I got a call yesterday from Tony at an odd time, and I just knew it wasn't anything good. It took me a while to realize that my friend Rich was gone. But as Dan has also expressed, it had been several months when Ric had no reason to smile anymore. I was there with him at Cadwell when his lowest humour came out. I tried to lift his spirits up as much as I could but there was nothing I could do. His mind was and has always been with Jo, and the fella had the weight of the world over his shoulders. We did watch the last race at Cadwell together and then I was forced to say goodbye to him as Doug was my ride so I couldn't hang about longer. Ric wasn't right at all, his eyes were telling me something that he couldn't bring himself forward to say. Maybe he tried to apologise for being a loud drunk the night before but I think he was trying to tell me that he cared for our friendship. Since I found out he is gone, I have spent the last 24 hours kicking myself for not hugging him at that very second, when I had the chance, and he probably needed a friend the most. There are so many things that I would have liked to tell him. Now I break into tears just thinking about it or even looking at a picture of the both of us on the paddock.
The sad bid said, I know, I just KNOW, that Ricardo would have not liked us, or anyone to mourn him at all. Yes, Ricardo, I always called him Ricardo Rapido as a joke. As Dan said, he was a loner but he was like Captain Jack Sparrow. Had a wicked sense of humour and loved his boat, the Black Pearl (Someone named his group 6 like that and I thought it was brilliant) This is the guy that when he saw me he would change his chip and pitched his speech into an intellegible (at least for a foreign gent like me) thick Yorkshire accent. The more I asked him to repeat the words again, the more he would accentuate his speech. He loved winding me up (yes Ricardo, I know you might be laughing still reading this!!). Whenever I arrived to the track,there he came, with a thick grin, already with his phrase prepaired to greet me: "Eeei ooop ye Clartnoggin'!" From that point on it wasn't an a to b conversation, it was more like an a to b...where the f@@k I left my dictionary?...Lets not forget that I am, or I was ALWAYS playing the "away/visitor" side of the game. I am with Dan in saying that Ric was a walking database, he knew by heart where every possible link, posted four years ago, in some godforgotten forum was, and what was said. He knew the rules of the game so well, that he allowed himself the biggest prank in the history of scootering, and I think this is the way I would like Rich to be remembered for. He told me he was presenting the Black Pearl for the custom show at Brid..... As a 1959 Series 1!!!! Of course I laughed my bum off, and told him that he was prepairing the biggest pi55 take in the history of scootering. Sure as sh1t, his group 6 was there on the 26th of October, standing proud (not tall) between the comedy mod Lammies (no offence intended ). Of course I thought they would send the poor lad home empty handed, "yeh sorry about that lad, its not a series 1 you see?"..... Well the crazy git placed 2nd!!!!!!!! Oh he was happy as if there wasn't anything better than that. I wish he had seen my stupid face when I found out! I bet he is laughing up there still, with a thick grin on his face, calling me a Clartnoggin, knowing that he was too right.
I miss you bro, very very much. May you find peace always wherever you are.
Jaime
