[ Written for the NHCA Hill Climber magazine, as penance for causing the first red flag at Wiscombe]
With the season being canned before it even started - my Hartland entry form is still sitting upstairs unposted - I'd written off 2020 completely. But if I'm writing this, then I must have binned it at Wiscombe and had to write something for Reg as penance. That's fine by me, because if my days-since-last-crash counter is back at zero, that means I got to ride at all, which is great, and I was pushing hard enough to make a mistake, which is even better. As it says on a thousand tshirts: If you're not crashing, you're not trying hard enough, right?
Anyway, Wiscombe. I'd already had a play at Shelsley (thanks to the powers-that-be for that one) so wasn't starting completely cold, but thanks to the Bat Flu it's been over a year since we were last at Wiscombe and the hill was greener than I was. Holed up in the socially-distanced top paddock for a change, we all got a chance to check out the hill on the way down before ragging it back up. And just as well we did, as every run brought something new. First moss. Then rain. Then a car dumped a gearbox full of oil on pretty much the entire racing line, which must have miffed the sidecar crews a little bit because I thought that was their job. But everyone made it to the top one way or another, nobody got hurt, and we got to do it all again the very next day.
So why am I writing this? I lost the back on two runs trying to tap the power on at Martini, and one of them ended with a little pirouette, and me on my backside trying to keep my helmet off the round. Makes a change for me to bin it at a final corner, as I usually do it at the first. Crashed my bicycle after dropping the van off too - lost the front in the rain that time. Nice to mix things up a bit, but at this rate I'd best get a head start writing another article for Reg.
I won't even pretend to know who got FTD. None of it really matters very much, because there's no points, no championship, and I guess we're all doing it just for fun. My times were nothing to shout about and I doubt anyone broke any records, but Simon Wilson had brought his CRF along and we have a nice little grudge match going on between the two of us in the absence of a proper championship. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the weekend at least as much as I did, and more than the usual thanks to everyone involved in organising - it must be a right pain at the moment, especially with Covid precautions in place, and it's hugely appreciated. Without you guys, I wouldn't get to fall off and write about it.