Bruce Williamson and Julie Loveridge at the Cemetery Circuit Boxing Day bikes in Whanganui. Photo by Craig Dawson.
The Boxing Day bikes won't be the same this year.
Injuries have forced the "reluctant" retirement of Cemetery Circuit legends - Whanganui motorcycle duo Bruce Williamson and trusty sidecar swinger Julie Loveridge.
Williamson can no longer hang onto the handlebars after an accident left him with a right hand that doesn't work as it used to.
And Loveridge has a new hip and doesn't want to be tossed about like a rag doll.
"I'm not in full command of the ship anymore and that's dangerous," Williamson said. "We'll end up in a fence."
Their retirement announcement comes just weeks out from this year's Cemetery Circuit races where Williamson has been a regular since 1973, and Loveridge since 2007.
Their bike, a red Triumph named "No 74", knows the circuit better than either of them.
The 1955 Triumph Tiger debuted in Whanganui in 1965 and was the last full-sized conventional motorcycle and sidecar combination ridden competitively.
Williamson, 63, said the forced retirement was a "life changing event."
"Not too much has stopped me before - well nothing in fact - I busted my neck a couple of times.
"I haven't given up hope of the hand coming right. But I'm getting older too."
Unbeknown to Williamson, his swinger too had also made the decision to retire.
"Yes I'm retiring. It had nothing to do with Will, I came to my own decision," Loveridge, 60, said.
She underwent hip replacement surgery in April and does not want to risk damaging it.
"A swinger can crash a bike easy as. Tiger - she's bigger and wider than other bikes so I have to lean further than other swingers.
"All the accidents I have seen - there have been four - they have broken their hips. Paeroa in February was our last meeting."
They took point six of a second off their best lap time that day.
The duo decided to formally announce their retirement after fielding numerous questions about this year's Cemetery Circuit.
"It sounds like bragging - and it's not - but we have supporters out there. We wanted to let them know what's going on," Williamson said.
He praised Loveridge's passion and ability for sidecar racing and said she was without doubt the best swinger he had ridden with.
"It's stunningly hard work to ride that bike. She is so fit. It is a physically shattering event."
He had never ridden with a woman swinger before.
"I didn't think I could ride the thing properly with a woman as passenger. Sooner or later we were going to get trashed and I didn't want to be responsible. Blokes go out to do battle and we get a bit dinged up and we accept that. She wouldn't be put off. She took to it like a duck to water."
The duo have raced across the country and parts of Europe, including the holy grail of motorcycle racing - the Isle of Man.
"Julie was the first Kiwi girl to race at the Isle of Man. I warned her she might come home in a box, but I couldn't talk her out of it.
"I never had a swinger who moaned about going too slow before - I dropped my jaw at what she did - she went to extreme lengths to hold the bike down."
Both say racing at the Isle of Man was the highlight of their careers, but that the Cemetery Circuit would always be their home track.
Despite the danger they had only one serious crash as a team.
In 2012 they hit hay bales in spectacular style during a race at the Cemetery Circuit, setting the barriers on fire and leaving the racetrack in an ambulance. Their injuries, fortunately, were not serious.
"We were on crutches for a while," Williamson said. "I broke my neck on the same corner in '82."
Incredibly the bike has never won an official sidecar race under Williamson, but oddly enough it has won five NZ classic sidecar titles.
"It was consistent and reliable."
Not that winning means that much. Williamson says it's all about the bike.
Known back in the day far and wide as El Tigre, the bike is the same as it ever was except for a new 780cc engine and about 14 gear boxes.
El Tigre was originally 650cc and was converted into a competition machine by Pahiatua's Shorty DeMalmanche and Graeme Binyon in 1965.
They took on the legends of the game in New Zealand such as Toddy Sollitt and Gordon Skilton. No 74 was always in the hunt and took the national title on the Cemetery Circuit in 1972 - the last full-sized conventional motorcycle and sidecar combination to do so.
A motorcycle forum once described it like this: "It had woeful brakes and would be slowed down for 90 degree corners by the age-old biff it sideways technique...with rear drifting, and forks flapping, it made a fearsome sight."
Williamson purchased the machine in 1973 and had his first racing day on the Cemetery Circuit that year, albeit an inauspicious debut.
"Manfield hadn't been built so you had to race on a street circuit. We lasted half a lap and rolled it on the first lap of practice. But we patched it up and finished the day."
As for the future Loveridge says she has grandchildren to dote on, but Williamson isn't so sure what he will do.
"I've never planned my life further than the next Boxing Day. It's all I have ever lived for."
Williamson said he won't be a spectator on Boxing Day either.
"Not if I'm not racing, I'll be too grumpy."
And as for a return to the track, either solo or as a sidecar team, neither could give a straight answer.
"Perhaps, if the hand comes right," Williamson said.
"I've made my decision," adds Loveridge, "I'm super competitive and I worry that I won't know when the time's right to quit. Now feels about right."