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Emma-Louise Harris

September to Snow; End of year catch-up

Firstly, I would like to extend my warmest wishes for a Happy New Year to everyone, and I hope that 2025 brings health & happiness to you all.


It's been a while since my last blog. Life for the Harris family has been pretty hectic, and I haven't had a peaceful moment to sit and write. But finally, here I am, writing again. I'll follow up on my last one with a bit of catch-up, so make yourself a cuppa and hopefully enjoy reading …


August came to a close, we left our holiday in Cornwall and made the three-hour journey to Dorset. We had booked a night at a hotel in Ringwood ahead of the RL Testimonial meeting at Poole Speedway, where Chris & Cruz had been booked to participate. It still sounds surreal and emotional to say Cruz is booked for anything. I mean, he is still only four years old, and at the time of RL testimonial, he hadn't even started school yet.


Ahead of the short trip from Ringwood to Wimborne Rd we visited our good friends Emma & Colin at their home in Salisbury. It always feels good to be able to visit a friend's house, and it feels like home. We indulged in a delicious brunch before Chris & Col disappeared into the workshops whilst the girls hounded Emma about make-up and clothes, and Cruz spent most of his time with Ziggie, the cute but crazy puppy who only adores Cruz. Then they handed the keys to their Aston Martin to Cruz - who loves sports cars almost as much as motorbikes so he could go and have a sit-and-play in the car. He took to the driver's seat in style and smiled whilst he revved the car and pressed all the buttons (much to their neighbour's delight) before Chris & Col took him out for a spin with Chris behind the wheel ...


We then headed to Poole for the meeting, where Chris was part of the main event lineup, and Cruz had his first official booking with a paycheque, that still sounds surreal saying it out loud.


Cruz took to the Wimbourne Road shale in style and received the most overwhelming welcome and applause before completing a few demo laps, finally when I could get him to stop, he was presented with a medal and his first-ever pay cheque on the home straight in front of the adoring crowd. He was so happy; I'm pretty sure you would have been able to see his gorgeous smile from space, and me well, i obviously had a tear or two in my eye which is pretty standard these days ...


Richard had asked Cruz to lead the parade car out around the dog track, he was happy to oblige, and said 'I can even beat a car, they couldn't catch me and i was on medium mode' you just got to love him.


Chris then stormed to a full maximum and also won the dash for cash, he sure does love racing the Wimboure Road shale. The meeting was over and as ever Chris is the last one to leave, bit of an ongoing joke now to be honest, he always has lots of people waiting around to talk to him (and Cruz) and have pictures, autographs etc which is lovely and Chris always takes the time to do it, but in all honesty, we have all been away from home for pretty much 2 weeks and done a lot of travelling and we just wanted to go home.


It's now Monday and Chris had been asked to guest for Sheffield Monday / Thursday in the KOC, which quickly got stopped as he had already guested for another club earlier in the season, no word of a lie within minutes of the call from Steady to say he couldn't guest for Sheffield, Kings Lynn was on the phone booking his services! So whilst Chris headed off to Kings Lynn I juggled work and the kids and of course the last-minute appointment at Clarks for the kids' school shoes and last minute hair appointments before they all embarked on their new school journeys, and then we sat and watched Chris on Discovery+ Kings Lynn v Leicester - he had a great night and bagged the Omologato Rider of the Night.


The next few days were filled with strong emotions as Mia-Faye began her last year of secondary school in Y11, Amara-Mae entered Y2 - even though she's 6 yrs old, she strolled in to her new classroom looking like a 9 year old, and Cruz started his first day of school in Reception. We are so so proud of them all for embracing their new challenges with curiosity and the biggest smiles on their faces.


Then it was back to racing with another guest booking for Chris at Kings Lynn on Thursday, Edinburgh v Glasgow on Friday, then it was a flight to CDG in France early Saturday for the WLT of Nations in Morizes, where Chris top scored for Team GB and captained the team to a Bronze medal, and then an early flight back Sunday to Glasgow for their final home meeting against Oxford - Chris was pretty awesome and had a great night and won the Svein Kassa Memorial Shield, as well as the much talked about epic Ht13 against Sam Masters, which quite honestly could be one of the races of the season. It was then onto Germany, for WLT where Chris came 2nd, before heading back to the UK for some Play-Off guest bookings for Sheffield, where he top scored for the tigers in the 2nd leg against BV at Owlerton with 12+1 and won Omologato Rider of the Night again. We are always asked when will he sign for Sheffield, it's one of those that gets talked about quite a lot and a lot of phone calls happen through the end of the season / off season, but never seems like it's 'meant to be' but never say never, maybe one day.


A stressful few days thrown in when Chris was taken poorly and spent a little time in hospital, i genuinely thought he was having a heart attack it was super scary and i have honestly never seen him so poorly, luckily it was nothing serious and after a a few days he was back to his normal self. Thank you NHS!


Chris's season with Glasgow was officially over, and he accepted a guest booking for Poole in the Championship Play-Offs and the keyboard warriors were out in force, I won't say too much about it but, what i will say is that Chris is Self-Employed, just like every other rider who guest for clubs whether it be a league match, KO Cup or Play-Offs, and being an asset of any club means nothing and anyone who knows Chris will know that he just wants to race his bike as much as he can, he would race everyday of the week if he could.


So now we are in 'Silly Season' you know the time when the racing has finished, but the AGM still hasn't happened yet (always baffles me why they don't do the AGM earlier like end of August), where speculation with fans is rife of which rider has signed where and of course the time where Chris's phone is none stop and we are aboard the rollercoaster that happens every year.


The championship decision was easy and an absolute no brainer that he would be heading back to Glasgow 'The best RACE track in the country' as described by Chris - the out and out racer, not the gate and go-er, but the Premiership was a different story with a choice of clubs, it's the tricky part where the calls are back and forth, the deals are different and the decision has to be made, where we list pros and cons alongside the deals, and often on paper the best deal is never the one that Chris goes with, he goes for what he feels is right for him, which i absolutely admire but this time of year is pretty stressful as i try help Chris to make decisions amongst everything else.


A break from speedway with our annual family trip pumpkin picking unfortunately ended in a trip to Warwick Hospital Emergency Department for our little Cruz, who fell and cut his head open. He was super brave whilst they cleaned him up and glued him back together, the staff were brilliant with him - thank you again NHS - twice in 1 month we have had to use their services and both times absolutely faultless.


Sunday 27th October has arrived, and it's the re-arranged British Masters Grasstrack, which is officially Chris's last meeting of the season. Chris and Cruz headed off early down south, and the girls stayed home to pack the suitcases and hand luggage ready for our holiday. The meeting was delayed due to the track, but once the meeting started, Chris stormed his first two races before the meeting was abandoned with no result for the second year running. As the boys headed home, I parked the cases in the lounge, ready for our flight the next day... The Harris household then got up early and journeyed to London Gatwick for a week in Turkey, which was much-deserved downtime. All the kids enjoyed the usual pools, beach, clubs, food, and snorkelling, and Mia-Faye stepped outside her comfort zone and learnt how to Scuba dive and experienced Parasailing, which she absolutely loved both.


Finally, the end-of-season roller coaster stopped as Chris confirmed he was signing with a new Premiership club for 2025 which would be announced shortly. Then, it was back to trackside, with Cruz practicing at Leicester, where he was working hard on cornering whilst Chris watched on.


Chris then was announced as Cab Direct Championship Rider of the Year with 50% of the vote, the most points scored with 258, and the most race wins with 57.


Finally, Chris was announced as a Kings Lynn STAR for 2025 and the reaction was way more than expected - the number of shares, comments, and DMs was overwhelming. No word of a lie: Chris signing for KL has been a long time coming. There have been so many discussions over the last 10 years or so, but they finally agreed on terms, and our star becomes a star. It's so nice when the clubs finally announce their lineup to stop the speculation, and so we can actually talk about it - especially with the kids; we don't tell them until literally minutes before the announcement just so the secrets don't get out!


It is now mid-November and a special awards night, but this time, it was in my honour as I was celebrated for my 25 years of service at JLR (Jaguar LandRover). Naturally, Chris was my plus one. The Long Service Awards were held at the Dallas Burston Polo Club with a 'Black Tie' dress code, where we were treated to the most wonderful night. A lovely 3-course meal with hosted tables, cocktails, a trip down memory lane with our host Gethin Jones, stunning classic JLR products taking centre stage, a live band, and a retro gaming centre. It was such a fabulous night; JLR sure know how to host an awards night ...


It was quickly back to parenting duty as we rushed back from our overnight stay, included with my awards night, to take our little queen Amara-Mae over to Nuneaton for her Dance Show at The Albany Theatre; she was in 6 dances and was a little superstar bless her, so proud!


Back to bikes, and it was a trip to the NEC for Motorcycle Live, where Chris received some ACU awards - European Grasstrack Champion, Bronze medalist for Long Track of Nations, and ACU Outstanding Athlete. Cruz was happy he got a mention from the ACU and stole Chris's thunder and then he refused to leave the Oset Bike stand as he was having way too much fun trying out some stunt poses and just generally showing off.


It was then time to celebrate Chris's birthday - he spent the actual day painting the lounge much to his disgust lol, so on the saturday we celebrated at the Coral Gold Cup, Newbury Racecourse with our close friends where we were spoilt in the VIP. I'm not going to lie, we had absolutely no clue what we were doing but placed a few bets anyway hoping for the best, and had a really lovely day to round up November. It's now Monday 2nd December, and Cruz of course should be at school, but he was granted special permission to have the day off and head off to Birmingham Airport for a flight up to Glasgow with Chris for a special episode of 'The Apprentice'.


A few weeks prior, Kerry and the team informed us of the plans for the Tigers 2025 Team Reveal - which i thought was brilliant, and then said that they wanted Cruz involved and explained roughly what he would be doing, we asked Cruz if he wanted to do it and he did not even hesitate, he was so excited.


Chris and Kerry kept me updated throughout the day how it was going and how Cruz was doing and the feedback from Kerry and the team was so lovely, and the anticipation of seeing the final video was real.


It's now the day of the Tigers Reveal 'The Apprentice' and we were giving a heads up when it was being released. I was sat ready with a cuppa and a tissue and watched for the first time, I laughed, and then I watched it again and laughed and cried at our fearless four-year stealing the show. The socials lit up and we were absolutely blown away with all the DM's, comments, calls and texts about Cruz in the video. I mean Chris, the managment and the rest of the team did a great job and the whole video was brilliant, but Cruz in my eyes just absolutely stole the show and the only one to actually do any negotiations. I know, I know, I am biased; I don't know how many times we have all watched it since with family and friends; the headteacher of Cruz's school even had it played on the big screen.


With both clubs announced, the preparation for 2025 is well and truly underway and the usual busy off-season is in full swing, amongst all of the usual Chris is being treated to a brand new fully kitted out handmade workshop by our super talented friend and sponsor Colin so that's still work in progress at the moment, but starting to look really great and Chris is over the moon - apart from doing all the emptying and sorting, I keep telling him it will be worth it in the end.


Cruz finally got his trip to Cumbria Motopark, where he has wanted to go for ages, so Chris took him for the day, which was an 8-hour round trip where he had an absolute blast and spent circa 4 hours on track with a few breaks in between. Some of you may have seen the video of his track walk on Chris's socials where he tells dad, 'I can speed round the corners’ which just about sums up our boy. Chris said at one point, Cruz got wiped out by another rider and as Chris ran over to him he got up laughing and Chris asked him if he was ok and he replied 'I'm ok but what about my bike dad, is my bike ok' like father like son in one phrase right there. He really had a great day, and the team let him go the opposite way around the track because he's better at ‘turning left’ lol. We are truly grateful to the guys at CMP for the invite and making the boys so welcome, Cruz can't wait to go back.


The children continue to do us proud every day with Amara-Mae receiving reading and writing awards at school, Cruz thriving in school and receiving the head teachers award and Mia-Faye digging deep for her GCSE's which are fast approaching i think i am actually more stressed than she is.


We've spent lots of time together as a family over the last month which has been really lovely from snow days to cinema outings, from board games to roadtrips, from lazy days to Christmas magic we have lapped it all up.


Myself & Chris celebrated our 7th Wedding Anniversary which should definitely have a mention.


We ended the year at The Harvey's NYE party. We all had such a great night dancing and singing with friends. The little ones stayed up until 12.45 when we decided to take them to bed as they were struggling to stay awake bless them, Mia-Faye on the other hand was one of the last ones standing with her friends and finally went to bed at 2.30am - eek 15 going on 30.


I may or may not have woken the house up at the crack of dawn and got them out to play in the snow with me this week, much to Chris’s delight who doesn’t love the snow like I do, and he was on sledge pulling duty …


Thank you 2024 so many magical moments in the racing world, as well as away from it - way too many things to list, but truly grateful.


I've probably forgotten loads of things, i really must not leave it this long between blogs, but thank you everyone who got this far and continues to read and support my blog.


So on that note, i will sign off this blog as myself and Chris need to go and plan a special birthday party for our little king Cruz who will be turning 5 soon, and I look forward to writing the next one already where I will be able to talk about something special that's going to be announced shortly, watch this space ....


Photos - Team Harris©️ (Unless stated otherwise)












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