This year’s Twin Shock Nations, set for Farleigh Castle on September 24/25 is going to be a cracking event with legends from Great Britain, America, New Zealand and Belgium attending. We sat down with Dave King and asked him about his event and what has inspired him to do it.

MXlarge: Dave, so tell me who do you have coming for this year’s event?

King: We have Graham Noyce, Neil Hudson, Dave Thorpe, Jeff Stanton, Chuck Sun, Jim Gibson, Scott  Burnworth, Shayne and Darryl King, Josh Coppins, Mickael Pichon, Roger De Coster, hopefully Stefan Everts and many more.

MXlarge: For those who don’t know your event can you explain it for me?

King: The whole event is a twin shock des Nations, with four riders in each team, we have teams from Australia, South Africa, America, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, France, England, all of the leading Motocross Nations, then nine support groups to that with any bikes including and up to 1989, so we have 125cc, 250cc and 500cc classes.

MXLarge: Who will be riding for Team Great Britain?

King: Team Great Britain is not complete, but so far it will be Brian Wheeler on a 250, Pete Mathier on an open class bike, Neil Prince and the fourth rider is to be decided.

MXlarge: And Team USA?

King: Team America is Jeff Stanton on a 1979 CR 250, Chuck Sun will be on a 490 Maico, Jim Gibson on a 540 Honda and Scott Burnworth will be on a 400 Suzuki.

MXlarge: The King brothers, will they race for Team New Zealand?

King: Darryl and Shayne will ride for New Zealand, but there are only two riders, so they won’t be in the major results. Two riders will score too many points; of course individually they will be up there.

MXLarge: I remember you mentioning to me that Team USA are really putting in a big effort.

King: With Team America, two riders are JT and two are Troy Lee riders, and I think they have combined. Scott Burnworth has a graphic business and he has done race shirts and all their helmets have been painted up, so they are making a big deal about it. They have the journalist Johnny O’Hannah coming over to cover it for RacerX, so the American’s will be right up for him.

MXlarge: Would be nice to have Roger De Coster as team manager or not?

King: You know I did mention that, but I think it went right over his head.

MXlarge: Who are the favorites to win the team’s event this year?

King: We (team Great Britain) are the favorites because we won it the last two years, but the Belgians have a strong team.  Also the French team has Pichon, David Bruno and a couple of good veteran riders. There will be some close racing between those teams.

MXlarge: What is the highlight for you in organizing these events?

King: Just getting all those big names together on one weekend and for everyone to see them. What I wanted to have for Farleigh is to make it like what Goodwood is to car racing. We can all get together for one weekend and celebrate what a brilliant sport we have.

MXlarge: What makes it special for the riders who are involved?

King: What I tried to do is give a clubman rider the feel to come to Farleigh and feel what it is like to ride at a Grand Prix. I set it up with a lot of the staff that do the British GP, so it has that same sort of feel, the same pit box the transponders, just to give them the feel of what it is like at a Grand Prix.

MXlarge: How intense is the racing?

King: You ask Werner De Wit and Brian Wheeler when they clashed last year; the Belgian team nearly went home. Saturday night I was in Werner’s trailer, he wanted to go home, and they did pack up and go early the next day.

MXlarge: How will the atmosphere be for this event. Do you have other special things happening?

King: We have a big tent with a theme band and we try and keep it in the 80’s so we have a Madness tribute band on the Friday night and a Queen Tribute band on the Saturday night. We have a huge cider bar and everyone gets upside down and enjoys themselves.

MXlarge: I heard that attendance was pretty good last year?

King: Last year we were the biggest Motocross race attendance wise in Great Britain. I don’t know if we can do that again this year with the British Grand Prix, but it’s got an end of year feel to it and everyone just wants to have fun. Hopefully the weather would be good.

MXlarge: What type of crowd do you get, older people, or also younger people?

King: You know it’s really strange, we get lots of younger people coming, I don’t know why these young people would want to go to a vintage race, but it’s an event I would want to go to and it seems to have worked.

MXlarge: What would be your ultimate event?

King: My dream event would have to be what I got last year with Dave Thorpe, Jeff Leisk and had Eric Geboers turned up that would have made it for me. I mean I would love to get Hakan Carlqvist, but that guy has just dropped off the face of the planet, if anyone knows where he is I am very interested. You know he never lost a race at Farleigh Castle, he was the king of Farleigh, but he is just impossible to track down.