Trip from hell before start

Ace Greytown motorcycle racer Doug Fairbrother came away content with placing seventh at the Paeroa Battle of the Streets last weekend after completing a tortuous trip to the event.

Fairbrother, who in August will make his fifth outing at the Isle of Man, said he had taken a Ducati bike to Paeroa aboard a trailer and a pit crew of four members of the Greytown Racing Team.

He had left his Greytown workshop about 11am on Saturday and had collided with a truck just before making the Mangawekas in central North Island. The trailer was emptied and a passing truck had taken back the damaged trailer as far as Palmerston North, Fairbrother said.

Another racer on his way to Paeroa had taken the bike and crew to the meet after Fairbrother retrieved his racing leathers, helmet and licence that had been inadvertently left in the damaged trailer.

The Greytown Racing Team crew arrived in the small hours of Sunday at Paeroa, where it realised too late that Fairbrother had no transponder with which to gauge practise lap times that set grid positions for the race, he said.

"We got through the scrutineers but had to start from the back of the grid because I had no lap times. I worked my way up to fifth but got passed by two riders and finished seventh. I was happy though. The bike was going well.

"In my second race I collided on the first corner and lost my footpeg, so couldn't finish. But it was harder just getting to Paeroa actually. That was the real test."

Fairbrother will race his BSA Rocket at the Powerbuilt Raceway at Ruapuna Park in Christchurch this weekend as a lead-up to racing the same machine at the Isle of Man later this year.

He also will race in the Barry Sheene Memorial that runs at the Sydney Motorsport Park from March 15 to 17.