What a weekend! Team Turboville went to the 22nd Bulldog Bash at Shakespeare County Raceway just praying for good weather and good times!
What we didn't expect was to be transported into a nightmare scenerio remeniscent of Nazi Germany in 1940! It seems that ACC Bill Holland of the Warwickshire police had gotten a bug up his nose after being knocked back by Stratford Council's lisencing team in no uncertain way. They over-ruled his objections to the event at every turn and praised the Hells Angels record on safety and professionalism stating that it was probably the best run festival of any kind in Europe and that the town welcomed it every year and the £2.5 million it brings to the local economy.

On arriving in the area we were met by dozens of police officers from several counties (all on overtime of course) lots of number plate recogition camera vans, squad cars, un-marked cars, motorcycles, riot vans, swat teams (fully armed with semi-automatic weapons) undercover surveillance teams, the lot! They closed off all the side roads to the local villages for some unfathomable reason. They set up a big camp for themselves in adjoining fields and stole the 6" water main for their shower block. This is the main reserved for the fire brigade should there be an emergancy on site! They commandeered the roundabouts and lay by's, coned off the main road, implemented 'stop and search' powers (only allowed to run for 24hrs but they kept it up for 4 days) stopped, threatened and intimidated everyone they could, stripped vehicles and searched innocent members of the public. That after all seemed to be the sole purpose of the exercise, to intimidate people and frighten them off. My own crew were stopped, searched, thrown into a caged transit and taken to Leamington Spa, miles away, on false charges which were then dropped, as were my crew, miles from the track, half a day later and quite traumatised by the whole event. These are decent people, grand parents, in their family saloon, on their first visit to the Bulldog. Like everyone, they felt very safe and secure once on site but were scared to death to go outside.

Local residents held several meetings attended by record numbers and they all let the police know that they were not wanted under any circumstance and that they objected most vehemntly to Bill Holland's (seeming) personal vendetta that had cost them over £1,4 million of local taxpayers money. This went on well into Sunday as they actually blocked off lanes of the dual carriageways out of Stratford to use them for mass stop and search operations causing traffic chaos!

The result of all this? two convictions for possession of camping tools (lethal weapons) ! ACC Bill Holland proclaimed the whole operation a complete success and well worth the money.
His excuse for all this? A motorcyclist got shot last year, 40 miles away on a motorway! The local lisencing comittee visited the site and received a round of applause from the crowd. The local school dropped some childern off for the day to do a project and they had a great time. The local Rotary club were there all weekend and not only had a great time they got a lot of money for their charity. There were no crimes and no serious incidents on site and everyone was well behaved as they have been for the past 22 years. All press reports were positive in favour of the Hells Angels MC who were just brilliant all weekend.

Even the bad weather coudn't deter the 20,000+ crowd from having fun. It did however put a dent in the track time but we made the best of our one run on Friday and Mr. Spokehead lifted it's front wheel in the air and blasted the quarter mile only dropping it back to earth after I took out both of the top-end timing blocks (sorry Bruno) which meant that our new wings, new fuel timers and new clutch were working just great!
I am counting the days to Bulldog 23!!!!! Come and watch the rest of the European 'Supertwins at Santa Pod on the 5th, 6th, and 7th of September along with 300 of the best race cars and bikes in the world.

pic. courtesy of ECLIPSE PHOTOS
Faster, quicker, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death. Or you run out of money ! www.turboville.com

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