Cadwell Park 25th and 26th July 2019

Beezumph was back at Cadwell Park for the first time since 2015 and was again planned to take place over 2 days but because of lack of availability on weekend days we accepted a Thursday and Friday booking. Initially I had been tasked with sorting the ride-out for this year, a task which I was looking forward to carrying out, in the end with things turning out the way they did I ended up doing a lot more than just the ride-out.

As I live relatively close to Cadwell, just under the hour, I was the obvious choice to attend any meetings and deal with the staff there. We had been given the names of service providers who have all the relevant safety and hygiene paperwork and more importantly Public Liability Insurance in place to provide their services at Cadwell Park. The planned programme was to have the ride out on Thursday afternoon, bike jumble in the late afternoon and then the guest speaker in the evening, Friday was to be the track sessions. A start was made on arranging Marquees, generators, catering, portable loo’s for near the Marquee, The bike jumble would look after itself and the speaker for the evening was arranged by Richard Davies. Graham Redrup was sorting the band for Friday Night and Dave Bloor was inviting the Honorary guests. There was also a PA system and a way of showing a power point presentation needed. A few thoughts were going through my mind for the ride out and one idea I had was to head to the North of the county and incorporate a stop at one of in my opinion the best Fish and Chip Restaurant on the East coast, but then I thought where do you find parking for hopefully 60 plus motorbikes? So thinking logically that was a non-starter! I then resorted to the maps and looked around the area of Cadwell Park and remembered East Kirkby and the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre which is a few miles South near Spilsby. This I thought would be an ideal place to stop off. I rang the centre up and asked them if the Lancaster was being run up on the day we planned to drop in and very luckily for me it was to be run up and Taxied on the 25th July, so at this I booked a party of 60 people in. Result! I then worked the route out round the visit to the Aviation Centre. There were still lots of other jobs to be done before we got to Cadwell but it was fast looming up!

A last check with the suppliers the week before we were due to be at Cadwell made sure everything was set for B28. On Wednesday 24th I went over to Cadwell in the afternoon to check everything was as it should be, I had been concerned about the relatively small area we had been allocated for the campers on Friday night after the BBQ and Band, after I was satisfied everything was set up as planned it was back home to load the trailer and car up with everything I needed with me. Thursday morning dawned and with the forecast of one of the hottest days on record I hooked the trailer up, kissed the wife and set off for Cadwell. First job on arrival was to find Graham Redrup and Dave Bloor, just to make sure there were no problems. The Circuit Manager had been trying to get hold of me with one or two little problems so I went to see him and iron things out. The merchandise Gazebo was set up in the paddock to sell B28 tee shirts and other club merchandise. It was now getting close to the time we should have been assembling for the ride out, so another visit to the circuit office to ask if they could make an announcement asking for riders to assemble at the top of the field at which point I was handed the key to the paddock office and told where the microphone was and how to operate it and to bring the key back when I had finished!

The newly named ‘Les Williams Memorial Ride Out’ assembled, this will now be an annual event. Richard Davies gave a briefing to all riders on how we were going to operate the ride out with the second man drop off system and at approximately 12:30 we set off in blazing sunshine and with the mercury very high! The run down to East Kirkby passing through Horncastle was uneventful if a bit hot. On arrival at East Kirkby we all pulled up and parked under a line of trees the shade being very welcome. A video was put on Facebook of us all pulling out of the assembly area at Cadwell and I counted 65 bikes setting off, and there was a couple of riders met us there. A total of 79 went through the door of the Aviation Centre. The Lancaster ‘Just Jane’ was still in the hanger when we got there and the staff were working on it. Eventually they pushed it out into the sun and what a beautiful sight it was, everybody was cleared from behind the aircraft and the starting procedure began, engines started one at a time until all four were running and checks carried out ready for taxiing. When the pilot was happy the revs built and ‘Just Jane’ started her performance, the noise from those four Merlin engines is almost as good as a triple on an open mega! Once the running was completed we gathered ready for moving on with the run all of which went without hitch, after we left the Aviation Centre we turned North East for a few miles before turning North and heading for Louth and then from Louth the short run back to Cadwell in all we had done just short of 60 miles.

Once back at Cadwell it was time to set out the tables for the bike jumble for members to buy and sell their treasures.

After the jumble the marquee was set up for the guest speaker who was Neil Spalding who is an author and Moto GP technical Journalist. I had never heard a talk by Neil before but knew he gave good talks and I definitely wasn’t disappointed, his talk was absolutely brilliant and as someone commented on the club web page, we were in a field but you could have heard a pin drop such was the interest he created with his talk and knowledge of his subject. Neil’s talk brought the days proceedings to a very good conclusion.

Friday we woke to a fine morning and the prospect of a busy day. Signing on and noise testing began as scheduled at 07:30 all carried out by Cadwell Park staff. The briefing held in the clubhouse between 08:15 and 08:45 given by Graham Redrup, followed at 09:00 by the track opening and the sessions beginning. I was booked in to ride in the Classic group and was also marshalling the first two laps of the first session of every group and also the entry level riders. Pit lane crew made sure all groups were dispatched in an orderly and timely manner by Graham Redrup, Clive Blake and Elliot Blake. After lunch there was a 10 minute unsilenced parade of a few racing machines, these included the BSA Rocket 3 which is owned by Mike Braid and a Norton Commando also owned by Mike Braid, an ex Carlos Checa WSB Ducati, a 500 3 Cylinder MV Agusta the same as Agostini raced and Mark Gelsthorpe’s ‘Flying Merkel’ board racer, this was an entertaining 10 minutes and great to hear race bikes unsilenced, this was a dispensation given by Cadwell for ‘Parades Only’ with restrictions! Track sessions started again after the parade and carried on until the track closed at 17:00 hrs. After the track sessions were over preparations were made for the band ‘Rickshaw’ and for the BBQ in the marquee. The bike line up was formed in front of the marquee and judging carried out for all categories, the raffle was also held outside the marquee with a good range of prizes some bought by the club and others which were donated by organisations approached by the club. We are pleased to see Jim Smith’s luck in the raffle is holding out! Although I had to leave Cadwell before the band started I was told that they were one of the best bands we have had at Beezumph playing a wide variety of music and being very popular with the crowd.

Merchandise sold fairly well and a massive thanks go out to the volunteers who selflessly manned the stand over the 2 days for no reward!

A big big thank you from me and the rest of the committee.

Dougy Beardsall

Videos Richard Davies and Angus Campbell