Prologue Day; Combined age of rider +bike = 115 years
Headed out to the racetrack around 8:30 this morning. Rider sign on was at 10:30. We went out to the track in separate cars to Chris and Graeme and arrived not too far apart to grab a car park near each other. We left the bike on the car and went up to have a look around to see what was happening and to turn up for rider’s briefing at 10:30. It was running a little late as it always is. There’s always incidents on the prologue track with the cars and buggies beforehand that delay proceedings. It was quite a good rider briefing. There were hundreds of people there and then we had to go back to the car and get Roy kitted up ready for prologue. Then get the bike off the car ready to go up for the race. As he’s in the old bugger’s class, he would be heading off fairly close to the front and even with the half hour delay due to the car incident, due to head off at about 10 past one.
I walked over to the prologue start line with Roy while Chris and Graeme went up and found themselves a good spot to watch at the track. Once Roy was in place, I hightailed it up to the track opposite the big screen to get a good view. I had the big lens on the camera. I was hoping to get some good shots. At that place I was high enough to be able to photograph over the top of the fence and was lucky enough to be able to squeeze into a spot on the stand which is higher again. I took a few practice shots of riders going round with the big lens and the new camera body which were all a bit fuzzy and disastrous. However, I got used to it, got the hang of it after awhile and I think the later riders were also going a bit more slowly too- which helped. Finally, I spotted Roy coming round and was lucky to get a number of good shots. Then we all raced back to the car to help him out of his kit and get the bike back on the car then head back to the cabin to prep the bike for the main race tomorrow. Change the oil whatever needed to be done and pack things up ready to head down to Finke tomorrow after we’ve dropped Roy off at the track for race day one. There was quite a bit of packing to do and prepping the bike. For dinner, Chris cooked bangers and mash which was delicious and we had ice cream and chocolate slice for dessert which was a special treat.