I thought our paddock was pretty advanced but
F1 is quite a long way ahead. But, saying all that, it doesn’t make the racing any better and I’d rather watch a bike race any day! Anyway, thanks a lot to the Lucky Strike team for there hospitality.
After the F1 we did some more cycling and went out with a couple of pro’s on Wednesday morning before we had to leave for Mugello in the afternoon. We met up with Bayliss who was a bit sore from his off’s at
Silverstone but was up for taking me and Casey out once again. We also met with Axel Merckx and Stuart O’Grady who both will be racing at the Tour De France next month. Them boys put a bit of hurt on us because we went into the hills but it was good fun and good to see just how strong the pro’s are. We did a 3 hour ride and then had to go back to Casey and get packing for out flight from Nice to Italy.
When we got to Italy on Wednesday evening I was still not sure if I would be racing that weekend. The (Campetella) team had put a proposal to IRTA for Franco Battaini to ride in place of me and I didn’t find out until 2 o’clock on Thursday afternoon that I wouldn‘t be riding. I was obviously p***ed off about the whole situation but I can’t say that I didn’t expect it. It’s been on the cards since the first race of the year and I am now without a ride.
To cover the whole saga in two words it would be 'stitch-up'. When we met with the sponsor last November the team had promised us 100% that they were sure everything was absolutely good to go and were convinced that all was in place and we were ready to go racing. As the team has been around for many years, we really had to trust what they were telling us although we had heard, this particular sponsor, have a reputation for not being entirely trustworthy.
