Bennetts ultimate track day!

WATCHING Scott Redding take pillions on a two-seater Moto2 bike, or watching Cal Crutchlow ride sideways around Snetterton whilst Toseland gives lessons on track riding isn’t your average Tuesday afternoon.

But that’s exactly what happened earlier this week when Bennetts took over the Snetterton 300 circuit in for the insurance firm’s Bennetts Ultimate track day.
Just 100 people were randomly selected from 4000 entries on the insurance firm’s Facebook page to attend the special “If Carlsberg did track days” day at Snetterton.

Those lucky few got to ride on track with stars including Tech 3 Yamaha MotoGP rider Cal Crutchlow, Marc VDS Moto2 rider Scott Redding, two-times WSB champ James Toseland plus racing legend and TV commentator James Whitham.

Riding with Crutchlow or Redding is rare enough in itself. But to ride with MotoGP stars in the same week as a MotoGP race is completely unheard of.

In fact, both Crutchlow and Redding were straight off to the airport to fly to this weekend’s Japanese MotoGP once the track day had finished.

Edward Grieg, an Aprilia RSV owner from Wellingborough, Northants, was one of the lucky 100 in attendance. He said: “What a superb day. It was really great mixing with the racing celebs and I don’t normally win anything but this was a fantastic prize.”

Twenty lucky people were also chosen by the motorcycle insurance company to get pillion rides with James Whitham, Scott Redding or Cal Crutchlow, and I was roped in too.

Cal took me for a lap on the back of a Yamaha R1 and I apologise now for anyone I may have scared as a pillion during the last twenty years. Believe me, Cal certainly got his own back for anyone I may have upset in the distant past.

Pulling out of pit lane on one wheel all the way up to the first corner got me in check and a flying lap of Snetterton which included backing it in sideways to one of the new hairpins certainly caught my attention.

The experience was incredible even if 14.5 stone me meant he couldn’t get the power on quite as hard as he would have liked,  but I’ll stick to doing laps with my own hands on the handlebars in future thank you very much Mr Crutchlow.

Almost, but not quite as scary was riding with Cal on two separate bikes.

In fact, after a session with Cal riding a standard R1 and myself on a standard BMW S1000RR Crutchlow told me: ‘You’ve got issues, Potski’. I believe in MotoGP speak that’s a compliment. And the picture on the gallery is proof that for just once in my life I lead a MotoGP rider on a track day, even if he wasn’t trying perhaps as much as I was!