About 2 weeks ago I was riding to work, I had just left home and was still in the back streets. I get to the intersection and theres a HWP car in the left lane waiting to turn left and I joined the end of the cue to turn right. The cop puts his car in reverse and comes all the way back up the street and pulls in behind me. I take it really easy and he sits on my back wheel for 60 seconds then pulls me over.

Cop: This your bike?
Me: Yep..

Cop: You got a riders license?
Me: Yep...

Cop: You were going a bit slow back there is something wrong?
Me: Yeh I don't want to risk getting booked.

Cop: Had anything to drink?
Me: *Laughs* No  (it's 7:00am)

Cop: The computer says the bike is suposed to be red?
Me: Oh ok, well the bike has been resprayed at some point.

Cop: Why has it been in a smash?
Me: Not that I know of, the original paint scheme was really daggy

Cop: ok see you later.

 

I thought that it was hardly random, I didn't do anything to provoke the guy to go out of his way to pull me over and drill me. Anyway, yesterday on the same road as last time, this time coming home in the afternoon, theres a highway sitting in the school zone. I cruise past him and he quickly barges in between me and the car thats behind me. Again he tailgates me and I'm watching my speed like a hawk. 20 secs later, full lights and sirens on so I pull over.  What do you know, it's the same copper as last time. He starts asking me the same questions as last time and I said "mate you stopped me the other day?" and he smugly says "oh did I?". Next thing I know a paddy wagon pulls up with 4 cops in it and they look like they are ready to jump out and kick my head in. The first cop says something to them and then they all just snear at me and drive off.  Then the cop tries to tell me that my back tyre is "almost bald" I told him its no where near it and he takes a closer look then got in his car and drove off. 

I'm starting to think that my repeated bad behaviour on the road is finally starting to catch up with me because this guy is really out to get me! I have a feeling that maybe some locals have been complaining about me (or a different yellow bike :P). I have a smart ass numberplate and my driving record is as long as my arm, but the first time he saw me he couldn't have looked me up - all he would have seen is the front of a yellow bike. To be honest I don't go crazy in my own area anyway, but all I know is that I need to be really careful because this guy is looking for an excuss to get me.

 

I decided to make the journey to the mountain on Sunday to see the great race.

It wouldn't be a car event without a police sting operation and another fine for my resumé. I was on my fireblade with Andrea on the back enjoying a nice ride up Bells Line of rd. I was coming out of a 60 zone leaned over through a corner. I saw the 100 speed limit sign about 100m away so I fed on some throttle to get it up to 100. I look up and there's a highway patrol coming at me, he hits the lights so I pull up. I'm now pretty used to this situation so I was pretty relaxed and tried to play it nice and cool. The cop approaches me and lets me know that he just clocked me at 104 in a 60 zone. I explained that I came through the corner at a reasonable speed then saw the 100 sign and sped up, plus its a downhill run to the 100 sign. Luckily the cop was extremely reasonable and decided to let me off with a 15 and over (3pts, $250). I told him that I've been booked a few times recently and I know I've got to watch my speed more. He warned me that there was massive amounts of cops up all the way up to bathurst and to be extremely cautious. 

While stopped on the side of the road, all the cars that I'd overtaken since Richmond went past. I stopped in at Lithgow maccas and they must have all had the same idea. About 15 different people asked me "so what did they get u for?. 

That kind of took the fun out of the day, but atleast we made it up to the mountain. It seems that this year is was massively packed to the point where we hardly got a good look at the cars all day which was pretty dissapointing. I went up a few years back with my dad and I don't remember it being that bad. The best part was having a look in the pits and see all the awesome setups that they have. I hung around and saw a couple of pit stops take place and stopped to get a picture with the inforcer.

On the way back I've never seen more cops in my life, I got followed by a highway patrol all the way to the city limits of bathurst then between bathurst and the lower mountains I would have seen about 12-15 cop cars.

Will I be going up again next year? No.

Me & Russ

Mockup V8 Supercar at Lithgow Maccas

Well... I did it again. I've had a good run for the last 7 years i've been on the road, then managed to get done twice in a month.

This time I was on the way home from a run up the Old Pacific Highway.  I knew that there was a fixed camera there, but I thought I'd already passed the thing and I sped up then saw the camera in the bushes and hit the brakes hard all the way across the sensor strips. There have been times before when I've had close calls with these things and have spent days wondering if it actually got me, but this time I knew that I'd been done it was just a matter of by how much. 

This one is only low range (70kph in a 60 zone) and wont affect me in anyway, it's just good ole fashion revenue raising.

There is an entertaining side to this though. Yesterday the government released this new feature where you can view your speeding camera photos online and I was lucky enough to have my photo in there. It's a shame I look like a lard ass in the pic. I had 2 layers of clothes on plus my normal gear, plus my wet gear over the top. It was a real shitty day and the bad weather was looming. In my defense i was kind of in a hurry to get home before I got soaked. I did beat the rain, but at what cost? :P

 

 

I went down to WSID to watch the drags last night on the bike. On the way back an undercover highway patrol got me for doing 98 in a 60 zone apparently. I find it a little hard to beleive, I knew the area was infested with cops and while I was probably breaking the speed limit I'm positive that I wasn't doing 40kph over the limit.  Anyway there's nothing I can do about it, atleast they pretty decent towards me - thats the one good thing about them video taping the traffic stops.  The male cop took a look over the bike and saw the exhaust and braided lines etc and didn't hassle me about it. Turns out the guy was into bikes and he proceeded to tell me about his R1 while the other one wrote out the ticket.

That's a $621 fine, 4 points and a 3 month holiday for me. Atleast it gives me time to work on my cars i suppose. 

I took the VR out for a drive the other night (on a private racetrack of course) and I wanted to see what it had in it. It's only got 200 on the dial which seems a little wimpy.. It didn't shift into top gear until 190kph — that's 3:1 gearing for you!! 3 sec later its off the clock. I reckon it's got easily another 40kph in it, but its no fun if you dont know how fast your going! Oh well, i won't be making a habbit of that anyway.

My friend who has the same name as me was taking his new VR BT1 out for a run on the weekend. He decided to take the old road on the way home to avoid the traffic on the F3 and use it as a good excuse to see what the old 5.0 had in it. He was absolutly pushing it to the limit, using all the road with the tyres howling through all the corners. He just overtook a 4WD flat to the boards and looks back in the rear view to see a blue car coming around the bend..

Now the old ex chaser might not be hot shit by todays standards, but the fact that someone was able to come out of no where and catch it with the way he was driving was very disturbing to him. So he stands on the brakes and drops down to 80 and says to his girlfriend "its the bloody cops!".

Now the blue car becomes visibile in the rear view mirror and he can see that it's a brand new ford GT with the shaker out the bonnet! It gets closer and all the junk on the dash is clear as day, its an unmarked highway car alright. He comes flying up next to the VR and Marty can see a passanger with a laptop out of the corner of his eye. He plays dumb and just cruises along at the speed limit looking straight ahead. The highway floors it up to well over 150 and disappears. Around the next corner it's up the ass of a ute, next thing the lights in the rear window are flashing away. He's not pulling the ute over, he just wants it to get out of his way! After doing the speed limit for another 30 seconds or so, Marty resumes his rampage and never catches back up to the ford. 

All I can say is what a job!! You get to drive around at twice the speed limit in a hundred thousand dollar car completely above the law. Where can I sign up??

If they'd caught Marty they'd have gone to town on his ass! He was half expecting to come around a bend and see the ford wrapped around a tree, but wow the guy could really drive. 

The lesson is, even unmarked highway patrols stand out like dogs balls, when Marty drives he's always got his one eye in the rear view mirror. It's very rare to see someone than can drive well, so be affraid when you do.

My friend Mr X was driving down an un-named motorway in NSW the other day. Mr X was doing about 140 when he is about to pass an unmarked falcon. As he gets close, he glances across at the driver and spots a blue colared shirt which raises alarm bells. He instantly lifts and washes off some speed, he is 90% sure its just some geek in a blue colared shirt because he didn't spot any emblems on the arm etc. 3 seconds later, red and blue lights are flashing on the dash of the BF falcon. Mr X curses loudly and pulls into the left lane and hits the brakes. The falcon behind him hits the beems a few times and Mr X mashes the brakes and hooks it into the brake down area. He pulled up so hard that the guy chasing him couldn't stop behind him. The falcon continues on down the motorway! Mr X decides to wait for 10 minutes before re-joining the motorway incase old mate is waiting for him down the road.

Lets see, 30-40kph over the limit on double demerits = reeming with a rusty shovel.

Now Mr X waits by his mail box for a christmas card from the cops.