Number plates

I can just see it now... "who's is that number plate? Its dead hard to read"
"its 110, thats Anthony Ives"
"ok, lets get him over and tell him because he's followed the rules and used big numbers that are a bit close it hurts my eyes." Gotta love it, ha. I'm pretty sure I heard Kelv gettin told off too, ha. The other good thing about number plates; just ordered 6 from mark at grooveracingshop.co.uk, for the Manx Champs which are happening this weekend, each catagory winner will get a #1 plate instead of trophies, cos lets face it, my shelves are getting slightly full ha. Cheers mark.

But back to the weekend, Thursday night I went out with everyone from back home before some of them went back to uni. Shauns back off to Leeds and Scott back to the Burgh, as well as other assorted locals town is gonna get very quiet in the next couple of weeks. So got back home about 11, got packed, went back out to nightlife to pick up my wages and finally hit the pillow at 2am, up at 0530 to make the boat and I was shattered. Met up with mum in Liverpool to do some shopping for work clothes and spend quality family time, I dont get to see mum enough so have to make the most of it when we're both at a loose end, plus it was her wallet that was out not mine. Went up to gates with mum at Coppull and rode, alot, being at home is great but boy my riding suffers. It takes about 20 laps to get confident to start to take off rather than 2. The track was riding sweet and I had a bed at Hotel Sutty for the weekend, whilst drifting off on Friday night I'd never have thought that I would be this close to a national win.

Saturday went good, moto's where ok and my 1st straight was keeping me in cruiser, a 2.2. in the 1st 2 moto's was ok, a bit of shoulder action with Kieron in the 3rd and an off and 5th left me with 7th pick for the main and an ice pack on my wrist. Gate 8 was open and to be honest I was counting my blessings, its way better than being on the outside. Snap, pull, power, next thing I know and everyones gone wide round the 1st corner and I'm side my side with Josh over the 3rd in joint 1st, he boomed the big step up and I couldn't get any pump off the downside, followed him round the 90 right and went up the inside to make the move, it didn't pay and left me too far back to compete for 1st in chaos corner. I quality race though, and fair play to Josh, the fastest cruiser yowth when he wants to be.

It was great staying with Roy and Co for the weekend, its such a relaxed vibe and a nice place to be, Shea is the best, always smilling and even helped me clean my ride on Saturday night. Jacob is the most modest British Champion ever even if he made me clean his bike too. The head of the house is obviously Dianne, ha, cheers for letting me stay. Sutty, well done on Sunday man, and cheers for everything, that girl in Liverpool wanted me and you know it.

Sunday wasn't so great at the track though, I had a big off in my 1st 19+ moto leaving me limping and with a huge need for a new set of race pants (thanks mum). So with the tags still hanging off my ass it was straight back up for cruiser, I only really wanted to qualify for the main so was just chilling, 3rd moto I put OJ off at chaos corner, sorry bud, couldn't resisit. Main time and I snapped ok, again from 8 but it didnt quite go the same, I got caught up in the bunch and was really hurting so ended up 6th and started shouting my mouth off over the finish line as Kieron had won, If you wanna read more on that its the last 2 paragraphs.

So I had a great weekend, thanks to Gav at bikevideos.co.uk for putting the 3 most important finals up first on Saturday night, cheers to Rich and Scott for the best comentary (you 2 on the mic are an unbeatable combination), thanks to the NEBMX crew for looking after my mum, she loved it, Reidy, cheers for letting me have a blast on the Dolan, rode sweet, cant wait till I get mine ;) and again, thanks to the Sutty's.

So see ya'll at Preston, I've got some fun to have.

So the controversy on Sunday regarding me and my big mouth, during one of my cruiser moto's I thought I'd heard Kieron's shifter working overtime, after hearing from a "reliable source" that his shifter didnt work I didn't think anything of it untill Dan P said he'd heard it too, so I went and asked Kieron was he shifting, he said yer! Whats he playin at? For one, he really needs to start hitting gates if he's using different gears for the start hill and the rest of the track if he's still getting pulled. The way I see it, no matter how close his bike is to a cruiser; 24" wheels, his "forks were pretty much locked out" and whether he's shifting or not, its still not a cruiser, its a mountain bike! My mates have seen pictures of Kieron racing before and think its wack, "what a 4Xer doing at a BMX race?" and these guys ride, let alone trying to explain it to the girls that dont understand the difference between BMX and downhill, "but its just riding bikes isn't it?" Yer it is, and I've never complained at regional level before, or even been that bothered when he's turned up at nationals, because I was under the impression that the reason he wasn't buying a cruiser was because he has no money, so assumed (yer i know, assumption is the mother of all fcuk ups) that he wasn't going to follow the national circus around, its an expensive game and all.

But now he can get a ranking and will probably push people who have supported the series all year round (OJ and Twarn) down a ranking place I think something needs saying. I'm pretty gutted for OJ to be honest, he's in 9th spot and needs a good result to move up to 8th otherwise he wont get anything to show for this year. Even if not OJ, there are 8 BMXers who've qualified for an end of year trophy, one of which wont get one because of Kieron. Anyhow, I was pissed cos he won, and I told him, better that than be one of these people that says stuff about people rather than too them. I'll be e-mailing the commission after Preston asking for a rule change, BMX should be looking forward and at a national level shouldn't want to rely on mtb's.