April 2003
Hi all,
The Police Competition didn’t get rained completely out but it was shorter than most years as the LA officers weren’t in attendance as far as I could tell. At noon the practice started with everyone getting two practice runs. No rain yet but the wind was blowing and some officers were not too happy about the wind gusts. The competition was different this year as the officers had to park their bike at the end of the street half way through the test, shut off the bike and put them on the side stand, then walk/run to a yellow spot about 15 feet in front of the bike, step on the spot and hurry back to the bike, start it and immediately do a U-turn around a stop sign and then complete the other half of the competition back up the street. That went well in practice but once the competition started so did the drizzle, as the streets got wetter the mistakes were mounting up. At the “park your bike” part of the competition one officer hit his siren as he got off the bike and it wailed as he walked to the yellow spot and hurried back to his bike. Another time the siren was hit trying to start the bike after the walk to the spot. More showers, more mistakes, a stall at the stop and go (forgot to downshift, Harley’s don’t like to take off in second gear). Then another officer got completely out of sync as he hit every other cone on the return trip up the street. The wet street was on everyone’s mind for sure.
After the shortened competition the San Jose drill team did a rather subdued exhibition, which was great considering the streets were still wet although the showers had stopped. Throughout the entire day, all the different riders and the drill team on wet pavement not one officer dropped his bike or really put his foot down. A very high level of skill shown by these officers.
We had lunch at the street fair and the rain started to come down, the wind was still blowing so we decided to give up on the day and head home.
I took these pictures at the start of the competition as it was getting too wet to take many pictures at the end of the day. I decided to “test” a new summer coat I wore to Death Valley for rain protection. Claudia put her rain gear on because she is the smart one. I was wet from the elbows down before we got out of Monterey, wetter still after we jumped on Hwy. 101 at Salinas and real wet when we got to San Jose as it rained hard the entire way. All in all a good time and hopefully next year it won’t rain and a group of us can see this remarkable competition and all the different drill teams. The LA drill team has an exciting exhibition they put on as well as San Jose when they have dry streets to show their skills.