Mat's Stag Day

Here you can find out what Mat got up to on the 12th August 2006.

The Protagonists (in order of appearance):

• MAT HEIGHWAY - the Condemned Man
• BEN BOOTH - the Best Man
• ROBIN WALKER - Academy friend
• ROBIN WHITEHOUSE - aka Lord Death - Oxford friend and former lodger
• ADRIAN WARRICK - JSO/gigs/bass repairing friend. Also one of our Witnesses
• GUY HASKELL - JSO/gigs friend (excellent with bouncers)
• MATT FORBES - Academy friend and excellent beer-scout

The Itinerary:

• Lunch
• Karting
• Evening

Mat's Best Man, Ben Booth, organised the day's activities, and the whole thing was a mystery to Mat, who was led like a lamb to the slaughter. Not that we got slaughtered...

Lunch:

The day started well with a hearty home-cooked Full English for Mat and Ben. But lunch was already beckoning (not that Mat knew it), and soon Mat and Ben arrived by car in Northwood, to have lunch at Robin and Alison Walker's house. The navigating was particularly amusing, as Mat was reading the directions but wasn't allowed to look at the next page until absolutely necessary because he wasn't allowed to know where he was going!

Lunch was a lovely affair of pizza and freshly-picked salad from Robin and Alison's garden. Robin Whitehouse joined us, and then it was back into the car. Alison didn't join us, but Mat, Ben and the two Robins would be joined later by others...

Karting:

A fraught journey later, the 4 Horsemen (Gunmen?) of the Apocalypse arrived at Lakeside Karting Raceway near Thurrock, Essex. They were joined by Adrian Warrick, and the fully-constituted Famous Five signed to say that they were allowed to be killed, and were allocated a team number. We became... TEAM 17.

LEFT: Team 17 in all its glory.

Left to right - Adrian Warrick, Ben Booth, Robin Walker, Mat Heighway, Robin Whitehouse

CLICK the image for a LARGER VERSION

Magnificent, eh? In due course we were shown a training video and told to get into our gear... and then it was down to the pit lane to get ready for Practice.

The race was a 2-hour 'Enduro' - an endurance race, team against team. There were 22 teams, each with their own car, and it was up to each team to swap drivers around during the race by bringing the car into the pits and changing driver as quickly as possible. Ben was quickly nominated team manager for the day (bringing about several Ross Brawn references), and he proceeded to organise our strategy. The cars we were using were twin-engined, 400cc race-tuned Pro Karts with slick tyres and a top speed of 70mph (113kph). We probably didn't get much above 50mph, but it feels a lot faster than that when you're less than 3 inches off the ground!

Here's what the circuit looks like:

As practice got under way, we all had a go in the car to learn the (surprisingly long and tricky) track. No easy feat, as it was raining when practice began, and the slick tyres meant NO GRIP. As the race got under way, though, the rain stopped and the track rapidly dried out. Some of the drivers were 'driving beyond their abilities' and eventually the race was stopped (Red Flag) and the teams all told to behave or they'd be 'Black-Flagged' (excluded). That over with, the race was restarted and we discovered that we were doing quite well, for a bunch of almost complete novices. At one point in the race we were as high as 6th (out of 22 remember), but it has to be said that some of the drivers out there were gaining places by means of some rather unorthodox strategies (overtaking under Yellow Flags, Contact etc.). The race officials soon clamped down on such things, but we were too gentlemanly to stay in contention for the win. Never mind.

With 20 minutes to go we were in a respectable 12th, and Ben put in the final driver to finish the race. Step forward Mat. The team had steadily (though slowly) lost ground all through the race, but Mat was determined to try and make up some time whilst other drivers were tiring and making more and more mistakes. There were quite a few Yellow Flags in the closing section of the race, and this thwarted Mat's efforts a bit, but by the time the race was over, we'd come a very respectable 11th out of 22.

We were tired and aching, but quite pleased. The man in charge of the centre came up to us afterwards and commented on how impressed he'd been with the quality of our driving and the fact that, unlike some others, we had been driving carefully and correctly (and reasonably quickly too!), and was surprised that most of us hadn't raced before. Nice. Robin Walker and Adrian had other places to be that evening, so we parted company after the race, content in the knowledge of an exciting job well done. Nice one Team 17.

Now for something more relaxing...

The Evening:

It was time to head into London (Mat once again navigating, but this time with eyes open!) - first stop, King's Cross. Having dropped off the car and finally found the hotel that Mat and Ben were staying in that night, Robin (Whitehouse) waited while Mat and Ben got changed/showered etc., and the 3 Amigos indulged in the luxury of a taxi to Covent Garden. Here they were met by Guy Haskell and Matt Forbes, who'd been there for a while already, sampling the choice available at the drinking establishment that Matt had found, picked for its choice of ales. The Porterhouse.

We actually sat outside the doors on the right to begin with. We all went and chose our beer (they serve at least 10 of their own, plus guests), and Mat was taken by the name of a particularly unusual-sounding one, 'Früli'. This turned out to be a strawberry beer, quite startling and beautiful in colour, aroma and TASTE! Very soon the others were all drinking it too, even Robin, who doesn't drink beer.

We checked what time the Porterhouse closed, then hied us to a local curry house for some exellent food, some lager (shame!) and some rather rude jokes. But time was marching on and we all felt that the Porterhouse should be revisited. We tried this, but we'd been misinformed about closing time and the bouncers wouldn't let us in, saying that they'd stopped serving (we could see pints being poured, through the open doors) and that no-one was allowed in any more (but they'd failed to notice that Guy walked right between them and straight up to the bar, ordering a round of Frülis!)

The bouncers weren't keen on letting us in. The others had given up by that point. In fact, Robin had to go home, so goodbyes were said and the evening looked to be over. But then Guy came outside and explained the situation carefully to the bouncers. Amazingly, he actually managed to convince them to let us in, and the evening was rounded off by the survivors in fine style, with strawberry beer and a sense of acheivement.