THE BISH OSCARS
Right-o, you clowns. This month I have come up with a highly original, simply unique, one-of-a-kind, best-ever idea for Race Face that will have you writing to academics around the world and forwarding my name for nominations for literature prizes.
I’m running with — wait for it — awards of the month. Yep, if during the month of April you did something out of the ordinary, something that sets you apart from the pack, you’re going to find yourself here. Read on, dog lips!
FIZZER OF THE MONTH
The AMA Supercross. What the hell happened? After round six it was a five-way battle with a mosquito turd separating them and then by round eight the red-haired kid with the funny last name that gets pronounced 200 different ways has won the whole darn thing with 27 rounds to spare and has hit the bar in celebration. Dungey snapped a bone like it was a twig, and Reed face-planted his bike, head and knee as he lawn-darted himself into the turf. James doesn’t race main events — just heat races while Windham then decided to scrub his CRF into a jump face.
It was shaping up to be one for the ages — now it’s like RV is just wasting fuel on his way to collect cheques. The races now look like they are scripted by World Wrestling Federation Entertainment. RV gets a crap start, fights his way through the pack and bursts clear at the end and our hero collects the trophy. Can he at least grope the Monster girl and announce “booze and strippers in my room tonight!” while on the podium?
BRAIN EXPLOSION OF THE MONTH
DK just kept it pegged. Darryl King is one tough unit. He fights and charges and never gives up all the way to the finish line in each and every race. Sometimes he goes beyond that and charges all the way past the finish line and then wipes out a couple of innocent bystanders and has bikes and bodies in a tangled mess.
Yep, as the field crossed the finish line for the opening moto of the MX1 class at the MX Nats, the competitors rolled slowly off the finish jump and prepared to return to the start line for the next moto. But not DK. He hit that final jump in a combination of Robbie Madison on New Year’s Eve mounted on “The World’s Fastest Indian”. He flew like a downhill ski jumper. He landed as gracefully as a synchronised swimmer and then ploughed the crap out of Jay Marmont before ricocheting into Daniel Reardon. Marmont went instantly to surgery to have a front brake lever, half a ProTaper and a throttle tube removed from his butt. Yes, it was one of the strangest things seen at a race track.
DK knocked himself out and still thinks there are five laps left to run and wants to know why he can see fireworks during the day. He will be good to go by round two — just give him a run-off shoot longer than Victor Bray’s funny car and everything will be sweet. And a parachute to help wash off the speed. Maybe a sand trap and some netting? Can anyone slow this man down? Please?
THAT’S NOT A JUMP AWARD
The Conondale track needs some jumps otherwise it is just a dirty old cow paddock. So the guys jumped in their tractors and knocked up a few piles of dirt. Using the famous Drunks 1 take off, the boys shaped a landing ramp down the track to give the spectators something to look at. That landing ramp was close to 50 metres down the track. 50 metres! That’s further than most people can swim. Heck, that’s further than most people can run!
Finally, some sanity prevailed on the size of the gap so the tractor guys played with the dirt some more and knocked it back to a far easier and much more respectable 47 metres. 47 metres! That’s huge. But I have to say, when Lawson Bopping launched the crazy gap and then fist pumped the sky (literally), the entire “Drunks’ Hill” did it with him. It was an awesome jump and it went crazy on YouTube with a squillion views, but the gravity-defining fun ended in practice. Let’s put that thing at 35 metres and you will have a great jump that the good guys will do, the average guys wont and it will still be spectacular.
FLOGGING A DEAD HORSE AWARD
The two-stroke rival. I love a good two-stroke. I’m from the pre-mix generation and that covers both my fuel and alcohol. If I was on a deserted island and had three wishes, they would be food, drink and a YZ250 — that’s how “two-stroke” I am. But every other day somewhere in cyberland a story, a thread or a forum debate pops up about the rebirth of two-strokes and how they are about to regain control.
With three out of the big five manufacturers not even making them, another just banging them off to clean up the old-parts bins, the chances of a two-stroke revival in the short-term are about the same as Wilma and Fred walking Dino down your street. One two-stroke hittin’ band in the bush doesn’t count for a revival. It’s just some loud kid on a motorbike that needs to buy a silencer. Tell me when you see Honda make a new CR125, then I will get on the two-stroke-revival bandwagon.
Stand by next month when divulge the secrets to the universe and right the evils of the world. I will go through and correct all spelling mistakes on Facebook, start a two-stroke resurgence, explain how Twitter is solving all the worlds’ problems and unveil my new formula for track-watering that doesn’t get bikes dirty. All in a day’s work here on Planet Race Face!
