Beep, beep, beep. Beep, beep, beep chirruped the alarm dragging me from fitful slumber to board the Red Eye Express. Forget no sleep ‘till Hammersmith (for those old enough to remember). True Motorheads and petrol burners have re-united and will not sleep ‘till Sunday night. Beep, beep, beep, heralded the new dawn. Last call for the 68th Bol D’ Or, tomorrow. Magny-Cours France. 11th -12th September 2004.

Before embarking on this latest jaunt I read a few articles and features from various magazine titles over a number of random years. (you could call it research or a desperate hunt for wisdom, truth and inspiration). With a desire to record the event for posterity. Like the men before me I want to put you there. Looking through my eyes. I’m not trained in the art, but all the articles I had read were from a riders point of view. This little piece I hope will Encourage and enthuse about the whole event. The determination, the organisation, the fatigue and hopefully any glory we can glean but from a slightly different angle.

The job of keeping the whole team operating as one to support the real life heroes. The three guy’s hurtling around the 2km plus long circuit at seemingly impossible and infeasible speeds for A WHOLE DAY. Takes months of planning and preparing . Twenty people all told are involved in the weekends racing.

My role had been to deal with most of the paperwork before the event. Entry forms, riders profiles, payments, insurance and authorizations, letters, snowstorms of e-mails, booking accommodation etc etc. But at the circuit I was to share the bulk of the time keeping duties. I had spent approx 16 hours in total at Le Mans in April, and it sends you slightly crazy. After a whole night of watching bright lights approach at high speed, burning retina flashed eyes get kinda sore and your brain complains and tries to shut you down, It’s a struggle, its not a one man job.

My fellow Warriors on the edge of time in this particular chapter of Team Alf’s Endurance Racing were to be Moto Legendary Rupert and Anne, and Dawn, A biker, a TT enthusiast, and as it turned out a friend of the late great Ronnie Smith who had ridden for us in 2002 at Le Mans and Magny-Cours in 2002. As well as girlfriend of our third rider drafted in at a late stage Juan Kinnish. A proud and fast Manxman who will be referred to throughout this piece as ‘Spanish’ (see ‘shit to do’ pic in our gallery). Tango our top fueller got bored of pronouncing it in the Manx idiom so settled on ‘Spanish’, Tango has a name for everyone, is very laconic, full of Mancunian wit and pumps a mean few litres of fuel.

The job feels to big, and my stomach is already in knots. I’m writing this bit in the co-pilots seat of the Red Shark, in the dark as Trace steers us through the gloom toward Newhaven and our first obstacle. The English Channel. We’ve only been up an hour. God I’m Tired.

Midday running on French time we disembarked at Dieppe. It was a beautiful day as we headed south to Rouen, then onto Paris to wrestle with the prospect of the Periphique hopefully to emerge on the south side on the N7 which would take us directly to the town of Nevers home for the night and then to Magny-Cours circuit approximately 10kmh further south.

We Are the last two of the team to arrive. The fully loaded vans had been driven down on Monday by Alf and Phil, with the riders including reserve Andy Notman who was to get an outing and help the team set the bike up. His girlfriend Lynne and Darren, who was christened ‘Muscles’ because of his diminutive frame. The Isle of Man contingent of John Barton, Rupert and Anne, ‘Spanish’ and Dawn.

Tango had also been there most of the week with pal Dave drafted in to help out. Our Chef for the week was Alan (dubbed ‘Raver’ by his Tangoness) with girlfriend Liz a qualified medical massage girlie, very necessary to help relax the riders and smooth away some of the muscle strains, aches etc to keep them as limber and fit as possible for the next session of high speed mayhem. All the riders strap up their hands and toes with medical cushion pads to try and prevent blisters from their thousands of gear changes and braking operations. Its all about slowing the rate of attrition. On the bike, on the eyes, on the body, on the creeping desire to sleep, whilst maintaining steady, consistent and fast lap times.

We arrived at the circuit. I managed to wave my arms about and gesticulate to various individuals in the way the French just love about us English, finally collected our tickets, and vehicle pass, negotiating the swarming bouillabaisse of French bikery. All gaudy jackets, hi level pipes and protesting rev limiters and then back to the Hotel for several large and cold beers

This event is definitely a party for most of the crowds rolling in on the arteries of La France, but since the moving of the event from Circuit Paul Ricard the party had paled in the bright lights and oil burning barrages produced by the wild Northerners every year at Le Mans. That is truly a hellish and wild scene sometimes but I heartily recommend a visit. Its such an experience. Not for the meek among you but for true Motorheads, petrol burners, rev heads, Luddites and beer monsters You’ll probably think. ‘Kin hell, why can’t we have one of these events back home?’ But until they do (and don’t hold your breath). Endurance racing in France is where it’s at !

We (Trace and I) resolved to check in and join in the spirit of Quaffagerie and glugging, which we duly did sinking half a gallon of very tasty pression and then devoured bloody flaps of steak before heading back to the pub (en route back to the hotel and a worthy place for a nightcap). We had been awake a mere 19 hours and looking forward to a kip. Lured by the sight of Tango holding court in the hotel bar with Dave and Phil we swiftly added another apiece to our tally and staggered off to bed at about 2.00. 21 hours awake. Stop the clock.

6.00am 11th September. Can’t sleep much, so I decide to get up an hour early, gobble some pills to alleviate the thick headedness of the previous waking hours, shower and prepare the bat belt of necessary tools for this days trade. Race day morning. Bluing sky and fluffy clouds did their best to dismiss the rumours of heavy rain in the afternoon. Nicely timed for the early stages of the race.

We meet up with ‘Mickman’, who does the formal introductions, as we hadn’t yet met in person, Dawn, ‘Spanish’, or Andy’s Girlfriend Lynne, and ‘Muscles’ and later ‘Barty’.

We meet up with ‘Mickman’, who does the formal introductions, as we hadn’t yet met in person, Dawn, ‘Spanish’, or Andy’s Girlfriend Lynne, and ‘Muscles’ and later ‘Barty’.

Practise was at ten o clock. ‘Mickman’ and ‘Barty’ were happy with their previous practise. ‘Spanish’ had not raced a 24 hour event or ridden a ZX10 before Thursday, or ridden at Magny-Cours, so he went out to practise. What a baptism of fire for the Manxman who only started racing in 2000, but what an honour and buzz. His mates down the pub are going to be bloody envious when he returns with huge tales of Derring-Do. The three guys had qualified 43rd on the grid out of a field of 65 all within a 1min49 -150.5 lap. Top speed 143 kmh. Perfect, all the riders were on a par, which means the bike is pretty much set up for a dry start at least.

I asked the riders what went through their minds. Naturally it was going to be focussed attention on the job at hand. Mick who sneaked the fastest night practise time of the three said the circuit is very technical and not an ‘enjoyable’ circuit to ride. It was hard work on the arms. With three huge breaking areas and three fast chicanes. ( next to Mick’s thoughts I’ve written in my notes ‘Flick the bitch’ and ‘brake when you see God’ phrases attributed to the great Texan himself. The almighty Kevin Schwantz. He summed up for me the whole racing ‘thing’ riding the bollox of the GP Suzuki 500 in the early nineties).

In the stifling heat thus far whilst practicing it had been a testing time, with the suspension fine tuning, and gearing. The Mighty Zedex is indeed a puissant beast, but its diminutive size means that it does tend to shake its head when powered out of bends and on the long straights a weave becomes apparent at very high speed. Andy Notman had worked with the riders and Alf to iron out any creases and they were happy with their mount. It is indeed a superb looking beast in its green livery.

Looking very hungry and powerful even at standstill. Andy, ‘Spanish’ and ‘Barty’ pretty much echoed Mick’s thoughts. ‘Barty’ ventured the phrase ,tight and nadgery,, all stop and go with no flow

Midday 11th September. Its now race afternoon. The grandstand crowds lining the main straight are entertained by a gaggle of stunt riders noisily letting their hair down and the crowds were whooping it up, Kevin Carmichael wheelied a Rocket III and monocycled his Speed Triple, ramps were set up for a troupe of stunt riders to ‘large it’ over, and a stunt plane tore up the air above us in pitlane. The sun is shining !

The ‘Raver’s café was doing steady business, everybody was loading up on liquids and good cooked food before the race started. ‘Raver’ would be busy during the race preparing snax and supplies for the whole team to keep them going. I did not envy him the task, but he walked it in magnificent style, great food pretty much on tap. Large thanx due Al already.

Big things are expected of the Moto Revue team, this time choosing a Gixer Thousand over their Aprilia Mille at Le Mans, with as already mentioned Kevin Schwantz on board for a guest ride. GMT 94, were always up there hounding the two works Suzuki teams, with the Fuchs Kawasaki looking to figure well at three pm the following day.

We wanted to finish, no mean feat in itself. I sneakingly thought we might have a top ten in us. Its so nerve wracking. 24 hours is a hellava long time in motorcycle racing terms. Time to mix it with the big boys. The French are passionate about their endurance racing, and the majority of the field are French. Along with Phase One Junior team, we were the only other British team (but with British riders) out there keeping the flag of Fair Albion flying.

Its serious stuff and time has accelerated to 2.30pm. Time to ascend the glass eyrie, the crystal cube, more like the Perspex prison perched on pit wall precipice, armed with spex, pens, timing sheets, telly remote, note pad, Dictaphone, video camera and digi camera. Warm up flew past, Dawn Joined me for the first stint of three sessions, practice lap and start, it was over and underway in a hurly burly of coloured leather and flashing lids, the tannoy shrieking, the
crowd’s going banana’s with air horns, engines bursting into life join in the cacophony and are fired off the line. The number two’s hopping over pit wall to clear the track for the end of the first lap.

3.02pm spot ‘Spanish’ as he hurtles past and start the timing process off. The telly is the official back up and shows the race class table and lap by lap times. ‘Spanish’ is easy to spot with his yellow and black leathers. At 3.20pm a ZX10 limps into garage 34. No 44. Village Moto’s Gixer 1000& 52 come in at 3.32pm, with 52 The Motopol Fireblade going into the garage, not a good sign for them In the very early stages. The R1 of Team Freebike whines past our eyrie at 3.35pm with Team 141 in the garage at 15.37pm. Number 44 the yellow Gixer of Village Moto is back in again at 15.40pm. Team Challon Number 33 pit, close to our garage Two Brits ride for them including Russell Baker, who had been out with us at Zhuhai in China Spanking the Zedex around.
‘Spanish’ pits around the three quarter hour mark, Tango does his stuff and Mick is underway.

16.06pm the first bike is pushed in. It looks like the Moto Revue bike after 33 laps, Had the demi god Schwantx binned it?

We are lying 28th after one and a quarter hours.
‘Mickman’ pits at 16.40. He was due thirty laps, but by the time he arrived the bikes low fuel light had been on after lap 27 it turned out. It was a relieved Mick who handed over to ‘Barty’ More calculations for Tango.

No 61 the Normand ’urance GSXR1000 limps in at 16.58pm carrying his own bellypan. No 37 Team Deletang fires out the pits nearly taking a dumb looking Marshall with him. 17.05pm The sky is greying, and the temperature is dropping, the sky darkens more and more until the first drops of rain end their descent and splash heavily on our thin roof.


‘Barty’ has to come in for wets. Its really pissing it down now and the Safety Car is out at 17.12pm Barty splashes round on a 3 min 10 lap, virtually underwater on dry settings. The lap times plunged with the depth of standing water on the track. The rain was ferocious, I’m damp but the really wet bloke was trimming his 3 min lap back to the 2.20’s as the wets started to inspire his confidence and the rain abated a little.

With the onslaught of the rain, ‘Barty’ was slowing down and not being so vicious with the throttle hand, Tango signalled to keep him out for an extra three laps. It was The Moto Revue bike I had seen earlier, they had spent a lot of time in the garage and had rejoined 16 laps down on the leader, who was the Fuchs Kawasaki No 11, sneaking it over the No 1 Suzuki. We seem to be stuck in 30th position. 17.15pm Our timing session is over, Dawn and I hand over the reins to Rupert and Anne. Its still pissing down mightily. Back to Raver Café for Tea and victuals. Damp clothing, is already hanging up all over the place. 17.52pm The track looks like black glass, slippery obsidian, fine spray in abundance. Conditions could only worsen if it snowed, We are 17th at 20.52pm. The weather had stripped the field somewhat. ‘Barty’ ripped past having completed 152 laps, 13 laps down already on the heavy works Kawasaki and the two Suzuki’s in 2nd and 3rd . I smoke, I loiter, I’m grateful for the respite, but feel at a bit of a loose end, now that I have nothing to do. I resolve to scribble some fantastic sounding words together for this piece. I can’t think straight
though. The creative wind isn’t blowing. Why do I feel so tired already.

Only fourteen hours in, not just for me but for everyone. I smoke more roll ups, then watch other teams pit, sporadic moments of frantic activity and colour and noise. Bright sodium lamps light up pit lane. Officialdom is rife and attired in coats of many colours. Bikes stream past growling toward the exit to the circuit, eager to best the pit lane speed limit, and then away swept along on the speeding roller coaster that is the Bol D’Or 2004.

21.20pm Mick has elevated us to 17th and unbelievably third in class at such an early stage before he pits. He is pretty grim about the conditions on the circuit. The grip was atrocious and the braking was ‘exciting’. He was deadly serious looking when he said it was the worst session he’d encountered thus far in these events. But he stuck to the task and bought the Zedex back to the fold on schedule.

22.14pm Team Deletang crash out moving us up the leader board to 15th on ‘Barty’s’ session.
The rain had stopped sluicing it down by now and it was time to clamber into the damp confines of the Perspex prison. This would be the long one through the night. The only way of distinguishing the rider was the headlights. One was marginally brighter than the other and roughly circulating just behind a recognizable bike with blue lights down his fairing side. Dawn was writing down the lap times and checking the telly. I worked the board when Dawn gave me the ten second warning, swinging the heavy light box over the pit wall, hopefully in time for the riders to scope as they flashed past. ’Spanish’ was doing respectable 2min 15’s in still very bad conditions. Team Freebike had a demon rider of the night onboard for this session, because he was by far the quickest rider out there delivering a string of 2min 5’s

23.02pm and we are lying in 18th place. My eyes are bursting with retina flashes. Raver delivers hotdogs and onion with mustard. Style. Nice one Al!
Some fireworks crackle into the damp sky. I take notes by the light of a single illuminated Fireblade indicator, glowing wanly orange on top of the light box. ‘Spanish’ is banging out 2min 10’s in the easing conditions on full wets, we are 16th at 23.18pm.

At 23.38 we are up to 12th on the overall leader board and third in class, The Spaniard is down to 2min 08’s, more firecrackers.
Midnight. A big milestone. Nine hours in, just over third distance. Don’t feel so tired now, clocked up 18 hours awake. No problems.
Team EMS are chasing our airspace and eventually catch and pass us demoting us to 13th. The track looks like its drying somewhat and possibly a less damp line was emerging, A hard one to call for the pit crew, it had to be a riders choice ultimately.

12.30am Was it time for inters?

12.49am, we catch and re-pass EMS taking back our hard won 12th position.

01.00am Mick pits and there is some urgent conversation going on, warning ‘Barty’ about what was ahead for him. 01.42am ’Spanish’ had just started banging out 1min 55’s. Dawn frantically checks the telly coupla of laps later, he had been due round thirty seconds ago. My heart sank. It really could only mean an incident of some sort had occurred. The we saw his time (taken at the top of pit lane) 2mins.40, he was pitting. What would the harsh glare of the sodium lamps reveal. Dawn looked worried about her man. We shouted for the garage to get ready, though they suspected the same outcome from watching the garage monitor.
’Spanish’ rides the bike in. Bollox! Thrice bollox! And Cluster bollox! He’s gone down the road. The bike is whipped into the garage to be worked on, Juan looks ok and starts to wipe his boot. Well we had an oil leak that was for sure. Dawn and I could only watch from the other side of the pitlane. he was fine. Talking to Mick and John. We had been running steady 13th and slowly hauling in Infinity Moto ahead of us.

Later when I caught up with ‘Spanish’ he said Johnny foreigner had gone underneath him and then drifted wide swiping away his front end and he was down. The gear change, foot pegs and crankcase cover got wiped out. Alf, Trace, Tango and Muscles took 16 minutes to make good the damage, gassed up the bike and ready for Mick to take off. I had watched other teams almost scrum the bike when their rider had come in with a problem. Our boys were hectic at it, but methodical, there was a certain amount of spanner discarding and shouts of ‘6mm T bar, tape that up, get the spares now, check’ It was imperative to get man and machine back out as safely but quickly as possible. Like a modern day Battle of Britain scene. ‘England expects’ as Mick entered the fray with the Akrapovic howling away down pitlane and back into the thick of it. We had completed 302 laps it was 02.41am Fast approaching the nadir of the night. The lowest ebb, the coldest cruellest time of any night.

Next thing we know is Mick hasn’t come round. My heart sank again. Two minutes, three minutes, four minutes ticked by. I couldn’t handle this waiting. I jumped out of the crystal cube and over to Tango who said the tannoy had announced the fall of Nonbre Cinquante-neuf and the rider was receiving medical attention.
The minutes dragged by like lead weights. I still couldn’t handle this waiting. So ‘Turps’ and I legged it up to the information centre to get some definite news. We inveigled ourselves into the main control room. Just in time for them to tell us that he had just entered pit lane. Good! Mick was ok and the bike was running. Turps and I legged it back to the pit.
The bike was already in the garage looking very hammered, there was a bloody great dent in the tank, but miraculously no damage to the frame. The handlebars were now very narrow and the fairing was badly mashed. Mick however was not so good. He had encountered a major hi-side and the bike had landed on the top of his foot. Later treatment in the medical centre dismayed everyone with the announcement of a broken foot. He was in visible pain and plainly couldn’t continue. Naturally he was not in the best of moods, but he had the team around him.

Forty nine minutes later. 03.53am it’s another go for ‘Barty’ we are now 18th in class, 38th overall. But there was plenty of time. Daylight was approaching, the track was drying. We still had 11 hours to go. The fire in our hearts was not out.

The beginning of the end was nigh though. Two laps later Barty returned to the pits, the bike was again hastily whipped back into the garage for inspection. This time the crew were not hurrying. We were losing the war of attrition. Were the forks twisted? Had the discs warped or bent. Whatever it was Barty was not happy and returned back out at 04.20am and nervously I should imagine. The cause is not lost but slipping away from our grasp evermore as the minutes ticked by. 5 laps later at 04.31am Barty returns to the pits. A lazer wheel alignment tool is activated and the wheels appear to be in a straight line, but who knows until Alf strips the bike what other problems were lurking there to be found. Not something you can ascertain in a poorly lit garage at

04.30 in the morning when you are in a hurry but a riders safety is paramount. Andy fiddles with the suspension settings to see if this could make a difference. 04.42am Juan rides out into the early morning still up for it and ready to take ‘em on again.

05.00am P40 and 322 laps completed. Moments later though after 10 laps it looks like curtains from his body language as he pits for the last time. The bike was ‘pattering like a bastard’. I see Alf wipe an imaginary knife blade across his throat.
The end.
It was over.
Dawn would break in an hour or so.

And there endeth the tale. Raver’s café was filling up with team members. Alf and Trace were philosophical looking. Tango tried to raise the spirits of the assembled, but the Mancunian messiah was fighting a losing battle. Disappointment and sleep were now the order of the day as eyes blinked shut one by one. After 23 hours of wakefulness I slunk off to the Shark for some shut eye. God I was tired. Goodbye cruel world for a few hours of well earnt slumber.