Personally I like to feel that when I switch on my TV to watch some motorbike action I will be transported from my dingy smoke filled room to some famous location to which motorsport aficionados have been flocking to for hundreds of years. If Tony Robinson and his hairy mates were to 'Time Team' at such a place with a JCB and some basic gardening kit they would strike archaeological gold within minutes of the 24 hours allocated before they had to fill the hole in again. They would typically find part of Rudolf Caracciola's earflap and the contents of Geoff Duke's wallet, or maybe a pair of Mike Duff's Y fronts, sensational evidence of the rich overlapping seams of history. From what I can see if they were to try the same thing at Louzyring, home to the latest World Superbike outing it could be curtains or maybe at best 'another cactus head sharing the neck of your woolly jumper' form of contamination.
Louzyring looks to be a US style tri-oval with infield wiggly bits for bikes cynically placed on this remote scarred and poisoned east European landscape, no doubt bankrolled by the CIA, to showcase the bright future on offer to the awestruck locals as Uncle Sam's mates rather than one of his ICBM targets. A bit like Rockingham, which I feel should still be on the missile list.
Of course what we're concerned about is how this lack of soul affects our sofa action, and how Witt and Barnacle will react. The broadcast images we're getting are all grey tarmac backed by huge flat signs with sponsors names writ large. Very occasionally we catch sight of an armed track guard chewing on a pig's trotter with fries. The gravel traps pulse and leak purple smoke. There are no trees here.
The boys are so high up in their tethered commentary pod that whole weather fronts pass between them and the track, and when they catch site of where they live in the far distance (it's only 750 miles to the Wirral) they get a bit misty eyed and go a bit quiet. From up here everything can be seen with a new objectivity. That's why all those astronauts got religion. Captain Jack and Jimmy Witt gaze down at the frantic antics of the racers below. "Ohhh!" they groan sympathetically as one falls off, and let out two sharp intakes of breath as another front lets go. Synchronised heavy breathing as commentary, is it legal?
It would be easier if the corners had names rather than compass bearings but here 'Turn Three' is confusingly the last corner of 14 or so because it's the third corner on the tri-oval but everyone's calling it the awkward one. Awkward Corner, most tracks have one of those but what this track has are giant bumps which the locals reserve the names for, using them to navigate in the hugely popular T-34 and KV-2 Over Heavy class Tank racing on Monday nights. (Soon to be shown on Sky Sports 94, featuring Hue When.)
These demolition derby's haven't done much for the ideal racing line which changes from day to day as the whole landscape settles uneasily on strata of industrial pollutants continually reacting and digesting below. No wonder Pirelli can never come up with a decent race tyre for this place where the track temperature can vary between absolute zero and an alarming 4,000 degrees in the warm up. It's why the locals wear asbestos clogs.
Naturally this state of affairs was to make Ballistic and Haggis the stars of the day. Both think tyres an irrelevance, though Nori can't say it, and as everybody knows Nori Haggis was the kilted Pacific Rim Champion Lava Surfer (how hard is that?) in 1972 before turning to bikes; and Troy spent his formative years tapping rubber and smelting aluminium while befriending funnel web spiders in the extreme climate of Australian outback, ideal preparations for choosing wheel-rim rather than rubber compounds and getting the best bike set from his team managed by Davido Toostropzi.
Meanwhile Witt has clambered out of the commentary pod and cut the cable. As the pod floats off towards the Ukraine and beyond Jack and Jimmy's whimpering and snorting will soon be interrupted by an advertising break and a return to Tony and his studio guests. Change the channel Ray...
