Can't beat it. I say school night, it was more like day, as I picked up model Alana, from her house in Plymouth and trundled up for the extended practice session. With a selection of outfits and paraphenlia, Alana was up for it, so we decamped in Priddle's truck and approached firstly Speaky (218) and parked beside him Chris Burgoyne (647). I needed to approach both, so we got the pictures. Now, naturally Alana, was nervous, bedecked in her gold jumpsuit, but not as nervous as I, as I suddenly regressed into my 14 year old self, and went, "That's Speaky" and got a little awe struck. So I approached him shook his hand, congratulated him on saving the driver from the Ipswich fireball, and talked business. Alana then approached the car, and we shot, only to be interrupted by car building legend Higgy, who the Tyldsley legend shouted, "Don't get too close Col, you'll have a heart attack!". Needless to say, some real good shots where taken, including Justin Fisher on arrival, who asked if we needed a hand.  After shooting Micky Brennan's car also, racing was about to start, with Jo Polley-Goldin and Barry Goldin being stuck on the M5 and requested the second heat to Autospeed via twitter. However Barry lined up for heat 1, which was a fairly pedestrian affair, with Bradders looking mighty fine, storming to victory. Heat 2 was as busy as the M5 on a summer Saturday. Jay Tomkins (290) took the lead and with Paul Butcher (189) for company. However when traffic was in front of him, the wily old Gloucestershire based veteran found his way through better. The consolation saw a win for Dale Moon, fresh from equalising the scores in the food feud with Ben Goodard, who's chips ended up on the tarmac.

The Gentlemen's Favourite with the Ladies Favourite!

30 car feature final time, I do think they missed a trick by not having a 36 car final, 12 from each wouldn't have made much difference, but it white top John Scorse (519) in the old Ross Rowe car (one partly built by me, those secondary bumper fixings are my babies) who sped away. Butcher reeled in the white top and soon after, Bradbury stormed away to an impressive victory, sounding a warning shot across the boys of his golden rivals, equalling Bill Batten's run of 5 back to back Taunton wins. Butcher took second, with Scorse holding out for an impressive 3rd, with St Day final winner Gibbs rounding out a profitable points journey. The national saw Brennan and Rowe break from the pack, but Bradbury passed the Cornishman to take a near perfect evening which slashed his World Final odds to a point that if there was betting, Paddy Power would be paying  out and to open a book on what colour underpants Crispen Rosevear would be wearing...(1/6 purple 3/1 black 7/1 somebody elses!)

It certainly was one of the busiest meeting I've ever been too as i was rushing around with Alana in tow, so I ought to say a few thank yous to Grace Oliver and Mike Priddle for the loan of they vehicles for Alana to get changed in. Thanks go to Barry, Rob, Micky and Chris for the loan of their cars, and for Alana, who dealt with the wolf whistles and banter most impressively. She was really gutted that there was no parade lap.
However, wasn't it nice to be home in bed at a reasonable time. They were super quick and efficient with the meeting turnaround...

5 Gold Wins!!!!

Clarity in the Fog of Misinformation

Not many people know that my trade actually is a journalist. Didn't last too long as I thought I was the next Nev in call centre world. During my training, we would have to react to breaking news, and in one scenario that we had, we had mock breaking news of a sinking ship of the Mannacles just off Land's End. We had to coordinate the response, take in evidence, eye witness reports, quantify the evidence and check it, verify and then add to the picture. We had counter rumour, and "eye witness" reports, which we, as cub reporters, over reacted too.

We were told about the "fog of war". In the moments after any event, details become sketchy. I remember just after the Twin Towers, they was a plane crash in Queen's, a suburb of New York, which killed all on board. The BBC stayed with plane crash, but the American Networks (Fox, NBC, CBS et al) went the whole hog. Terrorist atrocity, let's get Osama, war on terror, let's see what's happening in Afghanistan. It transpired to be a tragic accident, but the over reaction fed on hearsay and rumour made a laughing stock of the American media at the time.

With the advent of social media, we get information much much quicker. Look at 20 years ago, you'd have to wait a month to find out who won that Long Eaton final. With this social revolution, the ability to skew a story is very much more easier to do. Facebook and Twitter are useful tools, but they have made the fog of war even more foggier. Everyone is an on the spot reporter, you only have to look at the amount of footage that becomes available an incident. So much Chinese whispers gets passed on from the first hand and bastardized. The actual information can get skewed and become exaggerated.

And when that person is the biggest name in the sport, all sorts of rumours, conjecture and bullshit can take place. So when Gordon Moodie (7) required medical assistance after a throttle stuck open at Taunton on Sunday during the GN. As the majority of his fans weren't there, the information forthcoming was based on what had been passed on twitter and facebook. Indeed, I was a 40th wedding anniversary shindig, and my thanks to the legendary Mr Commenstarter Andy Chant, was relaying information back to me. Now, hand on heart, I'm not the biggest Moodie fan, but no driver should get injured doing the sport that we all love. Now, Gordon is blessed with a lot of fans, some of them real fundamentalists. It was fun to see the fallout on Facebook and twitter, with the sketchy information, and people guessing and speculating, and the conspiracy theorists even trying to blame Speaky for it! Indeed, Mike Priddle and Andy Maidment had to go online to request (on Gordon's behalf) to basically shut the "flip" up and let Gordon get better.  Had this had have happened at Cowdenbeath, I doubt the reaction would have been so bad. It seems that all the drivers need to employ media agents to deal with the speculation and nonsense. As long as the statements don't get as long as Adrian Blackwell's long winded ones used to be on Roger's site....

Everyone hates Hear'say that's we've forgotten all about it, and they all act in Emmerdale and Corrie now...

Statements like this one keep people informed and stop the Hearsay.

"At Smeatharpe on Sunday 16 June, BriSCA F2 National Points Champion 7 Gordon Moodie suffered a severe cut to his right foot, when he crashed out of the Grand National.

Moodie was taken to hospital, in Taunton, where he was detained overnight.  X-rays revealed no broken bones.  He is set to have an operation under general anaesthetic on Monday 17 June, to help to repair and heal the cut, and is set to spend a second night in the hospital.

Autospeed with Gordon a speedy recovery, and will endeavour to provide further updates as and when available" 

An excellent example of how to stop rumour and getting 2 and 2 and making 4, instead of 7. Even such sports like cricket have been the subject of rumour, with England being alleged of ball tampering, following the match against Sri Lanka, when a ball was changed by the umpires because it was out of shape,  when a simple statement from the ICC could have stopped any rumours there and then. So well done Autospeed. Most importantly though....




So, get well soon Gordon, and don't pick the scabs...

It was such a crazy weekend of big incidents. Coming off the news of legend Bill Batten's (167) serious work based injury, came Graham Fegan's (NI998) monster roll at Nutts Corner, and the rare sight of a F1 bending like Beckham with a huge one for Messrs Finnikin, Newsome and Johnson at Buxton, can we have a nice and glorious pain free weekend please?

A Points of Order Special- Full Moon!

This is why he is the Ladies' Favourite, seen here working his charm on ex F2 driver, Sarah Bowden

Much can be said for the proclaimed "Ladies' Favourite" Dangerous Dale Moon (302). The young Cornish Lad has been making a stake to be one of the characters that surrounding the Westcountry scene.

Dale is a growing lad, however recently, the Snozal based youngster's sustenance has been scuppered by various current and former racing colleagues.

After polishing off a footlong hotdog at Crasharama at Taunton, laden with tomato sauce and mustard, Dale set about a spot of afters. With it being a hot but somewhat blustery day, Dale picked up an ice cream. A deluxe one. Top of the range with sprinkles and everything. Disaster was to strike. 

Saloon Driver come human beanstalk Ben Goddard (995) grabbed young Mr Moons' super duper 99 ice cream with extra sauce and sprinkles and shoved it towards Moon's face. In the ensuing melee that followed, fellow Ministox alumnus Goddard, grabbed the cone and broke it away at the stem, leaving Dangerous with just a handful of crushed wafer as the frozen desert ended up on the deck, much to the hilarity of all around.

Now Dale is one of a gorup of Mid Cornwall based drivers who after putting their stock cars away, go go karting. Be it St Eval, St Erme or the new favourite Plymouth Karting, on the site of the old Toshiba Factory, Dale, usually along with Messrs Westaway, Bassett and the Moss brethern, burn up the track in the quest to set lap records. Of course, like any half decent roadtrip, food is required for the trip home. So off to the drive thru KFC goes ex F2 now National Banger driver Darren Wade. As driver he puts in the order. Wadey decided to switch his sauce on his KFC Supercharger to the "2Hot4U" rather than the somewhat calmer Sweet Chilli option.It was indeed too hot for Mr Moon, who proceeded to abandon said chicken burger.

So if you see Dale, give him what you can, looks as though he could do with something to eat....