phantom67
23rd June 2009, 09:23
20 - 21 June 2009
Saturday
I arrived at Manfield at around 08:00 am on Saturday morning after having spent the Friday night at Will’s house, and driving up to Feilding that morning with Patrick (Will’s dad). By the time we got there, everything was pretty much set up for us already as Steve and the Mechanics all got there earlier.
Qualifying :
Our qualifying session was the last one on the roster, just before the lunch break, so we spent most of the morning just sitting around the garage and getting prepared. By the time we went out it was slightly warmer than it had been earlier that morning, but still freezing in anyone’s books. It was my first time on the Long Circuit, but at least it wasn’t all foreign to me, as I had ridden on the Short Circuit before at a track day, but even so I was a little bit nervous about riding, so I took the first few laps out fairly slow, and worked my way up from there. It was a fairly uneventful qualifying session, and improve my lap times every lap, getting down to 2:23.092. When the session was over, I was happily sitting in 6th place, in front of (much to my delight) Glen, Callum and Will.
Race 1:
By the time we went out for our first race, it was late afternoon, and it had already started to cool down (not that it was warm to begin with). I had a pretty average start (it wasn’t bad, but it could be better) and despite dropping from 6th to 7th after getting overtaken by Callum, I managed to maintain a similar pace to qualifying (Best lap time of 2:22.978). Throughout the race I managed to maintain a constant gap with Callum right until he dropped out (due to mechanical issues?) allowing me to regain 6th. Soon afterwards Kyle, unfortunately, dropped his chain, which moved me up to 5th, only to get passed in the last lap by Glen, although I was having trouble shifting gear (later found out to be the result of a loose gear lever), and managed to finish the race in 6th place, which I was pretty happy about.
That was it for the day, and it was time for us to retire to the Raceway Court Motel, and spend the rest of the night watching Rugby, eating Pizza and drinking Double Browns. I went to bed a little after 10:00 pm, so I could be up on the bright for the next morning.
Sunday
Morning Warm-up:
After the rider’s briefing, the track got opened up for a morning warm-up. I decided to take it easy this time around, after all, this was just a warm-up. I focused on my foot positions on the pegs, as my toes were scraping the ground before (wearing through the uppers of my boots) and managed to keep my toes off the ground for most of the session. As with the day before, I was still having trouble shifting gears, which we fixed by changing gear levers. At the conclusion of the session I returned to our garage, satisfied with the outcome, and spent the rest of the morning getting prepared for the next race.
Race 2:
Happy with my new gear lever, we went out again for the longer race of the 3 (10 laps compared to 6 laps). I had a pretty bad start, as I full let go of the clutch as the bike got up to a reasonable speed, only to find out that it was still a bit early, causing the bike to bog down a little bit, but I still managed to keep 6th place going into turn 1. Exiting turn 1, I got passed by Will and Adrian Billington (on the CBR250) but I held onto both of them, and on exiting turn 6, I managed to re-pass Adrian, after which I held onto Will. I ran it a little bit wider than I would have liked in turn 9, which lost me some ground to Will, but I managed to make up for this little mistake by taking a clean line through turn 10, which moved me right up to the back of Will again. Entering turn 11, I was intent on overtaking Will, but I simply went too fast through it, and misjudged my apex somewhat. As I was drifting towards the outside of the track, I realised that with my limited ability and experience, there was no way I’d be able to keep the bike on the track, and attempted to make a controlled excursion of the track, with hopes that I’d be able to rejoin again, but due to the condition of the ground next to the track, the bike slipped out from underneath me, which caused me to landed badly on my hand and some damage to the left side fairing of the bike. I was extremely frustrated at the fact that I couldn’t even complete a single lap that race, but also because this was my 2nd crash in as many race meetings. Hopefully this won’t be the norm.
I spent the rest of the afternoon angry at myself for crashing, and trying to nurse my hand with ice and painkillers so that I’d be able to compete in Race 3, but this was not to be, a series of fairly serious on-track incidents in the two races prior to ours caused too much delay, and we ran short on time, which resulted in the Supersport, 125GP and Formula LG races being cancelled. (Get well soon to all the crashers out there, a few of them looked pretty nasty from the side)
Although this race meeting has left much to be desired in terms of actual results, I did learn a lot from it. Due to the additional time gained on the bike, I’ve gotten quite a bit more comfortable on the little Honda, as we’ve adjusted my gear lever position some more, as well as the position of my handlebars (which allowed me to get a bit more tucked in behind the fairing). I’ve improved my footwork quite a bit, and I have also learned that I should rely more on technique than pure speed (work on getting the brake points correctly, going through the apexes properly, and being smooth on the throttle, nice and early). So despite my crash, I feel that this weekend was quite productive as far as learning to race goes.
Cheers Steve, Shannon, Robbie, Gareth and Vic Club for another awesome weekend of racing
-Walter, #12 Moto Academy
Saturday
I arrived at Manfield at around 08:00 am on Saturday morning after having spent the Friday night at Will’s house, and driving up to Feilding that morning with Patrick (Will’s dad). By the time we got there, everything was pretty much set up for us already as Steve and the Mechanics all got there earlier.
Qualifying :
Our qualifying session was the last one on the roster, just before the lunch break, so we spent most of the morning just sitting around the garage and getting prepared. By the time we went out it was slightly warmer than it had been earlier that morning, but still freezing in anyone’s books. It was my first time on the Long Circuit, but at least it wasn’t all foreign to me, as I had ridden on the Short Circuit before at a track day, but even so I was a little bit nervous about riding, so I took the first few laps out fairly slow, and worked my way up from there. It was a fairly uneventful qualifying session, and improve my lap times every lap, getting down to 2:23.092. When the session was over, I was happily sitting in 6th place, in front of (much to my delight) Glen, Callum and Will.
Race 1:
By the time we went out for our first race, it was late afternoon, and it had already started to cool down (not that it was warm to begin with). I had a pretty average start (it wasn’t bad, but it could be better) and despite dropping from 6th to 7th after getting overtaken by Callum, I managed to maintain a similar pace to qualifying (Best lap time of 2:22.978). Throughout the race I managed to maintain a constant gap with Callum right until he dropped out (due to mechanical issues?) allowing me to regain 6th. Soon afterwards Kyle, unfortunately, dropped his chain, which moved me up to 5th, only to get passed in the last lap by Glen, although I was having trouble shifting gear (later found out to be the result of a loose gear lever), and managed to finish the race in 6th place, which I was pretty happy about.
That was it for the day, and it was time for us to retire to the Raceway Court Motel, and spend the rest of the night watching Rugby, eating Pizza and drinking Double Browns. I went to bed a little after 10:00 pm, so I could be up on the bright for the next morning.
Sunday
Morning Warm-up:
After the rider’s briefing, the track got opened up for a morning warm-up. I decided to take it easy this time around, after all, this was just a warm-up. I focused on my foot positions on the pegs, as my toes were scraping the ground before (wearing through the uppers of my boots) and managed to keep my toes off the ground for most of the session. As with the day before, I was still having trouble shifting gears, which we fixed by changing gear levers. At the conclusion of the session I returned to our garage, satisfied with the outcome, and spent the rest of the morning getting prepared for the next race.
Race 2:
Happy with my new gear lever, we went out again for the longer race of the 3 (10 laps compared to 6 laps). I had a pretty bad start, as I full let go of the clutch as the bike got up to a reasonable speed, only to find out that it was still a bit early, causing the bike to bog down a little bit, but I still managed to keep 6th place going into turn 1. Exiting turn 1, I got passed by Will and Adrian Billington (on the CBR250) but I held onto both of them, and on exiting turn 6, I managed to re-pass Adrian, after which I held onto Will. I ran it a little bit wider than I would have liked in turn 9, which lost me some ground to Will, but I managed to make up for this little mistake by taking a clean line through turn 10, which moved me right up to the back of Will again. Entering turn 11, I was intent on overtaking Will, but I simply went too fast through it, and misjudged my apex somewhat. As I was drifting towards the outside of the track, I realised that with my limited ability and experience, there was no way I’d be able to keep the bike on the track, and attempted to make a controlled excursion of the track, with hopes that I’d be able to rejoin again, but due to the condition of the ground next to the track, the bike slipped out from underneath me, which caused me to landed badly on my hand and some damage to the left side fairing of the bike. I was extremely frustrated at the fact that I couldn’t even complete a single lap that race, but also because this was my 2nd crash in as many race meetings. Hopefully this won’t be the norm.
I spent the rest of the afternoon angry at myself for crashing, and trying to nurse my hand with ice and painkillers so that I’d be able to compete in Race 3, but this was not to be, a series of fairly serious on-track incidents in the two races prior to ours caused too much delay, and we ran short on time, which resulted in the Supersport, 125GP and Formula LG races being cancelled. (Get well soon to all the crashers out there, a few of them looked pretty nasty from the side)
Although this race meeting has left much to be desired in terms of actual results, I did learn a lot from it. Due to the additional time gained on the bike, I’ve gotten quite a bit more comfortable on the little Honda, as we’ve adjusted my gear lever position some more, as well as the position of my handlebars (which allowed me to get a bit more tucked in behind the fairing). I’ve improved my footwork quite a bit, and I have also learned that I should rely more on technique than pure speed (work on getting the brake points correctly, going through the apexes properly, and being smooth on the throttle, nice and early). So despite my crash, I feel that this weekend was quite productive as far as learning to race goes.
Cheers Steve, Shannon, Robbie, Gareth and Vic Club for another awesome weekend of racing
-Walter, #12 Moto Academy