Groff: Three is the Number

Lance is rolling down the South Gippsland highway heading for the GP at Philip Island. His legendary CB750 chopper, ‘The Mantis’, is purring. The sun is out and he’s on schedule to arrive at the Trackside campground with enough time to secure a space big enough for himself, me, my wayward brother Stuart, one of my kids, Adam, and his friend, Thunder Hades King. That’s actually his real name: he had it changed by deed poll and I’m sorry I didn’t think of it first. Nobody calls him that, of course – he answers to TK.

The Mantis’ rear tyre picked up the roofing nail somewhere past the Lang Lang turn-off. It’s not a simple puncture as The Mantis was designed by Lance and built by Bob Martin Engineering to accommodate Lance’s inability to bend his left (or right – I can’t remember) foot. It’s not your average rear wheel.

Lance spent two hours waving friendly motorcyclists away while the RACV had the puncture repaired at the nearest available town. Six hours later we’re eating yellow food on a stick at Trackside and listing to a reasonable band do imitations of some other reasonable band from the past. Lance retires early and gets up in the morning to announce he’s lost his wallet. We pull his tent apart but can’t find it. He rings his wife to get the credit cards cancelled and then goes up to administration building in case someone has handed it in.

Nobody says anything but there’s an uneasy feeling around the campfire. Did another motorcyclist in the band tent pick his pocket? There was $300 in the wallet. TK looks less concerned than everyone else and knew that Lance would have been sleeping deeply enough not to have noticed a midnight visitor. We don’t really know him that well. Glances are exchanged.

Determined to enjoy ourselves regardless, we frock up for the traditional lap of the outside of the circuit. There’s a beer tent every 200 yards and you watch all the racing from a different part of the circuit, depending where you are at any particular time during your long shuffle.

Lance is wearing his excellent Honda Four Owners’ Club jacket and within a couple of seconds of actually leaving the campground, a seagull craps on his head. Maybe it wasn’t a seagull: the volume of shit suggests perhaps a pelican may have been involved. Given his luck, it might have been an albatross. We pretend to help him wipe it off without actually touching him or it and are surprised to see him smiling. “That’s it – I’ve had my run of three bits of bad luck. It will be all good from here.”

And it was. He had a great time spending other people’s money (mine), it didn’t rain, the curry he cooked for Saturday night was sensational and very well received, and he got to see one of the best MotoGP races of all time. You had to stand near a commentary speaker and, preferably, a big screen, because the overtaking moves that took place made it impossible for the casual observer to work out who was actually leading. The race and the aftermath were riotous fun.

While Lance was packing up on Sunday morning he found his wallet. Somehow it had slid into the space between his Gearsack and its Masonite base. Could he be right? Does bad luck have some kind of mathematical sequence? Is three the number?

I was having a run of good luck. Firstly, I actually got to go to the GP and camp at Trackside – something I worship but can’t do every year. Eldest son Adam and I had stayed up until 3.00 am the previous morning reassembling his Suzuki GS1000G after replacing the engine base gasket so that he wasn’t coated in hot engine oil everytime he rode. The rebuild went well and the engine was relatively oil-tight for the GP.

I enjoyed every bit of the weekend and brother Stuart and I made it home safely and without being arrested. Yes, it took a couple of days for my hands to stop shaking but, generally speaking, I was on a roll.

Adam had to fly back to Sydney so left the GS temporarily in my care. It was a few days later that I got around to cleaning up the workshop after the late night rebuild.

What I found on the bench in the process was a front camchain guide for a Suzuki GS1000G. I poured a glass of red and spent about an hour alternately staring at the leftover guide and the rebuilt engine. Surely you’d be able to hear evidence if the front guide was missing, but how could I possibly have two of them in my garage?

I was swept by waves of dread. Unlike Brit and American engines, there’s a limit to how many times you can dismantle and mantle an old Japanese powerplant: the fastening threads inevitably give up and you have to ditch the entire unit. My memory of refitting the guide was vivid, but where did this one come from?

There was nothing else for it: into the overalls and out with the tools again. Finding the leftover guide was the start of a run of bad luck. What I would discover when I pulled the engine down again was going to be a lose-lose situation. If the guide was missing, I’m an idiot; if a guide was there, I’d have wasted three hours checking and I’m still an idiot.

Turns out I was idiot number two. Any GS1000G owners who need a front cam guide can get in touch; it’s free to a good home but since I don’t know where it came from, it’s probably haunted.

Those of you counting will have worked out, using the Lance theory, that I’ve only had two bits of bad luck so far. I’m not superstitious but I’m currently standing in my back yard waiting for a seagull to shit on my head. Maybe then I can get back to a normal life…

By Grant Roff