Now exclusively online it’s Max Anstie’s monthly mutterings…
Russia sucked! I had to take an 11 hour taxi drive from the airport to the track then had nowhere to sleep. So I got out my tent and blow-up bed set-up. I got lucky when Zecchina – one of the other riders – saw me and let me sleep in the back of his van. You all know how the race went…
I managed to get a bus back to the airport then got delayed for 12 hours until 4am the next day. On the plane I had some weird Russian bird trying to give me cuddles. I was a bit tired so I went to sleep and woke up when we landed with her sprawled all over me. That was okay but apparently my bag was still in Moscow. I rolled into my drive at 6:30am then went to bed.
I had made it back to England! I hung out with my bestest mates Brucey and Jake Eadle. Our first experience was when the boys took me out to learn how to drive stick shift in the Bentley. After we had done a few laps of the block we got back and took the sniper rifle out for a blast. We shot a few rabbits, got scared and freaked out so we put the gun away. Went in and fed the pigs with a few body parts that we had found over the last few days then got out of there because it smelt funny then went in to feed the chickens and discovered that they smelt too and were a bit weird and then I got electrocuted on the electric fence. I tried to ride a horse but gave up because it had a mind of its own. Then Mummy Eadle made some lovely apple crumble. It was a great day!
Oh and if any of you have dogs in the Oxford area and would like to leave them at Lucky Dog Bruce’s compound search Lucky Dog Oxford on Google. I was employed there for a day or so until I lost a Chihuahua and got the tin tack.
We went and got a massage which was one of the funniest experiences of my life. Watching Jake try and talk to the massage lady was hilarious. He said ‘How are you?’ then she said ‘Yeah fine thanks you?’ then Jake said ‘Yeah alright thanks, you?’. Poor Jake. I wasn’t much better and I ended up trying for an hour but failed miserably. After I had spent ages wooing her with my ‘Im a professional motocross rider’ bit she asked ‘what is motocross?’!
I found out that I was racing a 450 at Hawkstone British championship on Thursday. Went and had a blast around on the beast on Friday. Then Neil Prince got her ready and we showed up on Sunday to do the business. I felt a bit weird in practice but did manage to air out this massive triple in the woods. As the day went on I was getting more and more comfortable with the bike – it was nice to have power!
In the first moto I got a pretty good start but one of the KTM guys went all sideways on the second corner so I got a bit stuck and loads of people went around me. I managed to battle my way back to third. Then in the next moto I pulled a good start and was sat in second behind Strijbos for the majority of the moto until we hit traffic on the last three laps.
I knew I had more in me and that with every lap I was getting more comfortable so in the last moto I pulled a massive holeshot and started going fast! It was so nice to get a holeshot. I can’t remember the last time I was out front. I gave Strijbos everything I had for a good 25 minutes then I started getting a bit sideways in the whoops and I was getting kicked about a bit. I had a good little bump with him in the woods then remembered that I have five more MX2 GPs to go and race. So I calmed down a bit and brought her home in second. It was a great feeling to be racing again.
