Flat out, Flat Trackin'
Woke to the sound of heavy rain on the roof this morning. The immediate thought was that the Flat Track had bit the dust. Drowned in the deluge that was falling. And then, as quickly as it had begun, the rain stopped.
We pushed out the start, broom dried the limestone layer and prayed, in equal parts. We also left what would be the slippy bits, well they would just have to become something to get used to.
To push ourselves around the limestone packed topping we’d built five specially modified KLX 150’s. They were in essence the same, a level playing field but branded in the colours of the five countries we currently have Temples in; Australia, USA, Japan, Italy and of course here in Indonesia.
Launching into the first heat, with Woolie, Stuart, Matia and Kel, they were our litmus test of the runs to come, we had no idea, if fact there wasn’t a person present who knew what we were expecting. The steam roller had left the night before and so didn’t know whether we would be expecting a parade of crashes or super tight inside lines.
Luckily for us it soon became apparent that the inside runner was the place to be on this rather short Flat Track. But (insert expletive here) entertaining, we hadn’t anticipated how much it would be. We knew we wanted to be so but….
You got to understand, we built this track… Slap, bang in the middle of the village of Canggu. It was bound to stand out. We knew we were doing something new. It was piles of rubbish and building material packed down, levelled and topped off with 15cm of limestone. It should work…
The town folk thought we were crazy as did the visitors who drifted in to see what all the kafuffle was all about. Remember the carnival that set up on the side of town when you were a kid. We were that. An oddity. An outsider. Something very, very different. We had the two headed bike. They all came for a look.
Got to tell you, what we built was, arguably, one of the first Flat Track’s to be built in Indonesia, a sport which is the fastest growing motorsports in the US, however, it was slightly smaller than compliance. We had to stick a round peg in the existing square hole of land across the road from the Deus Temple of Enthusiasm in Canggu. It was always gonna be what we could fit in!
This event tuned out to be the most fun we’d had all weekend, while the rest were amazing, this eclipsed them. It was in your face and frantic from the word go. The crowd was closed in, tight up, and all over the gates. All of us were collectively wondering where it would go. It felt new and we kind of knew it.
