Going Dutch.......................Thursday 20th August 1998
0700. “Mother of the Year” drives over from her home to take me to Junction 37 at 6.45am. Coach picks me and a fellah called John up. I ended up sitting next to him and fall asleep. Sorry John, no offence mate, I was just tired, coming straight off the night shift.

0800. Stop at Leicester Forest to pick up a father and son. Have a motorway service station breakfast. It was not unlike an encounter with a leprechaun. My wallet appeared lighter for the experience.

1400. Catch the ferry to Calais having first drove over the Dartford Bridge, very impressive. Anyway, a couple of pints of Guinness on the ferry, then back onto the coach, straight through France, Belgium like a dodgy curry and onto Venlo in Holland. The scenery is not so good; maize fields and flat farmland with lots of horses and Friesians for mile after mile. The occasional canal interspersed with polders and dykes is in fact typical of Holland. Where have all the windmills gone anyway, or do they only have them in the north now? Of course there are no borders anymore so we drove without stopping. My passport is still a virgin (it hasn’t had its card stamped yet)! It’s never been the same since the Germans left.

2000. Arrive at Hotel Campanile on outskirts of Venlo. Frankie Wainman Jnr, the man we have all come to watch, has broken down at the side of the road near the hotel with gearbox problems on his car transporter. We drive straight past him. So much for unity in the Stock Car fraternity! Contemplate ringing home to see how Dad is after his two recent heart attacks but Mum said not to in case it spoiled my holiday. I feel a bit guilty. I even went to the Buxton consolation semi the day he had the second one, at the same time my sister, brother in law and the 3 gremlins were away holidaying in welsh Wales. A right loving family he has got!

2200. Snap time at the hotel. Eat a bit of lemon chicken with rice, then though I hardly know anyone, I tag onto some lads who become great friends. Walk down to Motel Venlo and start the way we mean to go on. We soon educate the barman how to pour a full glass of “bier”. He speaks good English and when he produces 6 pint glasses from nowhere I tell him he is top banana. He looks quizzically for a moment then someone translates it in Dutch and he bursts out laughing and pats me on my back. Later we disgrace ourselves. Phil from Cleckheaton knocks his drink over and it soaks him through. We respond by tipping the peanuts all over him. He was in a right tacking even before we got in the bar. He had drunk a twelve pack on the coach. The Motel residents looked upon us with disdain. Tut tut.

2400. Worse for wear, full of bier and having nearly got run over by a motorbike on the pavement, I retire to my single room and my double bed. Nutty Richard spends most of the night sleeping on the concrete balcony because he can’t work out how to use the card to get into his room. Someone falls over him at 3am and lets him in.

Fri 21st
0800. Set off for Amsterdam 90 miles away. Get stuck in massive traffic jam between Eindhoven and Utrecht. Put “Full Monty” on video to pass the time. End up watching all the film. First time I’ve seen it. Good innit’? Mind you, we’re all like that in Sheffield you know, friendly, swear all the time and take our clothes off at the drop of a hat! It must be the rarefied climate.

1130. Arrive in Amsterdam. Find somewhere to eat. An Italian restaurant seems favourite. Pizzas are 18” across. Simon Frooooooooom (what a brilliant name for a Stock Car fan) from “Barth”, and a fellah from Heckmondwyke share a pizza but they only have one plate. I find this amusing but then I have a strange sense of humour anyway. I only have one pint of bier, so I do a quick diagnostic on my state of health, feel my pulse and brow for signs of sickness but everything seems to be okay. Strange!

1500. Fed up with walking about Amsterdam and “window shopping” on Kanalstrasse, we retire to “Durty Nellie’s” Irish Bar for a long cool Guinness. Probably the best pint of Guinness I’ve had outside of Ireland. Make our way back to the coach (via Kanalstrasse again strangely enough!). We are all good boys (and girls) and we only looked occasionally. Some of the “merchandise“ was a bit dodgy. THEY would have had to pay ME!

1600. Set off back to Venlo via the same enormous traffic jam between Utrecht and Eindhoven. Put “Dumb and Dumber” on the video. Tape packs in half way through so we never see the end. Tape starts up again just as we enter the hotel car park. Typical! Driver blames the heat of the engine. He wants to shift the video player then, ‘cos the engine’s quite important yeah? Duckegg!

2100. Straight after dinner we jump in a taxi and zoom down to Venlo. It has been raining and the square is deserted. End up in Die Gouden Tijger (The Golden Tiger no less), otherwise known as “the Long Bar”. Anybody who is anybody in the Stock Car world is in here. Almost everyone is already blitzed. We are stood on and are dancing on the tables. Bier is everywhere. Lots of people are falling over, especially Chris Lloyd! Everyone is buzzin’, having a good time. The music is “techno” I am led to believe. Not my personal favourite but I don’t think Led Zeppelin would have been appropriate. After a sing-along to “Living Next Door to Alice”, (Who the f**k is Alice) and a heart rendering “You’’ll Never Walk Alone”, we all fall out into the street and stagger next door to the Kabab house. There are about 150 Englishmen and women falling about on the streets of Venlo tonight.
Chris “The Kid” Lloyd and Ray “Wot Silencer” Witts, two of the drivers, are slagging off the Greeks big time but there is no trouble. I ended up in the queue so I thought I might as well buy something. They didn’t sell souvenir leather keyrings with windmills and clogs on, so I bought a carton of chips, sausage and mayonaise instead!

Sat 22nd
0330. I am guessing at the time. Crashed onto my bed and immediately clocked out. Richard spends another night on the balcony. He’s a hopeless case.

0800. The cleaner knocks, comes in and goes out again. Can’t remember whether I was clothed or not. The full monty eh? I did not care, as I was still under the “affluence of incohol”. For God’s sake I’d only just gone to bed! Go down to breakfast anyway. Everyone is walking about aimlessly like zombies, crashing into each other and saying sorry. I can’t face salami and croissants again so I drink about two gallons of orange and grapefruit juice instead. I feel mildly better but it has little effect, except to stoke up last night’s alcohol.

1000. The coach takes us down into Venlo. Wander around market down by the river. Lots of fishy and cheesy smells and smoked eels as far as the eye can see. There is plenty to look at in the market. A sex cinema and live stripping joint is adjacent to the market. Some of the lads pop in Saturday night. I bump into my mate Ian Tingle, Sheffield’s best F1 driver (Gary Utley might dispute this but I don’t know Gary Utley so that’s that). I normally see Tingle in the pits at Stock Car meetings so this was a bit different meeting him at an eel stall in Holland. We arranged to meet in the long bar that night. Unfortunately I had to renege on the deal. My physical state was not what it ought to be due to the ravages of alcoholic beverages. When I saw him at Coventry a fortnight later he said I had missed nowt, that it was heaving and there was only one bar open.

1100. Sit around outdoor tables in town square and drink about 5 or 6 tiny cups of coffee at 5 guilders (£1.50) a throw. A 1930’s white “Dr Goebbels” type Mercedes Convertible rolls up. Out stepped a Bride and Groom who proceed to get married in the town hall. It was all very tasteful. A tear rolled down my cheek into Phil’s coffee. A street organ is brought round and plays the wedding anthem for them, as they stand together on the ornate balcony. They wave at friends and well wishers. We all clap and wave as the newlyweds step down the town hall steps hand in hand. They both have hearing aids visible and so do a lot of the other guests. We are all very respectful towards them. The bride looked very pretty in her traditional white wedding dress. The groom wore top hat with a burgundy waistcoat, grey sash band and tails. The low throbbing of the Mercedes engine sounded awesome as they gently moved on their way. It reminded us of why we were in Holland.

1200. Wander up and down the main street for an hour. Pass Wittsy’s coach with it’s “Sex for Sale” poster up in the window. As if!! End up where we started. I mildly slag off Keith and Phil for leading us on wild goose chase ‘cos I am knackered with walking about aimlessly, and because I am dying for a Richard 3rd. We go into a bar we have not been in yet. Start on pints of bier straight away. Meet a total Stock Car nutcase from Manchester who won’t tell us his name but doesn’t stop talking about the old Stock Car legend Stu Smith (# 391). We decide to call him “391”. I can remember the first few drinks but then amnesia set in. I recall Clinton Dorrell #262 (a very polite young Stock Car driver from Malvern, Worcestershire) telling us all he had no doubt Frankie Wainman Junior would win the World Stockcar Long Track Final. Was he a prophet or what? Well this is where I stick the knife in a bit, he told me at the Coventry World Final that John Lund would win. HA! And I thought he was Wainman’s mate…!

1600. Stagger back to coach park. Nobody misses the coach. Amazing! Richard’s done it, totally. Young Phil’s shot it as well. Old Phil’s not too good either, his legs weren’t moving in the correct sequence. I think I am okay though, but I can’t tell properly, though because I’m ever so Brahms and Elephants. Keith never looks as though beer affects him but he had tell tale red eyes which seemed to get longer by the minute.

2000. Meanwhile back at the ranch I glance sideways at the dogfood (beef chasseur) and undercooked tiny roast potatoes on my plate. Decide to eat a bit of apple pie then retire to room with a couple of cans of bier. Eat all room service biscuits and drink all coffee and tea until I run out of milk. I am knackered so I stay in my room and watch telly. What Dutch TV we could receive was pretty crap! It’s the big day tomorrow and I want to be in good nick, so I turn in early.
Sun 23rd
0800. Up for it. It’s race day. There is no salami or kaltpfefferwürst today just when I fancied some. Story of my life I suppose. I settle for toasted oats and a ham sarnie.

1000. Off to Baarlo. The track is massive. It is filling up already and it doesn’t start until 1pm. Wander around the pits. Find FWJ (# 515) getting his race car out of the trailer. A new gearbox for the coach is on it’s way from Market Weighton, East Yorkshire courtesy of Ian Higgins (#29) another Stock Car driver. FWJ and his team of mechanics fix his gigantic airfoil on. The rest of the car disappears. It looks like a black mouse wearing a big silver sombrero.

1200. Wander about on track watching cars getting weighed. There is lots of pointing and shouting in Dutch. Gazz Bott is wearing a Fedora, at the weigh in. Cool – not! Who does he think he is, Pete Tucker? Well he looks like Speedy Gonzalaez? The track marshalls clear the track of debris, both Dutch and English, and we have to retire to the terrace. I find Frans van Soest in the Rapid Orange marquee. We have a téte a téte about tearing tickets in half at Sheffield. Good fellah that van Soest. The terrace is packed by now. I find the bar and lots of our crew are already in there preparing to get blotto. I then pinch a chair to stand on to watch the racing. Whilst getting out some money, my “half of an admission ticket” drops out as well. I despatch it into my wallet as a souvenir of Baarlo ‘’98! Hmm!

1215. Racing practice. One hundred and twenty something m.p.h. down the straights, braking to god knows what for the bends. Awesome! You would break your neck if you tried to follow them past. The noise of the engines makes your hair stand on end just like Infusium 23. It corrects, restores and “structurises” apparently, and if your hair is thinning, it thickens it. What’s wrong with WD40? Whoops sorry, I digress.

1300. Racing starts with some non-contact formula. It’s fast and noisy, but not my cuppa cappuccino. We have a sweepstake. I excitedly stick my hand in the cap and I draw the never to be forgotten wotsisname, Long Track expert, Stan Hickey from Roturua in New Zealand. His Louw Wobbes loan car is pulled off after the first practice with a blown engine so that’s me out of the sweep before the race even starts and 5 piggin’ guilders down the pan. Yer pays yer money and takes yer chance. And I had no piggin’ chance.

1400. Parade lap for main event, The World Long Track Finalists are stood on their cars being pulled by tractors and HGV units around track. Drivers wave to fans. There is an amazing reaction from crowd. The atmosphere is electric by now. It is the traditional slow build, up leading to a crescendo much favoured by all motorsports.

1430. Slow rolling lap with a blatant flyer by Johann Catsburg and by Chris “Smokey” Bimmell in his zillion b.h.p. twin air filtered thingy, then the massive explosion of noise as they enter the straight. Piet Keizer takes aim at FWJ’’s rear bumper, misses and ploughs into the safety fence at 100mph demolishing a huge length of armco fencing. That’s a good start.
A 80 minute delay ensues whilst the track marshalls and engineers try to repair the fence. Most of them are wandering around like headless chickens. There is shouting and pointing again. Piet Keizer seems okay after his self inflicted misfortune. He is allowed back into the restart. The fence cannot be repaired so they crane André Neet’s old “black tank” Stock Car into the gap to act as a fence! It should be in the Beaulieu vintage car museum really, or perhaps more appropriately the Bovington Tank museum, but it’s good they found a use for it. Incredible or what?
Meanwhile Higgins’ replacement gearbox arrives from England and is installed it into the coach/transporter.
The race gets underway again. The ear splitting, earth shattering V8 engines roar into life again. This time it is a clean start and Louw Wobbes and Ron Kroonder take it up pursued by Frankie Wainman Jnr. It’s white paint on the rails, whoops wrong sport!! Sean Tilley does an impression of a chip pan blaze down the back straight, that after trying to blast Piet Keizer into Germany via the hole in the armco. Lap 11 of 20 and Wainman makes a challenge, gets past Wobbes cleanly then catches Kroonder. He is 12 inches behind him at 130 mph! Hmmm. Lap 13 and he makes his move and whistles past Kroonder and just eases away from the Dutchman. The cloggies are silenced, not that you could hear much above the din of the engines anyway. A brilliant drive by Junior. The crowd in the bar are going bananas. Even some cloggies we met from Groningen up there in the north in Friesland where the black and white cows come from, joined in the celebrations. Mind you they were blind drunk and bashing their enormous yellow clogs together whilst singing “Que sera, what will be, we’re coming from Groningen.” It didn’t rhyme or make sense but what the hell. However as “# 515” takes the chequered flag our mate “391” is up on the fence waving his arms around like a windmill on amphetamines, as are Wittsy and Chris Lloyd. People are yelling “FRANKIE” out of the windows and the fence hangers are yelling “FRANKIE” back. There are lots of beams on lots of faces. Lots of red and inebriated faces.
I decide to get a drink now. I had wanted to see the last Baarlo sober. Richard staggered up to me and said something vaguely like ”Did he win then?” and fell asleep with his head in the slops of the beer tray. Big trays with 20 glasses of bier on just keep arriving at our tables. Forty guilders (about £14) filled a tray with bier. Nobody had to buy 2 rounds. Everyone was aglow. One of the lasses in our crew came up and said “Are you glad he’s won ‘cos I’m not?” I replied that I am by nature stoic and don’t get over emotional (the smooth talking b****** that I am) and that I have been a long standing John Lund fan anyway. She said she was as well, so we distanced ourselves from the FWJ brigade and got drunker and talked all sorts of drivel as you do. Her fellah was wearing a Burnley football shirt so it was hardly surprising she would sooner talk to somebody else was it? Only joking mate, it could have been a Man Utd shirt! Mind you, credit where it is due, he won the sweep and bought the bier for everyone. We were all one big happy family by now and by the time the racing was over, one or two of the gang were blitzed. Everybody seemed to know each other a whole lot better all of a sudden.

1700. We meet in the bar and stagger back to the coach. There is a good atmosphere and people who would not normally be so gregarious are rabbiting away like long lost friends.

2000. We all go straight into the hotel restaurant and have pork with white wine sauce, potatoes, sweet red cabbage salad finished off with a really moorish chocolate mousse. Everyone retires early. We are up at 7 for breakfast and away at 9 in the morning. The weekend positively buzzed and surprisingly I can remember quite a lot about it. It was to be the last long track final at Baarlo. It is a crying shame the track is to be bull dozed to make way for chalets. Perhaps someone will come up with an alternative for next year. Word is, there is a track at Venray and one up there in Groningen which could be suitable so perhaps next year could be on after all. Fingers crossed, legs plaited because this is an experience I wouldn’t mind repeating sometime.

There is just one other thing. When I got on the coach on the Thursday, I knew nobody except Ray Garland. Everyone else was most likely saying “Who’s that little duck egg who’s just got on?” Well when I got off the coach, almost everybody seemed to be shouting “See you Mick, or see you Tricky, see you mate”. A tear trickled down my cheek into my Le Pia D’Or winebox. Well it didn’t really, but you know what I mean, I was touched, everyone was so nice. My faith restored in human kindness, I dropped my stuff off at home, showered and went straight out to the pub. Again!
Jealous to death, my mate came up to me and asked me what it was like. I said it was absolutely magic! And it was.