Bremen Six Day 2012 – Day One

Bremen Six Day, the car park outside the race hall, it’s 02:29 Friday – we’d targeted bed for 03:00 so mustn’t grumble.

First impressions: a nice hall, a proper Six Day venue and despite the fact that an anorak like me thinks that the field is unbalanced, it’s good racing.

The organisation, if you’re at the blunt end like us, isn’t the best.

But the razamataz is good and the media is here in force.

It’s been the full spectrum today, trying to adapt unsuitable environments into comfortable work places with little assistance from anyone and being a little ‘down’ with it all.

But at the other end of the scale, there’s the chase in full cry, the lights, the music, the fans, the noise of rock hard rubber on wood and the rattle of that 1/8″ pitch chain – it’s the best.

Best finish this Becks and turn in, gute nacht.

And I just had a text from Dirk, our mechanic, he’s watching darts on BBC 2 – what a man.

* * *

And now it’s 11:24 am, I’m in the cabin, the clothes are all sorted out, the Sutherland Brothers are mellow on the laptop and the stadium is quiet.

I’ve been at this stadium before, I helped Kris unload the camper here last year, but then the bubble burst and I bolted to the airport and the plane to Scotland.

It’s known as the ‘party Six’ with the race just part of a whole range of ‘getting down’ that can be done – bars, restaurants, discos, and gigs spread across the whole exhibition complex.

And on the subject of gigs, Hot Chocolate play on Saturday night and Haddaway plays Monday night – and don’t say; ‘who the hell is Haddaway?’

He’s only the performer of one of the greatest disco anthems ever – ‘What is Love?‘

I may go AWOL for that one.

The racing?

Good – the first devil went off like a two lap handicap. I heard Iljo say before the start that he’d been a bit worried at some of the riding he’d seen during the warm up and wasn’t going to take any chances.

He wasn’t kidding, you could see guys thinking; ‘isn’t this meant to be a warm up race?‘

They run the chase early in Bremen – apparently it’s the tradition.

It wasn’t a death race but nor was it a walk in the park.

Some of the riding was a tad dodgy with hollers of; ‘Wooaaahhhh !’ able to be heard even over the pumping PA as riders switched at crazy angles to avoid contact.

No-one bit the dust though – our US guys were a bit stunned after it but whilst they didn’t light up the boards, they didn’t embarrass themselves either.

Jackie’s dad was a good rider, ‘back in the day’ – he won kilometre silver in the Worlds in Montevideo in 1968 and rode Six Days.

He was texting me all last night checking on ‘Junior’ – once the Sixes get inside you, you’re hooked, it even runs down through the blood.

We were lucky with how the two late Derny races fell, our guys all have black numbers but the races were for red numbers.

Events were delayed a little when the band’s singer couldn’t be found. Eventually, with him tracked down and wrung out a little, things were back on track.

It would have been no bad thing if it hadn’t; they’re brutal.

The 20 lap sprint was our last gig – then came the mad charge for the cabin, washing, drying, tidying.

And finally – our Becks.

And it was worse than we thought with Dirk – he was actually watching ladies’ darts !

Bremen Six Day - Results from Day One