I lined up for my first shot
at the GP8 course, going
over in my head all the
tricks I have learnt in my
time riding motorcycles
of practice, I soon had my nimble wee MT-07
clunking from lock to lock, if only at around
10km/h. Interestingly, having never done this
before, I was one of the only people there
on the night who managed to complete the
lock-to-lock exercise first go, and was asked
to demonstrate before the rest of the riders
gave it a second try.
GP8
After about an hour of basic handling
drills, and warm ups, we were then set the
challenge of the GP8. It’s so called because it
is the figure of eight Grand Prix. The idea is to
start inside a box, launch forwards, complete
five figure eights around the course and stop
back inside the box you started in. James
Riley (the guy in charge) said when he started,
we could complete the GP8 in around 55
seconds, and over time his goal was to get it
down to less than 30 seconds, currently his
PB is 31 seconds.
I don’t mind admitting that this was when
30 KIWI RIDER
the red mist descended… I’m known for
being a little competitive, so much so that my
wife won’t let me play Monopoly any more
because I’m “too competitive”. I didn’t know
there was such a thing!
I was assigned to the course run by a young
lady rider by the name of Emmanuella, who
had been riding Moto Gymkhana for about
three months, and her best time was 36.8
seconds. That gave me a target...
I lined up for my first shot at the GP8 course,
going over in my head all the tricks I have
learnt in my time riding motorcycles, things
like lead with the head, counter-steering and
weight distribution, and surprised my self by
completing it in 45.81 seconds.
I couldn’t leave it there, so I lined up for
a second run, and bettered my first time,
completing the GP8 in 42.2 seconds.
They say the third time’s a charm, so I went
into it with the goal of completing the course
in 40 seconds or less, I came in bang on the
button with a time of 40.2 seconds, this is
when Emmanuella excitedly told James the
good news.