Suffering from severe hangovers and turkey comedowns, Team 44Teeth didn’t wallow in self-pity. Oh no. We trekked to Chippenham for the annual minimoto endurance at M4 Karting and some post-Xmas fume sniffing, teaming up with the northerner Ducati BSB racer pairing of Darren Fry and Ricky Holden.
Now, Baron is a hefty 6ft4″. A minimoto is about 6 inches tall and requires monumental levels of contortion, so even the thought of seeing the lanky thoroughbred riding one had us all in stitches.
Although a few VIPs shirked out of the mayhem through fear of pre-season injury and getting beaten by morbidly obese athletes, the grid was still riddled with World Supersport and British Superbike riders, and the odd national minimoto hero. BSB and TT racer, Peter Hickman joined the likes of Fraser Rogers, Luke Hedger and Luke Jones.
The formula was simple: four-man teams sharing the two-hour marathon. You’d think the execution would have been as simple but it was anything but. Completing 10 minutes deserved a medal and a crane to lift us from the bike. And we were the heaviest team, meaning corner exit woes.
There were broken bones, trips to Swindon A&E for stitches and an onslaught of crashes…
