Toast
14th December 2010, 09:36
Haven’t done this for a while, but it’s the festive season and work doesn’t appeal, so here goes...
Practice Day – Friday
Crawled out of bed at about 9.30 after a much needed sleep in. Fumbled my way around the house until I was at least 50% sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, and headed down to the track.
First session out I was in behind Karl Morgan which I thought would be good to drag me along and get me up to speed a bit more quickly. We started passing a few bikes and then came upon a KTM RC8 thing. I followed it for a few corners and was getting ready to pass it in to turn one when it went ‘puff, puff, POP!’ and bellowed black smoked out of the left hand side. I put my hand up and slowed down but the KTM rider clearly hadn’t realised something was wrong, so continued to push it through turn one and two (right handers), and turn three (left hander), at which point oil clearly hit the deck, went on to his tyre, and he ended up sliding in to the dirt.
The session was red-flagged and as I was cruising back to the pits I could smell oil and noticed that the world looked a bit different through my dark visor. I got off the bike, took my helmet off and could then see that the entire front of my bike, leathers and helmet had all been sprayed with a good covering of oil. Enough that I was quite shocked when they sent the F2 boys out again so soon...I guess I caught most of it then!
Spent the other two sessions riding like a bit of a muppet, but still managing to get to mid 9’s, so I was confident that come race day I could hit the 8’s, which was my goal for the weekend.
Had a nice relaxing night with some good food from Mum and head down early in preparation for the next day.
Race Day – Saturday
Qualifying
Went out earlyish to avoid too much traffic and found myself riding messy as hell again. I think it was to do with not relaxing enough and maybe weighting the bars a bit much, as well as just not squeezing the brake lever hard enough when the time came, and I seemed to be wide everywhere. Got about 1:09.5 which I was quite disappointed with, but ended up 6th on the grid which I couldn’t complain about.
Took the leathers off and chilled for a couple of hours until the race...
Race 1
I actually had a mild case of ‘nerves’ for this one, which was surprising, but I guess the meet did feel a bit more serious than your average club day. Possibly because of this I botched the start instead of nailing it as I usually do, and wound up back in about 9th or 10th come turn one. Made a couple of passes and then followed Marcus for a lap or so. I think on lap 2 or 3 I stuck it up the inside at turn four, thereby resuming the usual position of me head down in front, Marcus inches from my rear. This continued until the end of the race as we started to catch Adam Chambers, but just ran out of laps. I was pretty happy at scoring a new PB of 1:08.8, which was a big mental relief as I’d been knocking on the door of 1:08’s for a while now. More importantly I started to develop a really good feel for the bike and gain a bit of confidence.
Race 2
I really wanted to make a good start on this one and did, taking 5th spot in to turn one. Unfortunately I followed my usual pattern of taking my time to get in to it, held back from the front runners and let Adam Chambers through at turn four on the first lap. This was a big mistake and a lesson learned for future to man up and get in to it from the very first corner.
Anyway, I followed Adam in to the dipper, where he appeared to be about to crash which caused me to stand it up and back off, but he held it together. Luckily I didn’t lose a place from that, and I then stuck my head down and tried to find a way around him. I was catching him big time in to the sweeper and outdriving him out of it. I pulled up alongside him at the start/finish line a couple of times but just didn’t have the balls to make a move there. He was riding quite defensively and was pretty hard to pass, taking a narrow line in to turn one and getting very wide mid corner and on the way out. He was a lot better at turn 3 than me, which meant that the inside pass under brakes in to turn four hairpin was out of the question.
Eventually, on the very last lap (not that I’d seen the white flag), I timed my progress through turn one a bit better so that I didn’t get completely blocked on the exit and managed to pull up almost alongside him for the run to turn two. There was no way in hell I was every going to brake before him going in to turn two, but luckily he didn’t go too banzai and I made it through quite comfortably. I then got another case of nerves as I felt the pressure of holding it together for the rest of the race, and rode pretty averagely and very defensively for the rest of the lap.
I crossed the finish line, still going hard ‘cos I hadn’t seen the chequered flag, in 5th place. Slightly lowered my PB to 1:08.7, which surprised me given that most of the race was spent on the back wheel of another bike. With a bit of clear track I am pretty sure that I could have bettered my PB by a fair chunk more. The upside of it all though is that I got used to close racing again, which is something I’ve been a bit shy of ever since my crash about a year ago.
Overall a pretty good weekend, which has left me sitting 5th in F2 for the Tri-Series. The coming round at Manfeild is looking like it will be pouring down, which is somewhat worrying because I felt very uncomfortable on the bike last time I was there in the wet. Hopefully the tweaks I made to the bike for the wet round at HD where it felt decent will be transferrable to Manfeild. Hopefully, also, it’s only a little bit damp, because I know that the K2 rear wet I have been stuck with will shine in those conditions, but isn’t so flash when it’s soaking.
Plenty of good racing to watch in all classes made the weekend even sweeter!
Big thanks to:
Cycletreads – Barry’s Pt Rd on the North Shore for pretty much anything bike related!
Metzeler for the Racetec Interact tyres
Maxima Oils
Mum and Dad for their support, always!
Practice Day – Friday
Crawled out of bed at about 9.30 after a much needed sleep in. Fumbled my way around the house until I was at least 50% sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, and headed down to the track.
First session out I was in behind Karl Morgan which I thought would be good to drag me along and get me up to speed a bit more quickly. We started passing a few bikes and then came upon a KTM RC8 thing. I followed it for a few corners and was getting ready to pass it in to turn one when it went ‘puff, puff, POP!’ and bellowed black smoked out of the left hand side. I put my hand up and slowed down but the KTM rider clearly hadn’t realised something was wrong, so continued to push it through turn one and two (right handers), and turn three (left hander), at which point oil clearly hit the deck, went on to his tyre, and he ended up sliding in to the dirt.
The session was red-flagged and as I was cruising back to the pits I could smell oil and noticed that the world looked a bit different through my dark visor. I got off the bike, took my helmet off and could then see that the entire front of my bike, leathers and helmet had all been sprayed with a good covering of oil. Enough that I was quite shocked when they sent the F2 boys out again so soon...I guess I caught most of it then!
Spent the other two sessions riding like a bit of a muppet, but still managing to get to mid 9’s, so I was confident that come race day I could hit the 8’s, which was my goal for the weekend.
Had a nice relaxing night with some good food from Mum and head down early in preparation for the next day.
Race Day – Saturday
Qualifying
Went out earlyish to avoid too much traffic and found myself riding messy as hell again. I think it was to do with not relaxing enough and maybe weighting the bars a bit much, as well as just not squeezing the brake lever hard enough when the time came, and I seemed to be wide everywhere. Got about 1:09.5 which I was quite disappointed with, but ended up 6th on the grid which I couldn’t complain about.
Took the leathers off and chilled for a couple of hours until the race...
Race 1
I actually had a mild case of ‘nerves’ for this one, which was surprising, but I guess the meet did feel a bit more serious than your average club day. Possibly because of this I botched the start instead of nailing it as I usually do, and wound up back in about 9th or 10th come turn one. Made a couple of passes and then followed Marcus for a lap or so. I think on lap 2 or 3 I stuck it up the inside at turn four, thereby resuming the usual position of me head down in front, Marcus inches from my rear. This continued until the end of the race as we started to catch Adam Chambers, but just ran out of laps. I was pretty happy at scoring a new PB of 1:08.8, which was a big mental relief as I’d been knocking on the door of 1:08’s for a while now. More importantly I started to develop a really good feel for the bike and gain a bit of confidence.
Race 2
I really wanted to make a good start on this one and did, taking 5th spot in to turn one. Unfortunately I followed my usual pattern of taking my time to get in to it, held back from the front runners and let Adam Chambers through at turn four on the first lap. This was a big mistake and a lesson learned for future to man up and get in to it from the very first corner.
Anyway, I followed Adam in to the dipper, where he appeared to be about to crash which caused me to stand it up and back off, but he held it together. Luckily I didn’t lose a place from that, and I then stuck my head down and tried to find a way around him. I was catching him big time in to the sweeper and outdriving him out of it. I pulled up alongside him at the start/finish line a couple of times but just didn’t have the balls to make a move there. He was riding quite defensively and was pretty hard to pass, taking a narrow line in to turn one and getting very wide mid corner and on the way out. He was a lot better at turn 3 than me, which meant that the inside pass under brakes in to turn four hairpin was out of the question.
Eventually, on the very last lap (not that I’d seen the white flag), I timed my progress through turn one a bit better so that I didn’t get completely blocked on the exit and managed to pull up almost alongside him for the run to turn two. There was no way in hell I was every going to brake before him going in to turn two, but luckily he didn’t go too banzai and I made it through quite comfortably. I then got another case of nerves as I felt the pressure of holding it together for the rest of the race, and rode pretty averagely and very defensively for the rest of the lap.
I crossed the finish line, still going hard ‘cos I hadn’t seen the chequered flag, in 5th place. Slightly lowered my PB to 1:08.7, which surprised me given that most of the race was spent on the back wheel of another bike. With a bit of clear track I am pretty sure that I could have bettered my PB by a fair chunk more. The upside of it all though is that I got used to close racing again, which is something I’ve been a bit shy of ever since my crash about a year ago.
Overall a pretty good weekend, which has left me sitting 5th in F2 for the Tri-Series. The coming round at Manfeild is looking like it will be pouring down, which is somewhat worrying because I felt very uncomfortable on the bike last time I was there in the wet. Hopefully the tweaks I made to the bike for the wet round at HD where it felt decent will be transferrable to Manfeild. Hopefully, also, it’s only a little bit damp, because I know that the K2 rear wet I have been stuck with will shine in those conditions, but isn’t so flash when it’s soaking.
Plenty of good racing to watch in all classes made the weekend even sweeter!
Big thanks to:
Cycletreads – Barry’s Pt Rd on the North Shore for pretty much anything bike related!
Metzeler for the Racetec Interact tyres
Maxima Oils
Mum and Dad for their support, always!