5/10/08 - Magny Cours

Once again, the French made it as difficult as possible for us to have a smooth journey here. Some fishermen went on strike which resulted to ‘operation stack up’ on the M20 – meaning that we missed our scheduled shuttle and, as the schedule has gone tits up because of the fire, we were scheduled to take the 21.50 shuttle out there. This would have meant that we would have been at the hotel at about five in the morning...but luckily we managed to get onto an earlier shuttle and got to the hotel at 2.15am. Still pretty late/early considering that we were eating breakfast at 8.30 and leaving for the track pretty soon after that...
I have said it before and I will say it again – “oh the glamour of being a journalist’.

Anywho, moving on to Sunday – it was a colder, then warmer, then rainyish but not quite raining, warmer, very hot media officey type day...

And it involved speaking a lot of gibberish and making affectionate(ish) pokes of fun towards a rumoured to be gay rider on the grid...no names no law suits. I personally don’t even believe that he IS gay...but I should probably shut my fingers up when it comes to this topic and remain...erm...professional.

It’s 17.45 at the moment and I have finished my race reports for the day, which is nice! Although I now have that awkward time where everyone else has their heads buried in their laptops and I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs – but I have Tetris on my phone to keep me entertained! Whey hey!

Troy Bayliss and Andrew Pitt both won their championships today, and following Valentino Rossi’s eighth win last weekend and Shakey Byrne’s success in the British Superbikes (and signing for World Superbikes next year – yay!) This is a bit of a championship winning month! I’m finding myself getting more and more excited for next season. There are some events from this season that I just want to put behind me and live and learn from, and I feel that would be easier to do when this season ends. Also, the team I am working with are re-vamping and we’re going to pink, purple and green polka dot colour schemes and are renaming ourselves “MotorbikesToday Honda”. We wish.

But it should be good though!

Anyway, I hope you managed to make sense out of my extremely random ramblings of fun and cheerfulness...it always feels like the end of season here so I’m happy that it isn’t because it’s horrible and thumb twiddling in the time between seasons and I get easily bored (it’s something that us special people require, to be constantly entertained). See you later alligators!!! xx

21/9/08 - Vallelunga

It’s cold! I know I say that often but it’s Italy and it’s cold! Everybody is walking around in their T-shirts and shorts and I’m sitting here in ugg boots, jeans and a jumper and yet still shivering. I hope this doesn’t mean that I’m starting to get ill as none of us have time for illness!

Superstock aren’t here this round so it’s just Superbikes and Supersport, which feels strange as the paddock is literally empty...although if I’m going to be picky then the paddock is spread everywhere in different fields over bridges etc. on this track. It’s not my favourite, fair to say.

Saturday qualifying hasn’t been good for our team so far, both our riders got black flagged as their bikes let go and started billowing smoke...so I’m a bit nervous to go and speak to them about the problems as I expect the boss is a little unhappy about it!! So I shall sit here twiddling my thumbs until four when I can write up Superpole. It’s strange because this is the time where I’d usually be being hassled by the superstock riders but they’re not here to entertain me!

What is also strange about this round is that it’s colder indoors than it is outdoors...after a walk around the paddock I found myself feeling rather warm and not needing the jumper anymore. Is anything logical in Italy?

Saturday night was spent driving back to the hotel whilst singing along to Bon Jovi with my editor...but changing ‘Living on a Prayer’ to ‘Shagging on the Stairs’ – it has to be done! Then as soon as my head hit the hotel room pillow I fell asleep, even forgot to turn the light off!

So now it’s Sunday morning and I’m sitting here feeling sorry for myself as my nose is all blocked and it’s still cold!

7/9/08 - Donington

I shouldn’t really be surprised that it’s raining here at Donington, but I am! You’d think that maybe after the foul luck at Brands the UK would pull its finger out and give us a bit of sunshine, wouldn’t you.

This round feels a bit stranger to me at the moment...there is a noticeable difference to the atmosphere without one of the biggest personalities having gone with Jonesy. It’s nice though because Chris Walker has a little English flag with ‘Jonesy’ written underneath it under his main number and Leon Haslam and Cal Crutchlow both have a small 18 under their numbers. It’s amazing to see how much of a family the racing world is, to lose someone has affected so many people and now everybody is riding in Craig’s glory and trying to win the race for him.

But let’s not make this a depressing blog, and on the plus side we have three British wildcards in World Superbikes! Woo! The young Tom Sykes is making a comeback from Brands, Pocket Rocket Leon Haslam is also making his first appearance in Superbikes since three years ago, and Cal Crutchlow who I know nothing about except that he’s a lovely guy.

Wet Superpole just happened with a load of crashes. Every time somebody falls off we all jump about ten feet into the air and then breathe a sigh of relief when they get up and walk away.  I have now finished writing up all of the Friday and Saturday stuff so have the rest of the day to chill out and do whatever I please! So I’m just looking out of the media centre window, day dreaming and being poked by people who come over to say hello. It’s nice because I’m starting to appreciate how much everybody looks out for everybody more now.

So Sunday and it’s very wet!! I just got back off the grid for race two after holding an umbrella for Matt Lynn when the heaven’s opened, and being a dutiful grid girl I got absolutely SOAKED! To top it all off, the rest of the guys in the media office found it hilarious!
It was a great Sunday though, a good couple of races and some giggles with some of the other journalists. Hope you all didn’t get too soaked and got home safely!! X

3/4/08 - Brands Hatch

Well, what can I say? It’s raining. A lot.

The weather’s actually been incredibly indecisive this year, which is strange as this is usually a warm British round. Jamie Whitham was saying earlier that it’s good when it rains, because that’s what the foreigners expect and we wouldn’t want to let them down.

This round is always my favourite, no matter what the weather. It’s close to home so I get to sleep in my own bed, and, despite the early mornings, everybody is always smiling.

This is also the round for some incredibly strange questions to be asked. So far this weekend I have been asked if my chest is real or if I paid for it, and if my friend who I am with is bisexual. But we take it in good humour.

I’m afraid it’s not all fun and games at the races...as I was writing the last bit of that entry Craig Jones, a good friend of ours, crashed his bike and was knocked out cold on track. He was air lifted to hospital and we’re not sure of his state – but that is the only part of this job I don’t like, watching my friends crash.

Because of that I’m going to make this the last bit of the Brands Hatch blog...I will update it another time.

(Editor's note: Jonesy sadly died the morning after his crash. We miss him every day)

20/7/08

Well, so much for this being the quiet round. Fair to say, Brno has developed in the two years that we have been away. Last time we came here all we could find was a strip club and a KFC...but that doesn’t matter now anyway as we have our hospitality loyally feeding us!!
The weather forecast has let us down for this round and instead of the promised rain we have sunshine and unwelcome warmth! I say unwelcome because I have jeans  and boots on – and would like to have a jumper on too...sometimes you just need the comfort of clothes!
Superpole is on right now, and Troy Bayliss has just taken pole from Troy Corser – so I’m hoping that Smrz does his home crowd proud to keep tomorrow’s races interesting. I must admit that I will miss having Troy Bayliss around the paddock next year, I’m just hoping that no more of my friends decide to leave because it’s not the same without them – it was bad enough when Toseland moved up!
It’s very strange actually, because even though I work around them, when people move up to Moto GP from here it’s strange because they all seem so much more distanced. Not just with James, but with Chris Vermeulen as well. I suppose that’s because it’s a whole different form of racing really.
Anyway, back to what’s happening now. Smrz has failed to beat Bayliss so it looks like we have the two Troys taking first and second – unless Biaggi keeps his fastest lap times up. This circuit has three sectors for Superpole. The first one is very long and bendy, whilst the second and third are relatively short, how it works is that riders are timed through these sectors and you can estimate a guess to how fast they are going to go. Biaggi has just secured fourth place on the grid.
Sunday now – and I’m close to desperate to gag my editor and photographer as they are going on about some very crude things and coming up with all sorts of strange euphemisms to do with sausage. Honestly, you don’t want to know.
I’m currently racing for race two to start, so you’re going to get more rambles from me about what I do! At this point I sit and laugh at people’s grid stunts – Josh Brookes always makes me laugh when he’s on the Supersport grid because he does a different stunt every time...today it was gold headphones and a samurai hat. Bless him.
In between race one and race two I try to get some interviews done, and today it was the SBK press officer’s turn...that will be uploaded on the site soon!
Right, so race two is about to start and I probably won’t be writing again until the next round – BRING ON BRANDS HATCH (I love that round it’s my favourite every year).
So, rule Britannia and I shall see you soon!! X

29/6/08

Well, I knew it would be sunny this weekend for Misano, because it never rains on my birthday. Apart from last year in England...and Saturday morning. But that’s not the point.
So, as you probably just gathered, it is now the Sunday of Misano World Superbikes 2008, and it was my birthday yesterday. It was a lovely day, very hot and involved a lot of messing around. Then again, it was the same as any day at the races! I did get a little birthday party thrown for me by the Alto Evolution Honda team, which was very nice of them.
Some of the day was spent mucking about with Josh Brookes, some with the Alto Evolution team and some with MIST Suzuki – so I got lots and lots of work done J naturally.
So the birthday was a good day, and there were no catastrophes finding the hotel or flying out – so I’m not really sure what I can complain about Misano wise! Valentino Rossi has even flown out from a race yesterday to be able to turn up here today! It’s just amazing here...
BUT
There are a few *insert expletive here* people who decided they are going to come into the media centre without a pass and just stand in the way of everything so I can barely see what’s going on and do my job. That did get on my nerves a little. Enough to swear at them in typical English and ask them to move...they only understood the sweeping hand gesture.
I’m writing this as the second SBK race has been red flagged, waiting for it to re-start so that I can get on with my job and then play hard! I must admit, I do miss the Italian way of announcing JT...‘Giacomo Tosserlande’...It’s not my place to dispute that!!
Anyway, so I’m not going to finish off this race and hope for the best that it’s not starting from the beginning again or I may scream...and then I will muck about whilst our editor does the pictures and then pack up until Brno! So until then, arrivederci x

21/5/08

If you read an earlier blog, you will read about me absorbing lots of water at Brands Hatch last year and see a picture of me looking rather wet. Well, revenge is sweet

10/5/08

There’s always a problem with Monza...

Last year when our team came to the Monza round of World Superbikes, the editor and I had our fair share of problems trying to find our way around – we ended up in Milan and when asking where ‘Parco di Monza’ is we got the reply of ‘in Monza’ – and we then almost missed our plane and dented the steering wheel of our rental car with rage.

But that was last year...things have changed since then and we were all geared up for an amazing weekend with no trouble, and everything prevailed for us. NOT.

Firstly, we get to the airport to find that our plane is in Bournemouth when we are at Gatwick. We then wait for the plane to arrive at Gatwick and get ready to board only to hear an announcement that informed us that the cabin crew had finished their hours and therefore a standby crew had to be called and there would be a further delay of two hours.

So two hours later we get on the plane and start flying to Italy, only to find that when we get to Malpensa airport there has been an emergency landing and we have been diverted to Bergamo. We land at Bergamo and are all prepared to leave the plane and somehow return to Malpensa when the pilot then says “we are flying back to Malpensa now as they have opened another runway”. However, some passengers decided that they would actually rather hold up the flight back even more and got off the plane onto the tarmac, refusing to get back on the plane and demanding to have their suitcases taken off with them. After some debate as to whether or not this was possible, some of the more well built men on the flight went to the front of the plane and made threatening faces, which caused most of the passengers to come back on board which allowed the plane to be refuelled and us to fly back to Malpensa.

Sadly this was not the end of our trauma. Having already been delayed from landing at nine we had now landed at Malpensa at two...and to our dismay the car hire place was shut. So we ended up taking a taxi to the hotel, and another one back in the morning to pick up the hire car, only to find that the tom tom was broken and we had to navigate our own way back to the circuit. We finally got to work at around midday...so not the best start to a weekend!

I then spent a great deal of time waiting around for  my pass, then realising that this year I have been given a yellow pit one instead of my normal green track one – but that shouldn’t prove to be a problem as I don’t usually find myself trackside unless I’m grid girling. As I write this on the Saturday I am desperately hoping that nothing else happens to put us off ever coming back to Monza again...well to put us off more than we already are put off, that is.

8/5/08 Well, here we are again!

It’s Monza this weekend and I’m finally getting back into the racing routine. I look forward to seeing everybody but not so much to having to crawl out of bed and revise for my modules on the Monday morning…oh joy.

I am currently writing this and enjoying the sunshine of what is supposed to be a week of heat wave, and if this is global warming then BRING IT ON! It has always been my opinion that this is the best kind of weather to dig out your bikini and sing along very loudly to your favourite songs…or dance around to songs from your favourite musical. Not that I do that. Ahem.

I seem to take after JT in the sense that I’m very much into both the bikes and music – my friends have often called me their own personal jukebox as I am constantly singing along to some form of music and I expect it sometimes gets on our editor’s nerves when I know every song that is played in the car whilst we are driving to the race tracks…I suppose I’m a less irritating version of the girl in that film “Heartbreak Kid” but that’s not necessarily a bad thing!

I spent a considerable amount of my last summer at SBK avoiding water fights, and the one time I failed to do so was at Brands Hatch when team MIST Suzuki’s rider Matt Bond and the team boss Mike Edwards decided to gang up on me with their two litre bottles against my fifty millilitre bottle. Fair to say that I lost. But luckily it was the next day I was doing my photo shoot so I had time to steal a jumper and dry off!

And I now leave you with this note: go on amazon.co.uk and type in “Track Days for Virgins” and order the book! It’s a worth while read and is written by our editor, so I can guarantee that it will help you with your trackday needs as he does tend to know what he’s talking about!

Take care xx

27/4/08

Hi Everybody! (Yeah, you may reply with “Hi Dr Nick” if you wish!)

So yeah, welcome to my blog! It’s here that you’ll be able to read about the up and down sides of being a journalist, the relationships I build up with the people I work with and the little jokes that get thrown around.

You haven’t heard from me since the end of last season, as I haven’t been at any rounds yet to do the write ups, but I promise that I’ll be around more often now…and as there’s nothing to write about my experiences from this season yet I will fill you in on what mischief I’ve been getting up to since the Superbikes final at Magny Cours in 2007.

Right, so let’s start where it all kicked off – the after party. There were three girls in the team at Magny Cours, so by the time we’d all got ready and come back to the track the party was well underway and everybody was well and truly drunk. Especially James. Then again, you can’t blame him – he had just won his second championship at the still young age of 27, and it was his birthday weekend.

Sadly I didn’t manage to join in the drunken celebrations, it wouldn’t have been fair on our editor to have to drive a car of drunken people back to the hotel, and there was no alcohol left. (Wonder which one of these had the most bearing on her choice... - Ed) I ended up watching James and his best friend Matt skipping Morecombe and Wise style and being slightly confused as to if I was seeing things or not.

So party ended and it took a long time to say bye to JT, not because there was a queue, but because he was in a very emotional state and was being very nice and cuddly and thanking me a lot, although I’m still not sure what for. We were going back to the car when we saw (No names, no lawsuits - Ed) looking very out of it and leant against a pit truck, so we ended up taking him back to his hotel whilst he dived on the three girls in the back of the car so that he could fit in, which I think he might have enjoyed but we didn’t enjoy it as much!

Next day we had a relaxed breakfast and drove back to the land of Billy S and red buses, but I wasn’t dismayed as the weekend after we were going to be partying hard once again, but this time at Butlins for the weekend.

The week went by quickly and soon I was on my way up to Skegness to watch Toseland’s band ‘CRASH’ do their thing, once again. I have been so many times that I could recite the play list, and they know it! This weekend was a lot like the Magny Cours party, in the sense of me watching James and his friends get completely wasted and laugh at the absurd things they did – but luckily the alcohol hadn’t run out there!

On the Saturday we had to come to the huge bar known as ‘Reds’ in fancy dress. It being my good friend Shanna’s birthday weekend the girls all went down wearing tiaras, but I added a cowboy hat as another group of friends were coming as cowgirls. I was quite lucky to have two things, as there were a load of weird men dressed as Buzz Lightyear, and one of them cheekily borrowed my hat for the night. Well OK, when I say weird men I mean Toseland’s bunch from Sheffield, and it was James who borrowed the hat whilst I ended up recovering all of their wings as they fell off during the night. It was a good night out though, and it was nice to be in a crowd that were used to hanging around with a top racer so that they weren’t in awe and I found myself joining in with affectionately making little pokes of fun in JT’s direction. Safe to say that for most of us the next day was spent recovering. For James, however, he had to be at Brands Hatch by nine the next morning and got flown there by helicopter. Well, the illness was self inflicted so none of us did feel that sorry for him!!

That was sadly the end of my 2007 nights out or racing weekends with people whom you are likely to know of, and it wasn’t until the sixth of January 2008 I saw my friends from the paddock again. Shanna (again) had arranged a very good gig with the money going to the Chris Jones Riders Fund, and CRASH were going to be the live band.

James was back in training so there were some nice sober conversations as we were driving back that night, and I will once again congratulate Shanna for making the night one to remember.

Then there was the JT send off in February, I didn’t get to talk to the man himself when I went, but it was another good night with some good music from CRASH.

The day after was when the Superbike season re-started and the weekend after was the first GP round…and by Monza you will be hearing from me through race reports as I will be properly back at work!

Hope you all had an amazing break and that Christmas was spent how it should be, stuffing your faces and then feeling sick! Happy New Year to you all...

Lots of Love,

Laura xxx