The Indee 500 (cont'd)
While it was hard to watch much of the race from our position, the two way radios kept us informed of who was in front, who had fallen off and which bikes had broken down.
Three laps down, two to go with lead rider and eventual winner Jehi Willis (#20, Yamaha YZ450F) 14 minutes ahead of second place at the end of day one.
Despite a number of bikes breaking down and riders giving up from sheer exhaustion Saturday saw only one major injury with one rider being taken to hospital for a dislocated shoulder.
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| Rhino 2 rescuing Rhino1 rescuing a couple of casualties |
Saturday night I slipped into the homestead for a lovely feed. It is a tradition that on Saturday night the organisers dine with the owners of Indee Station, Col and Betty.
The big money came out for the Calcutta with riders being auctioned off, the auction being interrupted by a couple hundred drunken voice choir singing:
"Happy birthday dear Philthy, happy birthday to you".
Sunday morning and I awoke in far better condition than many, but then I hadn't been belting around the scrub for four hours the previous day. After grabbing a couple of bacon and egg sangas for breakfast I headed out after the fuel truck.
A number of riders who'd pulled out the day before and their support crews came to the front gate to take over refuelling duties leaving Scotty, Dave, James and me to look after the gate and keep a track of the riders. Given the carnage to follow this was a good idea.
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| Pit stop |
The starting order was taken from the times the previous day, quickest rider out first and by fuck the leading riders were quick. Noise, noise, noise, quick flash of bike and rider, four of us trying to read the front, side or back numberplate and they were gone: the quickest riders getting around the 100km circuit in around an hour twenty, Willis doing a best lap of one hour sixteen minutes.
It wasn't long till we started getting reports of injuries, a rider pulled in to tell us one rider had broken a collarbone about 8 kilometres back and was riding to our location, another couple of riders pulled in to our location exhausted and called it a day, one quad rider came in with a busted hand. Eventually the rider with the broken collarbone turned up, one of the leading riders, and he was well and truly fucked, we saw him coming in and raced to grab his bike and hold it upright while he was helped off and put onto a chair in the shade waiting for a lift back to the ambulance.
A call came through soon afterwards of a rider down and not in good condition. The Rhinos were on the other side of the property, so Scotty jumped into the Hilux to go and find him.
"Fuck, the beer was in there."
Following it over the radio, there was no direct access to that spot so Scotty had to drive along the racetrack keeping an eye in his mirrors ready to spear off track when racers came through. Eventually the injured rider was located and extracted.
With the race winding down Scotty finally returned. We got the fuel reloaded onto the truck, tents down, everything packed up; and another call came across to pick up an injured rider.
"Paul, can you handle the fuel truck?"
"Yeah, no worries."
Scotty to the rescue again.
"Fuck, there goes the beer again."
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| The top ten finishers |
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| The winning bike |
For an event only seven years old this has the makings of a classic. PHMCC has done a great job in organising it all and dragging in sponsorship in cash and kind from local businesses. I'd love to get there again but a ten thousand kilometre round trip? Maybe someone could sponsor me.
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| Philthy and the Quoll: faces only a mother could love (and lucky for them she does) |
