The Story of Ballyferris.Chapter Fourteen.Carrowdore 100

Official photo..Commando 961

I love  the growly roar of a powerful motorbike ....what could make me enjoy a noise like that?

Perhaps it was because when I was young the infamous aunt, Helen, took me north on the train to the seaside town of Portrush up on the Atlantic coast of north Antrim. And there we watched the North West 200, and if I remember correctly, it was held every year on the narrow roads of the county. 

Possibly still is!

 Aunt Helen worked for an engineering firm  servicing and selling  Daimler cars, Norton bikes and David Brown tractors. She was a woman in a man's world ....and she was fiesty with it! The company also owned a greyhound racing track and a speedway track in the city..... but that's another story and nothing to do with Ballyferris..... so I mustn't get sidelined !

Anyway, I  really loved the eardrum-splitting noise of the engines as they screamed around the track on the roads of Co Antrim. And I lay on my stomach on the top of a roadside verge with my nose literally inches away from those gloriously smelly monsters absolutely unable to hear anything that aunt Helen might say to warn me to be careful...what did I know of danger!

A gang of friends waiting for the start of the race.

So therefore in Ballyferris, at the top of the lane that lead down to the caravan field having motor bikes speeding past in a major race...that was a delicious joy!.

The Carrowdore 100.

It was so called as the bikers started from  the little town of Carrowdore...you remember Carrowdore... and filled the roads along the shores of the Ards Peninsula with noise, dirt and a smell of oily excitement.

 Not raced over as many miles as The NorthWest 200, and perhaps not thought of as important internationally, but it was ours and and a day to remember.

   A farmer's field was always set aside for the riders and their growling steeds.We made it our job to be there in the field. Tough men in their leather biking gear, scuffed boots with straps and buckles and unnumbered unknown acoutrements, had our eyes popping out of our  heads...and our hearts beating wildly with excitement....wondering...what could all that gear be for?

The smell of  hot engine oil,  the sound of a never-ending accelerator noise as the competitors prepared riding up and down the field waiting for their race, waiting for the signal that summoned them to the starting line, had us too jumping with anticipation.

As townies we always hung around with the farmers' lads, they knew many of the riders by name. And if you were lucky there was a possibility of  getting up close to one of the bikes or even being allowed to sit pillion behind one of these "gods of the road".... though I must sadly tell you, it was not my fortune ever to be chosen!

Such innocent days. Yet in that little tucked away spot of nowhere, death and tragedy struck most years.

 As in the Isle of Man T.T. races nowadays young men died, striving to be the first to cross the line and win the accolades from those who stood around adoring! I don't think the fear of dying was ever as strong, is even now as strong, as the longing and love for excitement and danger.

At the end of the races we trudged down the lane towards the sea and gathered in one of the caravans ...excited, noisy and smelling of  fast engines and fresh air. A wonderful combination! The noise was still going on in our heads......

zoom...zoom...zoom... 

...while outside the windows of the van, the grey Irish sea whooshed us into a dreamy quiet state.

*

The last death stopped it all. Now there is no more Carrowdore 100.

 I 'm sure this is right... and yet... those  "magnificent men on their racing machines", and the

memory of the noise and the smells, went into the rest of the mix which made my teenage years  ever more memorable.

*