Things to do at Phillip Island

A few suggestions for next year...

- find a company who will:

a. fly you and a mate to Melb,
b. supply hire car *and* very nice accom on the water for 4 days on the
Island (Ventnor)
c. cover all costs for food & grog
d. pay a decent fee for your trouble

- get all the passes you ever wanted, including the Honda club stand and a
Paddock pass etc.
- hang with one of the MotoGP teams and have unlimited access to their pit
- enjoy an all expenses paid flight around the track during a MotoGP
qualifying session (in a chopper with door off for your photography of
course)
- spend 4 hours with 2 pit chicks wandering around aimlessly
- have a long chat with Peter Goddard (bloody great guy)
- be chauffered back to your car in a golf cart by Peter Goddard (bloody top
driver... hehe)
- chauffer Petter Goddard to his Channel 10 dinner (yes, I'm a bloody top
driver too...)
- be offered a ride around Winton with a Honda team rider
- hang and chat with Crusty and Brooksie about shit
- hang and chat with Brooksie about 'that' team stunt on Sun morning with
Crusty
- nail a decent shot of the Channel 10 chick (Linda Csortan) on the 2-seater
Duc with Mamola at 200+ on the back wheel
- show above shot to Linda and be offered a fair payment for it (I'm too
polite to go into detail)
- return home and brag to aus.moto like a dickhead

So a pretty good first time at the Island - wouldn't you agree Eck? Hehe.
Next year we'll ride down though - gold automatic rental Camrys just don't
cut it when you're surrounded by a gazillion riders having a good time and
your own beast is back at home alone.

Still smiling like a fool,
Dave ZZR600 => ST2 (stolen) => '03 XX
...this one's for you Alx. Call me a 'prick'.. why you little.....
One of the above could be considered an interpretation

 

Naturally I've inserted a name change here on the grounds that I may
inseminate myself.

Dave

 

Yep I got a good deal for the weekend working with a great team working out
of the GP Expo costing me very little and still had time to see the races as
well, want a hint? get off your butt and volunteer as a Marshal or be part
of the Team Medical or get a job with the sellers.
Lushy

 

Why is it that people always suggest that volunteering as a marshall is
great, yet there are so few marshals required, and they never seem to
have enough volunteers? It mustn't be that great. And why do they pay
the security staff, the staff at the gates.. etc etc etc yet not the
marshals? That's a fucked up system.
If they have enough money to pay the rest, they have enough money to pay
everyone.

Nev..
'03 ZX12R

 

**** off!
Clem
(No; I REALLY mean it!)

 

Yes, a lucky start. My stars must have been lined up and I was approached
to photograph for one of the teams. Other than not actually being able to
see much of the racing itself, getting to chew the fat with all types from
ex superbike champs, to current racers, team managers, pit crew etc. was
pretty cool. The MotoGP guys are pretty much prima donnas but they have
fairly heavy jobs to do so to be expected I guess.

A highlight was being able to hang out with Peter Goddard - a bloody great
guy and we got to chat for some time about everything from changes in racing
since he rode, to his recreational riding and perhaps even the possibility
of joining him and a few others on the odd spin (sheeeeeet - hope he likes
w-a-i-t-i-n-g).

As for the pit girls, we got them dressed in the team gear (not much of it I
have to say) and walked them with umbrellas up through the crowd. Fairly
obvious mistake - poor girls were quickly intimidated and had the odd
'interaction' with the odd pissed bastard that we hadn't bargained for.
Needless to say the walk didn't last long and we headed back to safety.
Sadly once the $$ stopped flowing in their direction, they buggered off and
so nothing to show at this end (so to speak).

Hope I can squeeeeeze a ton of camera gear onto the bike next year.

Cheers,
Dave

 

OK I deserved that.

Not good to hear about your off. Now I have guilt. Hope you guys repair
quickly.

Cheers,
Dave E

 

Shit you weren't supposed to feel THAT guilty!!
Clem

 

Nev.. wrote:

It isn't that great sometimes.

To add insult to injury, race organisers and officials of the sport,
also keep rabbitting on about how the volunteering marchals should be
"more professional".

regards,
CrazyCam

 

For me, being stuck in a muddy car park all day, trying to organise
thousands of carloads of often pissed idiots in/out of the place for no $$
reward sounds like a pretty damned ordinary way to spend your time at PI.
Some of those volunteers were there for the whole 4 days working their asses
off in the carpark - full credit to them. The same for the crowd
controlling volunteers. They seemed reasonably professional to me,
especially given the obvious lack of leadership at times.

Cheers,
Dave E

 

Dave E wrote:

No hope, You're going to need an assistant/porter.

Moike

Me! Me! I thought of it first!

 

Straight into the notebook that.

Bring your earplugs - those bloody MotoGP bikes are faaaarking loud,
especially when you're standing about 1m behind one in the pit when the
buggers throttle up. Felt about 10 times louder than that FA-18 passing.
Have to admit to getting a bit of a pit fat though... (yikes)

Cheers,
Dave E

 

Dave said....

There was one chap who was giving "directions" at the intersection of
the road that goes to the tunnel and the Expo tent. He ended up copping
an earful of "boos" from a rather vocal crowd waiting to cross the road
to the Honda/Yamaha tents.

And some of the Chubb fellows needto be trained how to use initiative.

We were waiting about an hour for the Cowes shuttle bus to return. About
200 people were behind us. Then two buses arrived at the same time.
While the first 50 or so people started getting on the first bus, the
lot behind us tried to board the second bus. This Chubb fellow decided
that this wasn't a good idea and made them step back behind the barriers
and to wait til the first bus was filled and back out on the road.

I s'pose that the idea of filling two buses simultaneously and getting
them onto the road quicker was probably too smart an idea. Particularly
when the waiting people were starting to get really annoyed that there
appeared to be only 3 buses servicing the race crowd...

When we started to head to the gates, around 4ish, after the podium, we
saw that the queues were really building up. So we decided to wait and
watched the Chinese F1 GP on the big screen just north of the Expo, and
had a few beers. Around 5.30pm we made our way to the gate. There was
still a fair sized queue. But there were a few buses lined up. It was
not until we were in the queue that we realised that we'd be waiting a
while.

We got back to the house around 7pm.

 

You?! But you named me!!