It was 1999 and the event was held at the rugby club at Kettering.
It was only about 40 minutes away so as a member, I decided to go along and see how these events unfolded and hopefully get to rummage through the autojumble and drool over some nice bikes.
After arriving I found the parking area and proceeded to fumble around getting a steel plate out of the tool tray and under the side stand and at the same time having a quick scan around to work out where my next fix of coffee was going to come from. During this performance, Mr. Clipboard came up to me and told me it's a nice bike and I should park it over there, in a slightly confused state I nervously pointed to the concours area and he nodded. Having never been to one of these bunfights before and Mr. Clipboard looking official, I did as instructed.
After repositioning to said area and ended up next to a very shiny Honda twin from the 60s, I started to go through the soft ground parking procedure again and was chatting to a very elderly gent who has just ridden up from the other side of London. In no time at all, Mr Clipboard came over and thrust a piece of paper in my hand and said fill this in and leave it on the bike.
No sooner had I filled in the form, Mr. Helpful came along and advised me to clean all of the squashed flies off the headlight and the backs of the mirrors and did I want to borrow a cloth and something to soften them up a bit. I had just had 40 minutes of fun on the back roads going from Oundle-Corby-Kettering so there were a few. By this time I had another bike parked on my other side, we'll call this guy Mr. Rescue. Having heard most of this while removing his riding gear, he swung around and said no mate you want to leave them leave them on, the judges like to see bikes that actually get ridden. This stopped Mr. Helpful dead in his tracks and sensing an opportunity for a wind up Mr. Rescue gave me the wink and explained to Mr. Helpful that these probably aren't real flies and you could buy them as wet slide transfers, just soak them in water and flick a few here and there to make the bike look like it has been ridden here because that catches the judges attention. I still don't know to this day if Mr. Helpful managed to find some squashed fly transfers in his local model shop.
What have I stumbled into, coffee and personal time desperately needed!
By comparison I had a pleasant afternoon chatting with like minded people and a good rummage through the autojumble. Thoughts turned to food and the boss had told me what time dinner would be on the table. I had a 3 hour drive down to Eastbourne that evening for an 04:00 sailing the following day on the survey ship I was working on. I need to be leaving soon, do I steel my bike back from the arena?
Too late, it was time for the awards ceremony and most folk sat or sprawled out on the grass around the officials tent and things proceeded. Then when it came to the award for the best 70's in show my name was called 3 or four times, I wasn't paying attention, thoughts were on tea, time for a nap and a long drive and how much fuel is in the rental car delivered previous day.
At the end of all of that people started to disperse and I tried. This time I was collared by the guy that does articles and photography for Classic and Motorcycle Mechanics, this involved finding a space with an uncluttered background and he snapped away. He said it was for their restorers reference page, and I have no idea if the pics ever got used or not.
I still have the sticker among my hoard of expired discs and the mini mag lite which was the prize.
Regards
Dave