On Track Off Road No.184

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FINALLY ARRIVING..
More than Europe’s
largest MC store
I’m H.A.P.P.Y. I know I am, I’m sure I am…
I am writing this sitting in my office
when I should be sitting on a plane
at 39,000ft travelling to Australia.
Despite making the application
three weeks ago, my Visa still
hasn’t come through and I have
been unable to leave.
It has only been in the last five
years that we have had to apply
for this temporary, short stay work
Visa and at the cost of $290AUD
the efficiency doesn’t seen to have
matched the $200 increase in that
time. Up until now it has taken no
more than 7 days to process but for
some reason this year it has disappeared
into a black hole. Added
to that the customer services help
desk is of the chocolate teapot variety,
I am going nowhere fast.
This, added to another couple of
headaches that are persisting at
the moment, places me slap bang
on the centre of the F**ked Off
Zone…….and a race wheel hasn’t
even turned in anger!
That was yesterday and with the
help of a few emails from a person
I know who knows some people,
my visa arrived, a day late, and I
rebooked the flights for this evening
(Friday). With my bags already
packed and good to go it has afforded
me a little free time and I
have taken the chance to get out
and pedal my bike on what is an
unseasonably bright and sunny day
in Glasgow. Some welcomed fresh
air and exercise before I sit in a big
tin can for the best part of a full
day.
With the stress of getting the travel
organized it was nice to finally
arrive in Melbourne on a sunny
Sunday morning. I even scored a
cheeky little upgrade from Emirates
on the way to Dubai so I took
advantage and had a proper sleep
on the first leg of the journey.
It was straight to the track from the
airport and into a full day of photoshoots,
mainly team shots and set
up pictures for press kits but it is
time consuming for the amount of
content generated and takes a lot of
post production editing. I pushed
through the jet lag to get it all
finished so I could concentrate fully
on the track action today.
Like every season before, this is
when the talking stops and we see
who are the real contenders for the
championship.
There are many potential challengers
to Jonathan Rea’s crown but I
have this nagging feeling that we
are waking up on Groundhog Day.
Kawasaki introduced their rider
line-up, who we all knew anyway,
and their 2019 livery at a launch
event, in San Remo, just off the
Island, on Saturday evening. Yours
truly should have been there but
thanks to my Visa fiasco I had to
get Vaclav Duska Jnr to stand in for
me and I must say a big thank you
for doing a sterling job. I had shot
the bike and riders in Seville at the
end of February and apart form an
additional bit of branding here and
there, the bike looks exactly the
same. Kawasaki has made all their
changes to engine internals that
you can’t see.