Gurriers (78 page)

“Porno faggot at three o’clock,” said Vinno without looking at me, just staring straight ahead and not risking eye contact with the object of his insult – a motorbike garda stopped at the top of the Stillorgan Park Road waiting for the other cross– sequence to go red before getting his chance to go. It was impossible to tell whether he was going to go straight to Stillorgan or turn right for town – and into our path – from the way he was positioned. We would just have to wait and hope.

Unlike Vinno, I wasn’t too bothered about making eye contact with the garda (not sharing Vinno’s contempt and loathing for them or else being too naive to fear them as Vinno did) and I looked to my right straight at him. I noticed to my surprise that he was looking straight ahead rigidly in the same manner as Vinno was, as if terrified to make eye contact with us. These men were cocky ignorant know–alls when they got us on our own, but I had the distinct impression that this one was not so smart now that there were five of us. Or maybe he realised that he would have to be one hell of a good driver to catch even the slowest of these couriers (dirty bikes that were all bashed, top of the range helmets – all of which were scratched – full protective gear that was in need of replacement and that natural scrunge that comes from spending many many hours on bikes; it was blatantly obvious to anybody who knew anything about bikes-even seeing us all stopped like this-that we were a bunch of couriers). I predicted to myself that this garda was going straight, even if he had intended to turn right, because he had no intention of mixing it in any way with this group of bikers.

It was, therefore, totally gratifying to see him go straight towards Stillorgan, still looking forward as if he had blinkers on him, when his light went green. I looked after him just in case he was going to turn right at Stillorgan to speed down to the slip road at the next lights and trap at least one of us. He turned left. Lovely, back to the job in hand.

It was just about time to jump these fuckers and beat this light system; eyes right to check for light breakers coming up
from Stillorgan Park. Sure enough, there he was (there always was at least one). A black Alfa Romeo about 200 yards back smoking it to try to make the green even though he hadn’t got a chance. Then the right indicator came on. The shithead was turning into our path – destined to cramp our style. His light went amber when he was about 80 yards back. He was going too fast to stop now, obviously going to break the lights. Next thing Mick (who had caught up with us and had positioned himself on the far left, closest to the kerb) had gone through our red light. This was actually a clever move, having seen the light breakers indicator going on, Mick knew that we would all be delayed in taking off and had decided to break the lights on the far inside, which wasn’t in the Alfa’s path, and get a couple of seconds head start. He might even make the next lights before they went red (although he would have to screw the 250 to the absolute limit, even with the extra jump he got on these lights). I had to admire his guts, pulling off like that with a car speeding his way and a porno faggot just gone.

The Alfa beeped a long indignant beep at Mick as they both went through their respective red lights. Typical road rage logic – making a turn way too fast but still sacrificing half of his grip (one of his hands) on the steering wheel to make sure his indignation was voiced. I didn’t like this gobshite one bit and I tore off the instant his front wheel was level with me – heading straight for him but judging it so that I would have just missed him by the time I got there. My judgement was good and I just missed the back of him without having to ease off the throttle (which, of course, was wide open). He was still ahead of me, though, because of the speed he had been travelling at with me accelerating from a standstill. Vinno had taken a line to follow Mick, which had forced Charlie over that side also. Charlie had accelerated like hell to get level with Vinno on his inside (Vinno had got the jump on him on the take off), which had blocked John in. Paddy and Elaine (who had also caught up) were level with John on his inside, completing the block. Every single one of us had one thing in mind: make the next lights.

I knew that I was slightly behind schedule to make the next
lights comfortably (our lights had just turned green as I took off) so there was no room for error. Ahead of me I could see maybe 30 or so cars distributed between the two lanes (with one empty hard shoulder, which developed into a left turn) stretched out to cover maybe meters of the 400 or so between me and the green light. I had no choice but to go balls out for the middle lane, flashing to make sure they knew how fast I was going and just hope that nobody decided to change lane. I knew that Shay was just behind me, having taken a little bit more precaution with the Alfa on the take off and I was already level with Mick, the first of the other five in the hard shoulder. Head down, wide open, watching, giving myself a brief (very brief) all clear as I went through each gap – touching a 100 mph, as I neared the still green lights. I got through the bulk of the traffic without incident and was maybe 30 yards from the lights when they went amber. That was close enough – I was there! I was ahead of everybody else at this stage and the lights just turned red as I smoked through it. I eased off slightly to have a quick squint in my mirrors to see who else had made it through. Shay had come behind me on the same line. Charlie had accelerated himself to the hard shoulder pole and was through just after Shay.

Now, when these lights went red it was to give a right feeder arrow to outbound traffic to take it up into Stillorgan and the previous lights went green for a bus first to let buses cross from the left to the right to take this feeder. (Every southbound bus on this road went through Stillorgan). The end result of this piece of logic was that whenever there was a bus heading into Stillorgan, it was always first away when the lights went green. This was great if you were travelling south on the bus but - due to the fact that bus drivers are ignorant bullying bastards that don’t give a shite about anybody else on the road - it was pretty damned hazardous if you happened to be heading into town and decided to break the red light! Today it was a 46A bound for Dun Laoghaire that decided he wasn’t going to bother his bollox letting this gang of bikers delay him by as much as ten seconds even if it meant murdering one or more of them! The bus had even started to roll forward – with the feeder light still
red – as I had gone through with Shay on my heels. I’m sure the fucker’s intentions were to make everybody brake, being threatened by something as big as a bus and all, but these men were made of harder stuff than that!

Vinno was next through the red light, with the bus almost across the first lane when John smoked through, displaying David and Goliath style courage in the face of the green monster with the wanker at the wheel. The bus was about half way across the second lane and still gaining momentum when Mick crossed the lane to break the red light. Having jumped the lights down at the Stillorgan park junction, taking such a risk and displaying such balls on his inferior machine, he was not prepared to give in now, apparently even if it meant his life.

He was a man on a mission and no shithead who thought he was a big man in his fucking bus was going to face him down and that was the end of it! I cringed, moving further away at some speed and watching in my mirrors, it still scared the shit out of me. I saw the bus jerk like fuck and I heard the squeal of its brakes combined with the beep of its horn as I lost sight of Mick. My heart sank in my chest and I felt as if I wanted to vomit. The start of the cold realisation crept over me.

“Oh my God! He’s …you fucking beauty!” I saw my friend wrangle his machine back into view, having successfully swerved around the front of the braking bus. I now had even more respect for the crazy, ballsy bastard!

I reverted back to full acceleration with all my attention on the road ahead, as I went through the trees road lights with Charlie and Shay both level with me because of my easing off to watch Mick, with the XBRs back together like loud smoky metal lovers that couldn’t be separated and Mad Mick (as he would probably be christened after that move) turning this five horse race into a six horse race. We all knew that Paddy would have braked sensibly because of his lover on the back.

I had just got through the lights when the next one went red, shortly followed by the right feeder arrow. I gave a quick scan left to right and saw that there were no pedestrians, which meant no
hesitation. Straight through the red light and on down a slight but fast hill to the lights at the junction of the rise (the rise being the name of a road), green as usual after breaking the Mount Merrion ones. Getting back into silly speed territory as I smoked through the green lights, I could see the Foster Avenue lights go amber about 400 meters ahead of me. I needed all of my concentration here. I was a little bit ahead of the rest of the pack here, maybe half a second real time, having hesitated less on breaking the last light. Half a second is not a lot of time, but it could make all the difference; at speed on two wheels it can even be the difference between life and death!

I was doing over 100 mph as the light ahead of me turned red. There was no traffic in the feeder lane waiting to turn right so I didn’t brake but there was outbound traffic coming so I eased off a bit, watching like a hawk for any right indicators. The outbound traffic still had a green to go straight and the cars were really moving here. All it would take would be for one hero to swing right at speed indicating at the last second and I am dead. I gave it full concentration before breaking this light. My heart was (back) in my mouth with the danger of my driving.

“Watch it, Sean, so far so good. Watch… oh, shite there’s an indicator!” I told myself. My worst nightmare! One of the southbound cars had indicated and swung into the right feeder lane to turn right – across my path. I had two choices: I could either brake or accelerate like fuck – depending on his speed.

The little voice in my head was screaming, “Judge it, Sean! How fast?”

He didn’t seem to be going too fast.

“Judge it! Throttle on, now!”

Powering on the throttle, I swung over to my left to give extra room for error just in case I had misjudged it. This was going to be a close one! It turns out that the motorist was going faster than I thought, but not too much.

He swung right (wide eyed and open mouthed), as I screamed through the junction at something close to 90 mph. None of the lads followed me. I felt like jelly with my nerves, angry as fuck at
myself for taking a chance, feeling lucky to be alive and delighted to have gotten away from the pack. I could taste victory but still felt like a gobshite for risking my life in order to get there. Still there - ahead of everybody else who was doomed to suffer a long sequence of red lights - was a damned good place to be at that moment!

The next two miles went quickly because of a good surface, wide road, very little traffic and few lights. It seemed almost easy to cover the distance at high speed without having my compadres breathing down my neck, looking to outwit or out bottle me.

The next set of lights (at RTE) had just turned green when I got to them. Perfect! That meant that these lights would not be reducing my lead (in fact, there was a good chance that they would increase it). On I went, becoming cocky – getting almost giddy at the prospect of having out-driven the best. I drove through Donnybrook without incident, along Leeson Street (little jump over the famous bridge to celebrate my magnificence) and onto the green, looking in my mirrors occasionally but seeing no pursuing lights at any stage. Along Cuffe Street, right onto Aungier Street, left down Whitefriars, down to Golden Lane and there it was – the local! Mission accomplished.

I parked, dismounted and locked my bike quickly and efficiently, opening helmet and jacket at the same time (all those early morning scrambles had me well practiced at fluency and economy of movement). I wanted to greet the rest of them from the bar in a “What the fuck kept yez all?” sort of way just to emphasise that I was the man. I went into the pub, removing jacket and helmet at the same time. Jimmy was on his own at the bar, rubbing a glass with a tea towel.

“Howya, Sean. There’s no-one else here, don’t know where they are today!” Jimmy knew the boys well; knew how they behaved, how they drank and even how they drove – God knows he had listened to them and put up with them often enough. He didn’t know me so well though, since I was only around a relatively short time, but he paused almost confused as I just stood there looking at him. He looked at me questioningly for an instant, not quite sure what I was at. What I was at was savouring the moment.

“Nine pints please, Jimmy!” The first words I had spoken to him, but they were spoken loud and proud and he knew what they meant. I shot him the slightest of smirks which was answered with a wide grin as he began to gather the necessary glasses. He looked at me nodding gently, almost inpercievably, as he began pulling the pints accompanied by the mechanical thunder of the boys arriving outside.

I liked that look as I maintained eye contact with him. That look said one thing to me: respect!

Le Mans was the first taste I ever had of the thrill of being present at a motorbike race. I loved to watch it on TV and admired Mick Doohan for the skilled and brave genius that he truly was, though not as much as our own Joey Dunlop, who had lost his finger and smashed up his shoulder in a crash the previous year but had still gone on to compete in the Isle of Man a mere three weeks later.

Our own local race track, Mondello Park, had some first class motorbike racing events throughout the summer, but the most thrilling of all was something unique to our island and the Isle of Man, with a couple of eastern European countries doing their own version - road racing!