A bloke said to me once, ‘If something bad’s happened, will you laugh about it in fifteen years? You will? Well fucking laugh now, then’. Words of wisdom, really.
That’s all well and good but my Triumph/Goodwood incident went beyond even that advice. Just thinking about it now gives me acid in my stomach, it were that embarrassing and it wasn’t just the accident and what I did to the bike but more who I did it in front of.
I was doing the Goodwood Festival of Speed hillclimb on the TT-winning Triumph Daytona. I’d done the tricky bits and as I went under the inflatable finish arch thing at the top of the hill where the road kinks a bit, I thought it would be a good idea to do a fourth gear, stood-on-the-pegs 70mph wheelie.
It wasn’t until I started to put it down again that I realised I was on a certain collision course with the stone wall and gate post at the entrance to the paddock where about 28 World Champions are all having a nice little chat and a cup of tea. I thought, ‘this isn’t goin too good, this’.
I locked the front wheel as soon as it touched the floor and sort of managed to jump to one side as the bike hit the gate post and smashed into a million bits. I rag-dolled my way into the paddock, arms and legs everywhere.
When I stopped there were loads of people peering over me. Mick Grant was the first there and I think he was a bit concerned as there was a bit of claret everywhere because I’d snapped a couple of teeth and broken my nose. He was saying “Don’t move, don’t move until the medics get here,” and all that sort of stuff.
But behind Mick was another face peering down at me on the floor. It was Giacomo Agostini and I’ll never forget the expression on his face, a sort of ‘what has this wanker gone and done? He’s ruined our afternoon.’ The shame of it.
It wasn’t just Ago who witnessed my mistake, either. The paddock at the top of the hill was full of all my childhood heroes and the sort of names that had filled my autograph book as a kid. Luigi Taveri, Roger Marshall, Kevin Schwantz, Boet van Dulman, Mick Doohan, etc, etc.
Andrea picked me up from hospital – she was really pissed off because she’d bought a new frock and stuff for the big bash the night of the hillclimb. There’s no way I was going to that.
In the car on the way home I got on the phone straight away to Jack Valentine and I asked if he had any Triumph bits left. He didn’t say anything he just started laughing. I thought I was going to be responsible for a laughter-induced heart attack. He was just guffawing down the phone when I told him what I’d done.
Triumph were really good about it. They sorted me out loads of bits like a new chassis. It cost me about five grand to put right but it just had to be done. I can handle people saying I’m an idiot but my conscience is clear because I paid to fix it and get it back in the National Motorcycle Museum and didn’t just walk away from the whole mess.
Most things I’ve done with the mag have been good – even the one’s that have started shit have actually turned out to be really good... We had a trip to Colditz and it was mega – but it started crap.
We did 850 miles in one day in the pissing rain. Room full of stinking wet gear, drying gloves out on hand driers in service stations, all the usual stuff. We got to Chemnitz and the next day we rode to Colditz. I’m on a big old BMW K1200S. On the motorway a six-inch building block fell off the back of a truck and I hit it. It absolutely rooted both wheels and punctured both tyres. I was dead lucky. All luck, no management.
We had Wozza with us and he can be really sensible and articulate but then he can do the daftest things that seem really out of character.
You have to respect the speed limits where there are speed limits in Germany and we didn’t. The motorway came into a village and we were just banging on, flat stick. Unbeknown to us, the police had got this rolling road block out for us. We thought it was a traffic jam and were just indulging in a bit of a bit extreme filtering. It only dawned on us when we caught up with the two cop cars at the front. Oh bollocks. It became apparent it was all for us.
This big stop sign flashed on the back of his car and he pulled us into the rest area. Wozza followed him in then cut across the grass and back onto the motorway. The cops went ballistic with us. We denied we knew him.
We stopped at some services later and found Wozza skulking around behind a skip where he’d hidden his bike. We were quite cross with him really. It could have been much worse.
