timwheatley.org

It’s New Years Eve, I’ve just finished work. As I sit in ‘Fibber Magee’s Pub’ in Belfast I wonder what else is going on in the world. As I sip the start of my fourth pint of cider - my question is answered.

This year in Ireland, motorcycle road racing is under new management. Billy Nutt - long time head of Road Racing here - has left the post, but what change does that make for the fans? Answer: Not a damn thing - so I won’t ask.

I’m here to meet Graham Duffy, he’s a budding road racer if ever I saw one, he’s also bloody late. I know from past conversation that he’s raced in the Northwest 200 and finished 9th - his cousin raced and died during a race at the same track four or five years ago.

NOTE:
I’ve converted a lot of Graham’s answers to English for those who don’t speak Belfast.

In comes Graham, bursting through the swing doors of the adjoining pub with typical, drunk induced confidence. "Haw t’ fuck ar’ye mate?" He slurs in his Belfast accent.

"Great!" I reply, not wanting to draw attention to his late appearance. I buy him a pint of Guinness before I begin my questions…

TIM:
Why is Road Racing more exciting than circuit racing for someone like me, who isn’t a bike nut?

GRAHAM: 
The actions just as close, the bikes go faster because the straight bits are longer and I guess just because it’s more fucking dangerous! 

T: 
I think I know, but tell me - why more dangerous?

G: 
On a circuit you have more safety all-round, more marshalls and stuff…

T:
Less things to hit?

G: 
Not as many stone walls and wire fences, more sandcastles and flat grass for a circuit.

T:
Don’t you guys want that too?

G: 
Why? If you don’t fall you don’t hurt. There’s as much safety as there can be really.

T:
What if a wheel breaks or something, that’s not ‘falling’?

G:
More like fate.

T:
Brass balls eh? Do most of you think like
this? That’s it’s ’safe enough’?

G:
Most. Until they get a family. I have a family - but I guess I’m more open to the possibility, I’m not the only one who’s like that so don’t start slabbering* me.
* Slabbering, great word meaning going on, and on, and on… I love that word.

T:
Who else?

G:
Joey (Dunlop) was, Robert (Dunlop), Adrian Archibald and maybe David Jefferies are like it.

T:
Which pretty much covers the best modern-day road racers doesn’t it?

G:
Aye, just about.

T:
Do you group yourselves with those guys in terms of skill?

G:
No.

T:
Why not?

G:
Those guys are feeling the bike like most of us can’t. And you know about Joey.
(We’ve discussed Joey - at length - before in many drunken stupors, so I’m letting this comment go without pursuing it. The guy loved what Joey brought to the track.)

Another pint please! - A nurse I know from work walks in from the rear of the bar, says "Hi, how’s you?" then disappears into the pub Graham stumbled out of. He looks at me, smiles to his self and takes another slurp of Guinness.

T: 
Is a sort of ‘lack of fear’ needed for road racing?

G:
No, nobody can have that, nobody ‘wants’ to die out there - just have to learn to control it.

T:
How the hell do you ‘control’ fear?

G:
I used the wrong word, I mean…

T:
Perspective?

G:
Aye that’s it.

T:
Anyway, you obviously like bikes, what do you ride on the normal roads the rest of us get to move around on when it isn’t race day?

G:
I wouldn’t dare.

T:
Eh? What’s that mean?

G:
I don’t have a road license, I just got a racing one.

T:
But you said you wouldn’t dare? Why?

G:
Too many nutters on the road.

T:
Ah right.
(I know what he’s getting at, see on the news all to often that a car pulled out infront of bike after bike, rider was flung in the air, etc etc…)
Your bike is a 125(cc) right?

G:
Yea, Production Class Honda 125.

T:
What’s the difference between your race bike and a road bike?

G:
It’s tuned up and has the mirrors and shit ripped off, so the guy next to you can’t knock them off with his arm.

T:
Does it really get that close?

G:
Shit yea! You were at the Ulster (Grand Prix) right? The racing is just like that all the way through the classes, it’s not just the leaders either.

T:
Have you ever had a big accident?

G:
Once. Running into Mathers where (his cousin) got hurt. Took too much grass and lost the bike, I was fine, the bike was banjaxed*.
* Country folk word here meaning ‘totally fucked’.

T:
Ever thought about running a 600cc or a 1000 Production bike?

G:
I’m too much a shortarse.

T:
Ever thought about circuit racing?

G:
I’ll never be interested in that. Are we done? I have to go.

T:
Yep, sure.

‘Thanks,’ he says ‘cos I gotta do something too’.

I decide to sit and finish my pint, trying to (half drunkenly) figure out how to turn the damn tape recorder I was lent at work off, as Graham bids farewell and disappears.

As I near the end of my pint, wondering where I should be going out for New Years Eve. I look up and see the nurse I know coming through the door, looking straight at me. She sits down at the table and says ‘Is that true?’ 

She’d been told that I’d liked her since the moment I first saw her at work - which I had. We ended up spending the night curled up together on my sofa. I’ll give you one guess who it was that told her.

Cheers Graham.