September 17 2008

In the weeks before the Vintage Show came to town, we passed the sign on the road almost every day - Coming Soon: WALL OF DEATH.

Rich, normally so laid-back as to be almost horizontal, was more excited than I had ever seen him. He once raced side-car motorbikes on local grass tracks, winning so often and so consistently on his home-made motorbike that many of his competitors gave up and went to race on another circuit.

His career was only ended by a crash so serious that it nearly killed him, putting him in the hospital for eight weeks and out of work for eighteen months. But he still yearns after motorbikes when he sees them on the road, and sighs sadly when I frown and shake my head.  

“The Wall of Death,” he says with reverence. “It’s fantastic. I’m going back this year, no matter what.”

In an area where they take their tractors and steam engines seriously, the Vintage Show is an event that is eagerly anticipated all year. Scheduled for the last weekend in August, it is a gathering ground for every enthusiast who has ever bought a tractor, taken it apart and put it back together freshly painted, gleaming and better than he found it. Or, depending on your particular area of obsession and fascination, you can purchase the tractor in original condition and leave it that way, proudly displaying the weather-beaten paint and rust marks as proof of authenticity.

Either way, the Vintage Show was a must-see event for both Rich and Benjamin, who at two-and-a-half eats, sleep, drinks and bathes tractors. If you want Boo to eat food, you tell him it’s a tractor going into the shed. His good-night stories, which he tells us with great enthusiasm, start with “Daddy Rich and me went out to the shed to see the little tractor, and it wasn’t working so well…” And end, after long chapters about spanners and diesel, with the phrase, “And then we started it up!” The ultimate happy ending…

Rich calls up tractor videos on You Tube, and he and Benjamin spend long happy hours watching the endless looping of different sorts of tractors, making different sorts of noises, hauling different sorts of loads. I don’t understand the fascination, exactly, but I respect obsessive passion in all its forms, and understand the gleam when I see in two pairs of much-loved eyes…

So off to the Vintage Show we went, with Benjamin strapped into a pushchair specially purchased for the event, so we could spend all day and not have to go home when he got tired. Mired to the axles in the thick, sticky mud that swamped the entire fairground, we gave up and carried the pushchair – and Benjamin – until we reached firmer ground.

There were vintage steam engines of all sorts, elaborately painted and decorated. Tractors, of course, in long lines and driving slowly around the event arena. Horses pulling carriages, and ridden by red-jacket riders with hounds boiling around their hooves.

And then there was the Wall of Death.

Blooming like some luminous mushroom in the middle of the soggy field,  the structure is shaped exactly like a huge barrel, blood red and three stories high. “Demon Drome,” says the sign in front. “Speed Crazy. Stunt Crazy. Plumb Crazy.”

Once you pay your four pounds, you climb up a steep staircase on the right of the round structure, and find a place to stand around the top, peering down into the murky red light at the bottom of the barrel. At the bottom are the stunt men – and one girl – wearing black leather leggings and black t-shirts. The old-fashioned motorbikes sit quietly, until the riders straddle them and fire them up.

The first rider starts to ride in circles around the floor, faster and faster. Then he moves up onto the 45-degree angled join that connects the floor to the walls. And then, incredibly, he’s riding on the walls, the bike directly parallel to the floor flashing by underneath him.

The audience gasps, collectively. It’s a little hard to make your eyes believe what they are seeing – it seems so clear that the rider must fall off, and yet he doesn’t. Instead, the tricks get more and more astonishing – he rides with no hands, he dips and waggles the bike, he races round at the top, thirty feet from the floor, he rides with the young girl perched on the handlebars. Finally he swings his legs over the bike, legs go of the handlebars and rides completely side-saddle. And you simply cannot work out what is gluing him to the bike and the bike to the wall.  Another rider joins him on the wall and they chase each other, passing and racing on the completely vertical surface.

A man standing next to me turns and says earnestly, “This is the most frightening thing I’ve ever seen. “ And then he turns back to the show.

After the show ends, the small crowd roars with relief that no one has been killed, clapping enthusiastically and tossing money down into the pit at the riders’ feet. “Because,” the lead rider explains into his microphone, “this act is so dangerous that we can’t get any kind of insurance.”

Lounging in front of the stage afterwards, tattooed and pierced and tough as nails in their black leather leggings, the riders relax and wait for the next show. One of them is a young girl, around eighteen, with a bleached streak in her hair, wearing the same black t-shirt as all the rest. They look tough, cool, like the dream action figures of every kid who has ever wanted to run away with the carnival.

But oddly, as it turns out, they’re just one big happy family…

The owner of the drome, Dave Seymour, has always been fascinated with bikes. When the opportunity to buy the wall of death came up in 2003, his infinitely understanding wife Julia encouraged him to go ahead. They set it up in their backyard while Dave taught himself to ride it. “It’s a big step going from riding in circles on the floor to the 45 degree angle – it’s a head thing,” he says. “Once you’re on the wall itself, it’s not too bad.”

The blond girl is their daughter, Hayley. Someday, she may take over the Drome herself. For the moment, she rides as a passenger.

The Seymours travel with two other families who help them set up and pull down the massive structure. Julia feeds everyone on huge pots of chilli and spag bol, and everyone stays in caravans for the two weeks that they are on the road.

The vintage show is the first time they’ve taken the Drome on the road, and they will barely cover their costs. But they’re unsure as to whether they would even want it to be a business. Normally they make their living selling supplies to butchers.

Teaching himself to ride the wall, Dave picked up a few bad habits – he rode too fast, and broke a leg. Then the Seymours met Chris at an enthusiasts gathering.

Chris Lee, who looks a bit like Mel Gibson after a bad night, has been riding the wall of death since he ran away with the carnival at fourteen. He learned on a push bike, properly initiated by another rider, and helps the Seymours out now by doing the really dangerous stunts and instructing them in the finer points of riding the wall – the proper throttle control, the right type of tire and tire pressure, the need to make sure the wall’s not damp or dusty.

Chris’ wife Jill travels with him and watches him perform – but only the last show of the day. “I love to watch the way his eyes light up,” she says, “but `I can’t stand to watch every time. Too frightening.”

Although it seems so incredibly dangerous, strangely, the only person ever killed in the history of the wall of death is a pro who died while trying to erect the structure – the panel he was carrying got caught by a gust of wind and fell over on him.

After a lifetime riding the wall, Chris admits he’s had the odd injury - collar bone, legs. Injuries happen “When you’re showing off, when you get over-exuberant. Hitting the cable, trying to dip too hard.”

But mostly, he says, “It’s my pride that gets hurt.”

He’s fifty now, though, and he says it’s time to retire. . “I lose my puff up there these days. And it’s hard on you – the four G’s pulling at you.”

The performance we saw, he says, will be his last.

“I want to go out on top.”