On The Pegs June 2018 - Volume 3 - Issue 6 | Page 80

On The Pegs
P 80
Lane Leavitt (center left) and Mike McCabe (center right) hang out in the
paddocks before the event.
So off we went to London where my
friend, Tony Bentley who was also the
subscription manager for the English
motorcycle newspaper I subscribed to,
met us at the airport and kindly put
us up for a couple of nights. Tony also
arranged for a rental car - a Hillman
Hunter station wagon. The first couple
of days in London, Tony took us around
to all the motorcycle shops we’d heard
of and read about.
One of the shops was the official Bul-
taco imported for England, Comerfords
Cycle. This is where I really got lucky.
We met Jock Wilson, their shop manag-
er, who was also going to manage their
SSDT team. Their team was sponsored
by Castrol Oils, who were doing all their
gas stops and support. So Jock got me
sponsored by Castrol, which enabled
me to get fuel etc. at all their stops. So
that let Kirk Mayfield skip every other
fueling stop, and made it way easier
for us to stay on time. (Note: You are
allowed to be one hour late/per day
- more than an hour late and you are
excluded, so staying on the route, and
assigned time is a big deal.)
We then went down to the South
coast of England to Sammy Miller’s
shop to prepare the bike. We took it
apart, stuffed it in the back of the little
station wagon, and drove ten hours up
to Scotland. Considering that we were