Big Smashy Smashy
[A big thanks to Lydia for most of the photos in this post. And organising the tickets. And for first calling it the “Big Smashy Smashy”]
A first glance at this blog title might lead the casual reader to believe I’ve decided to write something about the riots taking place in London everywhere in the UK right now. Nope. It turns out that this Smashy Smashy pre-dates the one in London by at least a few days. Yes, we were doing it before it was cool.
When I say we, I’m mostly actually referring to the folks at “Extreme Events Europe” who brought their vehicular menagerie to Chelmsford last week. Having come along expecting, rather optimistically, that my £8 entry fee would have me in some kind of stadium for the evening’s entertainment, I was somewhat disappointed to find a few beaten up cars parked in the middle of somebody’s paddock. The set-up looked about as extreme as a bowl of porridge (which, just to be clear, is not particularly extreme. Unless you’re eating it with soy sauce. I could probably consider that extreme. I’m sorry, I digress).
They did, however, have Monster Trucks as advertised, which did a slow lap of honour before the show settled into a first half comprising mostly yawn worthy wheelies and the occasional bit of “man rides motorbike through wall of fire”.
The same dude came back in the second half to set himself on fire again, this time by running around with a burning blanket on his back.
We were imaging how the job interview might have gone. Something along the lines of:
- “I want to apply for the stunt man job in your extreme action show”
- “You’re a stunt driver then?”
- “Nope. Never driven a car”
- “So you’re good at motorbike riding?”
- “Not really”
- “Sorry, but I’m not sure you’re suited to this job then”
- “But I’m really desperate for work”
- “How about we set you on fire and you run around for a bit”
- “Ok”
Luckily the second half redeemed the first with some genuinely impressive motorbike jumps followed by the requisite “Monster Truck squashes some cars” routine. All in all, not exactly extreme, but not a waste of £8 either.
