When in the evening I asked Greg, when we will start the next morning, he answered, that we try to start at eight o'clock, so we'll hit the road at around nine thirty. That's exactly what happened. We fetched Alan and Hutch, and headed to Wanganui. Greg used his contact lenses when riding, and he looked just like Crocodile Dundee. The traffic was quite dense, and the lines got longer and longer the closer we got to Wanganui. The guys rode rather fast, and I couldn't keep that tempo with passenger, and full packages. Also we found that the rear shock was leaking, and there was absolutely no damping at all. The bike was bouncing and wobbling, and sometimes after a hump I counted only seven bounces. We met Greg and the others just before the race track, and continued together to the event. That is when the bike got the nickname: "The Bouncing Battleship".

Wanganui "Cemetery Circuit" Battle of the Streets. Boxing day 26th Dec 1996.

The official programme leaflet starts: "The Wanganui Cemetery Circuit will never be the same without the racing skills of Robert Holden..." Robert Holden was the king of Wanganui. This would have been his 20th race in Wanganui, and Wanganui Motor Cycle Club had planned to arrange a special invitational trophy: One start between Robert holden and his toughest rivals. But since he was killed at the Isle of Man earlier in the year, now this start was ridden as the Robert Holden Memorial trophy,.

Robert Holden had won all the two-wheel classes at Wanganui ate least once. Only class he hadn't won was the sidecars. He had planned to take part to the sidecar class this year. Fate, however, decreed otherwise, and instead his ashes will be scattered over the circuit at the request of his family.

The "Cemetary Circuit" is a track going around a big cemetary. It's rather short and flat, but there are many 90 degree turns, one with a concrete island in it. This isle was leaned by many bikes, but none, however, didn't fall down in it. One Kawasaki tried always to pass others in this curve, ending bouncing to this edge several times with sliding rear end.

The race was impressing. For a person, that don't know the class rules and limitations, the feeling was like all the kiwi racers regardless of the bike type was able to race in almost all the classes. Or could you conclude otherwise after seeing a Harley Softail at least in five different classes.

Side by side with the Harley there were at least BMW Funduro, KTM Duke, Husqvarna TE 610, and Honda CR 500. Most of the bikes were real superbikes from Ducatis to Japanese GSX-R:s and ZXR:s. There were also couple of Honda NSXR:s with FT 500 or XR 600 thumper engine. The sound was deep bass, and the type letters were NSXRFT 570 or something...

More interesting bikes were seen in the Post Classics-class, in which the only regulation for the bike seemed to be the age of the bike. There were couple of real classics like Aermacchi Harleys, and Nortons. The middle-agers were mostly Japanese street bikes from early seventies, like: Honda CB 750, Kawasaki Z1 and 350 S2, and Suzuki T 500 and GT 750. Of the newer bikes I could mention couple of motocrossbikes from late seventies, and a six-cylinder CBX 1000 with full fairing!!

In the sidecar class there were couple of 600cc:s and two strokers, made of Suzuki Gamma, among the one liter rockets. Two of the sidecars had female co-pilots. The second last start of the whole day was a real show. A sidecar handicap start, where the slowest started first, and the fastest started delayed from the last row. These guys had arranged this kind of battles before, since the handicap times were so well estimated, that all the bikes came to the finish line in one huge bunch. What a mess... Best show of the day.

The Formula Wanganui, and the Holden Memorial starts were won by Jason McEwen with a Britten. This Christchurch made, late John Britten's pride, and also all the Kiwis' pride is really an awesome bike. It's like just a huge V2 engine, with carbon fibre forks, tank, and driver, and of course a pair of wheels. For some reason these Brittens are superior only in certain kind of tracks. Wanganui is one of those. However i.e. in the Isle of Man, Brittens have never really succeeded.

Later in Tekapo, South Island we met one biker from Nelson. When we told him about Wanganui, how we enjoyed, and of course mentioned the crazy Harley-man. He just asked if the Harley was blue. We told him so. So he said he knows the rider, who is from Nelson. He also told that this Harley-man is known as "Dickhead".

We didn't meet the mysterious Mr. Broome in the Wanganui, so we decided to head to Wellingron via Palmerston North, where he lives. He hadn't yet arrived home, so we cotinued towards Wellington. The starter button of the BMW started to function only occasionally already in Wanganui. Now the bastard became more and more difficult to start. Then it started getting dark, and soon we were just on our lights, that showed us nothing. We could see the low flying aeroplanes, but not the road. We stopped to a gas station to adjust the lights, but I noticed, that the height adjustment mechanism was broken. Some part was missing, and it couldn't be fixed on the road. Also the headlight felt like misassembled, because when I tried to push it by hand to correct position, it just reduced to turn pointing low enough. So we rode slowly, between the cars trying to see by relying on their lights.

This day was the day of BMW's faults. Shock, starter button, and the headlight. What else could go wrong. We had to be in Wellington before midnight to catch the ferry, so that was our main concern now. I felt like riding the battleship right to the ocean from the pier, but fortunately we met a couple of positively thinking kiwi motorists waiting for the same ferry, so we cheered up, and decided just no more ride in the dark. The starter button again worked on every push, so life went on.