Scracha's weird VMCC round 6
After a night of 5 star accommodation at Mumbles' place, Toast & I offski'd to the track on Friday. Due to short notice, I wasn't able to arrange all my $hit so spent the day taking photos. By Saturday I was itching to get on the ZX-6.
F2 Qualifying - Drew had changed fork oil and dropped front end to improve feel. Was looking forward to it. Plan A was a warm up lap then 2 semi fast laps before coming early to catch breath before going on the 400. Waaah.. Bike felt bloody awful. Head shaking worse than ever. "Must have miscalculated and dropped it too far" thought I. Even the normally excellent brakes had my hand cramping up. Worried that I'd even qualified so nobody more surprised than me to find I was 22nd on grid with a high 1.17.
Pre89 Post classic Junior Qualifying - Umm...Didn't push it. Smooth & error free. Worked on my turn in as per Neil Chappel's advice. Must have worked as 14th on grid with a 1.23.8 which was faster than my race pace last round.
F2 R1 Oh woes...the ZX-6R was retired for the day. Drew was mystified as he hadn't changed the fork settings. Turns out bottom of fork was fooked, loose and wobbly....thus causing headshakes, skittishness and brake pistons to vibrate off pads. The talented Dr Taylor advised it couldn't be fixed PROPERLY at the track.
Pre89 Post classic Junior R1. Kinda like qualifying. Didn't push it. Clean dicing with a ZXR750 but I lost his tail with 2 laps to go. The heat at this round meant the 2x10 laps were much harder than the 2x12 laps the previous round. Smooth & error free. Must have also worked as 1.22.5.
Clive had a little let down so after a token condolence in the sick bay I asked to steal his CBR600. He said "yes". Thinking he must also have bumped his head I quickly grabbed his bike and Drew worked his magic (a.k.a. made it start).
F2 R2. Slung a leg over the Orangetang for the first time. Took a guess and dialled in some revs. "Hello my little friend mid-range..oh how I've missed you". Nice launch but I lost a lot of places in the first few corners until I realised the CBR600 actually turns FAST and brakes well. The brakes weren't as good as the ZX-6r but still more than capable of lifting it's back wheel. There was a wee bit of vagueness under hard braking though. It's even happy turning whilst off the gas and the transition is much nicer. I followed Aria for a bit to get a guage. Think I passed her about lap 3. Nick's Black 749 and someone else were about 4s ahead. I reckoned I could take them but an image of going to the hospital and explaining the Clive that I'd trashed his bike popped into my head. A couple of laps later and Aria was all over me so I pulled my finger a little bit out my arse to make a safe gap.
The CBR600 has Much more mid-range than my ZX-6r but my seat of pants accelerometer indicated the ZX-6r pisses over it at high revs. Ride it like you stole it and the ZX-6R is the daddy. Going sideways into the final turn because I forgot the CBR6 has no slipper clutch confirms it. I feelt quite at home on this bike, in a weird way it felt like the CBR400, just a bit taller and with about umm...twice the power. 1m16.2. Another lap and I think my PB would have been broken but I nearly ran over Gah Chan and the red flag came out. Have I bought the correct bike? I'm sure once the front end is sorted I'll find out!
Pre89 Post classic Junior R2
Bloody good start *** WHINE *** but so it should have been after about 10 minutes on the start line *** END WHINE ***. Up the inside...now there's a 1st. Frenchy 4 bikes ahead of me. Passed a couple of wobbly 1000cc buses outside of t2. BARGED another fat bike at hairpin and the last one stuffed up Frenchy and by Coke we were together. Frenchy had tweety braking as hard as me so stuffing him into T1 was much harder. If he was on a promise from Nicky then I made him work for it. He made me faster through splash and raped me out the hairpin but his lack of ground clearance meant I was way faster at higgins and coke. Shame I didn't have the power to pass him but the 1.5 litres of coolant I threw into the rad to replace the air bubbles meant the bike had enough power to stay in the fight. If I keep this pressure up he'd surely make a mistake but he didn't. Final lap, I failed at sticking it up his inside into splash....stupid Scotchyman...should have parked it in front of him on the final corner before tweety could stretch her legs. Frenchy pulled me along to a 1.21.9. Still above my PB on the CBR400 but considering the nick the bike was in compared to last year, I was more than pleased. Fitting that the final race of my winter series was the most enjoyable.
Conclusion. Well...finished a creditable 4th in the Posties Junior class. Bloody Kawasaki's 1, 2 & 3. I'd have been in the game for 3rd had I persevered with the 'cane but I think staying with the 400 will pay dividends in the longer term.
The next Pre 89 junior champ will be wearing orange *
Thanks
- Phil "Toast" - Transport & listening to my shit talking.
- Nick "Mumbles" - My best groupie who's about to lose his license.
- Paul "Roadracingoldfart" - CBR ridercoaching, keeping the CBR alive and breathing life into Project FrankenCane
- 'the drew' - zx-6r ridercoaching, bike spannering, bike transport, airport chauffering.
- Martin Peck - giving the CBR a bed and transporting it to the track.
- Petra - My long suffering girlfriend.
- VMCC - Another great year of racing.
- Dunlop - Be it cold, warm, wet or dry, the GPR's have not let me down.
I've probably missed a few. Most of these guys and gals have literally looked after me all season.
Big Thanks
Clivoris Banks for throwing himself off his bike to let me have go.
* Potential Sponsors Disclaimer: Past performance is not an indicator of future performance. The maintenance of your investment in shite old bikes & a foreign rider cannot be guaranteed.
Originally Posted by Kickha
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Great read Steevie and thanks for going faster on my bike than I can. You've had a great Actrix Winter Series mate. Another jump in skill level. Go the 600s at the Cliffhanger?
... But, yeah....
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