Broken Arm Sidecar Racing at Winton Raceway

MY second attempt to conquer the rural Winton Raceway in Victoria should’ve gone much better. I mean, I was getting the hang of this racin’ caper — building fast motors, making the bikes really reliable and riding well — now that’s a recipe for success. Already campaigning an AJS Single in the Senior class and a 650 Triton in Unlimited class, I’d also joined the ranks of pure lunatics in the Sidecar class — again with 650 Triumph power. My passenger was my Best Girl at the time, The Goog, and we were a formidable team, winning more races than we lost for a time.

Once the decision was made to race Winton, interstate transport logistics had to be worked out, and as usual, it was a rambling shambles. See, I’d decided that the tow car would be and XB Falcon ex-taxi that had more than a million brutal km on the jaded old motor. The thing had been officially written off and cheaply repaired three times during its harsh life on the road, plus one final write-off and repair as an ex-taxi. I tried to get $30 for the aircon system from the local wrecker, but he laughed and said, “Leave it in place and I’ll give you $30 for the whole car.” Yep, she was a rooted unit all right, but bikes were the life and cars were only something to tow the race bikes to the track.

As the ex-taxi had a tow bar, and I could borrow a trailer from my mate Davo, and the plan moved forward. The sidecar was strapped onto the trailer and the ‘Infamous Slob 650’ Triton was part dismantled and fed into the back seat of the ex-taxi. Young blokes might point and laugh at the bodgeyness of the back-seat method, but the older racers would sagely nod and mutter, “Fair call — whatever it takes to get the bike to the track…” Surely you’ve all seen some of those black & white photos of 1950s Norton and Beeza race bikes lashed onto the running boards of 1930s Buicks and Dodges.

On a sweltering Friday arvo, me and The Goog rolled south out of Sydney and aimed the unlikely ensemble at Winton. Working our way across Sydney and onto the highway, I started to question the sense in attempting such a run in such a shitbox; the car barely pulled 85 km/h and vibrated terribly. But here’s the thing with tired old motors and dense, night air — once it got dark, the car turned into a mile-eater and started to run real nice. My mum had packed an Esky full of serious garlic chicken sandwiches and The Goog and I ate our way down the deadly Hume Highway, hiccuppin’ burpin’ and fartin’ all the way to Winton.

Raceday dawned beautiful; the Triton was pulled from its back seat position and re-mantled (always wondered about that one — the act of taking something apart is called ‘dismantling’; how come putting it back together isn’t known as ‘mantling?’)

Scrutineering was whizzed through and it was time to take to the track for the first practice session, which was sidecars. All went to plan and we knew we’d be in the leading bunch and would most definitely be scooping up a barrow load of trophies for our efforts. 

And then I took the Infamous Slob 650 out for practice.

The cast-iron Trumpy motor was really honking and the bike felt great as I blasted out of pit-lane and onto my first lap of solo practice. The old version of Winton raceway had the main straight bending to the right at the end, then right again, before a tightening sweeper of a left leads into a right-handed hairpin. Another sharp left allows the track to wander around to the back straight in a sharpish right. Of course, these days, the track veers elsewhere off into the paddocks, before joining the old back straight again near the flip-flop onto the main straight.

So once I cleared that first right-handed hairpin (the one which had brought me undone halfway around my first-ever lap on a racetrack a few years earlier), I breathed a little easier. And flailing down towards the sharpish left-hander, something happened that made alarm bells ring loudly — the two bikes and riders directly ahead fell down faster than drunken ice skaters.

“Aye, aye!” I said, “That’s got to be an oil spill to cause that!” Razor-sharp racer’s reflexes reacted and I spotted the serious slick that brought the unfortunate pair down quicker than bags of shit on a slippery dip. Hastily changing the entry line, I steered the bike inside the trail of evil slime, and even noted the point where the slick made its way off the track and onto the grass.

“Cop that lot, you unworthy foe!” I sneered at the slick as I gassed it up and got back down to business out of that left hander.

Whoops, spoke too soon. Fell for the old ‘Oil Slick Veers Back Onto The Bitumen’ trick, didn’t I?

What should’ve been a rapid getaway turned quickly into comically massive ‘Lose’; the back-end doing its best to overtake the front. Then, with the bike travelling sideways, what should’ve been a graceful ‘Lowside’, turns into a monstrous ‘Highside’ and Bugalugs Muggins get spat off the Triton in a hideous ‘Flying W’.

Now Dear Reader, note the single quotes. While commonsense would dictate that most people reading this mag would know what a ‘Lose’, a ‘Highside’ and a ‘Lowside’ is, perhaps not everyone is familiar with the ‘Flying W’. That’s the shape a rider’s body forms whilst attempting heavier-than-air flight in the seconds after being unceremoniously spat from the seat of a motorbike. The rider is neither running nor flying, but the legs are pumping and the arms are flapping in a valiant but futile attempt to do something at a time when absolutely nothing constructive can be done.

Fully complying with Laws of Physics and Gravity, Bugalugs and Triton came to earth and slid straight off the bitumen onto the grass outside the corner. The bike soon stopped sliding but the rider didn’t. And here’s where perception comes into play: while still sliding on the grass, I perceived it was time to get up, so I did. The problem with my incorrect perception was that I thought I was sliding so slowly, I’d simply get up and walk back to the bike. Whoops, got up too soon. I can’t really say how fast I was still sliding, but I knew one thing: it was a damned sight faster than I could run. Trying to disprove the Laws of Physics, I got in three of the longest steps I’d ever taken before falling over again and resuming sliding, topping it off with some added tumbling.

Naturally, after surviving the motorcycle crash unscathed, tumbling over while trying to get up was what broke my arm, and that set the humorous tone for the rest of the weekend.

Dashing over to the Triton, I soon picked it up and began straightening levers and pegs. Nothing seemed too bad, but right at that instant, the comedy started. Because I was bent over the bike fixing things, I hadn’t even noticed another poor sap had done almost exactly what I did. i.e., crashed on some bastard’s oil. When I looked up, I was very surprised to see some unlucky bugger climbing out from under his crashed Triumph not five feet away from where I ended up.

“Jeez, mate, what happened?” I asked, and I kid you not, his answer was, “Dunno, cobber, just got here myself!”

All four crashed riders managed to get the bikes started and nurse them back to the pits. All four riders also rode past a parked BMW R50 a few corners later at the start of the back straight. The Bee Em was leaning over on one of those stupid sidestands that BMWs have—you know, the ones sticking out either side of the motor with a carb and exhaust pipe attached. Tracking behind the Bee Em to the infield was a suspicious-looking trail of oil, and standing next to it was a very sheepish-looking rider. That rider was the recipient of four of the strongest death stares ever stared. Fair dink! If we four had’ve focused the beams of our withering stares of death, that Bee Em rider would’ve been left a molten pool of embarrassment.

I’ll be honest here; that arm of mine was hurting but not at the point of the main injury. Even went to the ambulance bay, where they fully checked out the right shoulder and wrist, the two things I was whining about most. The funny thing was that the elbow, which would be revealed as the broken culprit later that night with X-rays, seemed to be just fine. All the prodding and twisting of the elbow couldn’t make me squeal like a big, poofy girl, but I tell ya, just touching the shoulder and wrist made me squirm.

Anyway, me and the Triton had some racing to do so it was time to harden the fuck up and get out there.

Oh, Bubba, Bubba, Bubba, it was hurting!

The first race was unlimited capacity solo machines, so that meant the Triton. Man, it was hard work! Holding onto the rowdy beast was no problem, cracking the throttle wide open was a dream, but oh… the pain of braking was unbearable! Short of hitting the bitumen after a highside, the one aspect of motorcycle racing that’s hardest on the body is braking. Although you cling to the bike by bracing with your knees, thighs and calves, the bulk of your body weight is transferred forward to your hands and wrists via your shoulders and elbows. For someone who’s favourite part of motorcycle racing was unsettling the bejeezus out of much better riders with psychopathic displays of demon late braking, this sore arm wasn’t doing the team any great favours. I finished the race with barely enough time to leave the Mighty Slob 650 Triton leaning on a wall while I sprinted towards the waiting sidecar, leapt on, patted The Goog on the helmet, and took to the track.

I knew it was going be hard work, but figured riding the sidecar would be easier than the solo. I mean, the brakes on a sidecar are never going to perform as good as those on a solo, what with all the extra weight to pull up, and the almost relaxed sitting position puts no weight on the wrists so what could possibly go wrong?

The second race of the weekend for me was about to get underway, and I reckon I just about had it covered, despite the back-row grid position. The way things worked in NSW, when grid positions were worked out, the normal method was used, i.e. fastest lap times in practice would put you on pole position and so on back down the grid. Not in Victoria, no Sir! No matter how fast you were, if you were from NSW, you were down the back of the grid with the other NSW blokes.

The flag dropped and the Mighty Triumph outfit smoked its way through the grid rows and we burst onto the scene at the first right-hander in a very handy Position One. The bike was singing, and we drifted out of that first corner in a massive powerslide that just felt so good. “Hah!” I mocked. “That’s what I think of your petty, home team grid-placing abilities.”

Now, right about that time, I was feeling pretty damned fine, having a wow of a time. The best was to describe my joy would be the way the passengers on the Titanic were feeling right up until the time someone yelled out “Iceberg!”

Still in the lead, and with a huge pack marauding sidecars right up the clacker, I shoved that Trumpy into the long left-hander that led to my least favourite hairpin bend. And at that instant, someone yelled out “Iceberg!”

A sharp, shooting pain invaded my right arm, from shoulder to fingertips, and oh, baby, baby, baby—it hurt! I didn’t just button off the throttle, but completely let go of the right handlebar (and probably squealed in pain like a big, girlie poof as well, but no-one heard it so I’ll deny it.)

That action caused a most magnificent amount of chaos behind me, with outfits diving left and right, onto the grass and anywhere else they could find to get around the lunatic who stops dead in the middle of a reasonably fast corner.

Road-race sidecars need a special technique for attacking left-handers. It varies a little according to the type of corner, but basically, if it’s a dead-stop corner, you slam all brakes on and then use a special technique to get that infernal thing around the corner, which the laws of physics will tell you that this is not going to happen. The special technique for left-handers remains the same whether it’s the aforementioned heavy braking corner, or a fast, rising throttle bend which starts with acceleration rather than braking. What you’ve got to do is this: shift your weight to the left, give the handlebars a bit of a twitch and gas her up like a bastard. If all goes well, the sidecar wheel skims an inch or so above the track, the outfit stays flat, the arse-end kicks out a little while you control the traction action and steer that prick of thing with the back wheel. The handlebars become little more than something to hang onto as the front wheel just goes wherever the back wheel tells it to. If your passenger is a good one, you don’t even know they’re there, because the bike just does what it’s supposed to do.

On this particular rising throttle left-hander, everything fell perfectly into place — apart from the throttle control!

After letting a large chunk of the field past, we had a few right-handers to reel them in again; the rights were no trouble for the sore arm, just the lefts. Whenever the bad elbow was stretched straight, it was always accompanied by a what sounded like a frenzied yelp from a startled poodle.

The rest of the races on Saturday were much the same, with a combination of blistering speed and skill through the right-handers, the straights and some of the left-handers. But the two left-handers that really mattered, the fast left after cutting back around the end of the main straight, and the entry to the flip-flop onto the main straight were always a shit-fight. Jeez, there was one foul-up on the entry to the flip-flop that we even went infield of the flag marshalls’ pozzie. They reckoned they’d never seen that before, and I said much the same thing when I discovered a drainage ditch halfway through that midfield excursion.

At the end of a largely forgettable Saturday’s racing, we were having a few quiet beers at the Glenrowan Pub, when Sandbag, a fellow NSW outfit pilot, bike journo and frustrated medico, was jiggling my right arm around this way and that.

”You’ve got a broken arm, Old Cock!” was his considered opinion.

So off to Wangaratta Base Hospital we went, and a few short hours later, we were at the regular race-night piss-up staged by Kenny Lucas showing off my new full plaster cast.

“Oh, a broken arm, eh?” was what most of the Victorian sidecar blokes noted. “We thought you were just a shit-house rider…” Some of the more concerned ones were asking, “Did you really race a sidecar all day with a broken arm?”

“Duhh, yep,” was the best I could come up with.

You might think that would be the end of the weekend’s racing for me and it was, although I did loan my Triton to Sandbag for a race or two. But the Victorian sidecar racers were obviously built of sterner stuff. See, some time on Saturday, I did borrow some oxy gear to heat and bend the throttle side handlebar closer so it wasn’t such a stretch (successful) and did investigate a new riding style of reaching over to the throttle with the left hand (much less successful). On Sunday, there was a constant stream of Victorian visitors who wandered in with new suggestions to get me back on the track, from the common offering of putting the throttle, front brake and clutch lever all on the left side bar, to one fella who dug out and specially cut up a set of handlebars to produce a half-tiller design which might’ve just worked. They really wanted Me and The Goog and our outfit on the track and mixing it up with Mexicans. And I thought I was the crazy one. Thanks, but I’ll just watch you fellas race.

Had a lot of help loading bikes into the back of the ex-taxi and onto the trailer, as is the custom for wounded soldiers at the track. And then we set off on the worst drive home ever; the four-times-a-write-off ex-taxi was still going like a dream, but for some reason, every oncoming semi-trailer had the ability to pop the bonnet open onto the safety catch. The 17 times we stopped to bump the bonnet down were enough to convince us to stop at Albury on the border crossing out of that Southern hellhole. After winning the argument with The Goog, we had Chinese tucker instead of pizza.

To this day, three decades later, it is still the single most revolting batch of Ching shit I’ve ever not eaten. And before we copped a whiff of the crud, we’d driven that few km closer to Sydney to find a motel, so there would be no backtracking. And to put the icing on the cake, that Albury motel was the second most disgusting, sleazy dirt-hole I’ve ever stayed in. (The winner of that contest was a room in Las Vegas; they should’ve scrubbed the carpet harder to remove either the dark stain or the chalk outline, or preferably both).

With the tank hold-down strap from the Infamous Slob 650 Triton holding the Falcon’s bonnet down, we had an uneventful drive ‘almost’ all the way home. Yep, a few short km from beddy-byes after a harrowing weekend, a bloody flat tyre on the trailer. Military Road, Cremorne, Monday night peak hour, clearway and bus stop. What? Of course there was no spare on Davo’s trailer; that’s what I call a hamburger with the lot.

With it being a Morris Mini Minor wheel, we were lucky to find a spare tube at a local servo and even luckier to have all the tools needed to fit it.

Generally, travelling interstate to race motorbikes is the best thing you can do in life. Sometimes, it just ain’t worth the effort.

Road Tales By Kelly Ashton