insured

August Bank Holiday for me and thousands of other scooterists has
been long associated with the annual jaunt down to the IoW.
Southampton, Portsmouth and Lymington all have sea links to this
scootering Mecca, so it pays to shop around for the best deal.
As I work for VFM, the main rally
organisers for the weekend, we had
wangled the use of five brand-shinynew
Vespa GTS250s for the duration of
the rally, so after taking delivery of my
allocated beast we were packed up
and soon arrived at the Southampton
Red Funnel link to Cowes.
Even though it was only Thursday
morning, I was joined by fellow
revellers from all corners of the UK
on my crossing and before no time
the port was soon in sight.
However, before I could fire life into
the Dragon Red auto the skies
opened so the 10-mile ride from
port to camping was a wet one!
The main campsite, as usual,
was at the Smallbrook Speedway
Stadium near Ryde. Once there we
decided to sit out the downpour in the
on-site bar before attempting to erect
our village! By 3pm the weather had
subsided and it was surprising to see
how full the site already was.
As the rally doesn’t officially start
until the Friday, most of the action
centred around the campsite and club
house. As this also hosts the IoW
Islanders’ Speedway Team we were
treated to an evening’s entertainment
from our vantage point in the
overlooking track bar. As the alcohol
flowed the 'bravardery' escalated,
and I would not have been surprised
if a dragster had not come past in
among the action at some stage.
After the meet finished the DJs
sprung into action and soon the hall
was full of happily inebriated
scooterists and speedway fans
dancing the night away. This
continued well into the early hours
with the thought that we had another
72 hours to survive finally sending us
to bed.
Throughout the evening people
arrived and by daybreak the site was
already half full. This included other
34 NOVEMBER 05