k14
20th December 2005, 08:38
Yeah I know I mentioned in another thread that I couldn't be bothered writing up a report but I'm at work so no better place than here to do a writeup.
We arrived at Feilding on Friday night after driving down from NP, got signed in at my motel and got sorted for the next day. Was pleased to see that I was in good company at the motel with Ray Clee staying in the room a few doors down. Maybe some of his skills could “waft” through the walls whist I was asleep (if only, I thought).
Saturday dawned very nice although there had been quite a lot of rain on Friday and the previous days so there was quite a lot of water around. We arrived at the track, got setup and signed in and was ready for the first practice. Being my first time at the track I took it easy for the first few laps just trying to get the lines sorted. The main aspect of a good line at Manfeild was trying to avoid all the bumps and potholes as opposed to the conventional racing line. I learnt from my mistake at puke of not following someone that’s more experienced at the track and followed a guy who I knew I would be faster once I learnt the track a bit better. The session ended with about 12 laps or so. I was happy with my time of 1.23.0 which put me in 8th place out of 13 entrants.
For the 2nd qualifying session I knew that I had to up my game if I wanted to stay on the 2nd row. There were two guys who would qualify in the top 4 that didn’t make it to the first qualifying due to mechanical problems, but I was feeling confident and getting more and more used to the track. After the 2nd qualifying session I was stoked to see that I had dropped my times to 1.20.2, which left me 7th on the grid, a big improvement over 15th on the grid at puke. This gave me a good starting position for the weekend’s three races, one of which was supposed to be on Saturday. Just as the first round of races were about to commence the heavens opened and it completely bucketed down. After spending around an hour getting the wets sorted on my bike etc the officials decided that it was too much and the rest of the days races were postponed until Sunday morning.
As on Saturday morning it was clear blue sky again on Sunday and the ground was nearly dry as we arrived at the track around 8am to get ready for the days 3 races. We undid all of the work we had done on the previous day and got the bike back to the dry weather setup. I also changed the rear sprocket up 1 tooth as I was only using 5 gears down the back straight and thought that I could benefit with the extra pull out of the corners. I went out in the 10 min scrub session just to get a look at the track and test the gearing. The track was 95% dry, apart from a small patch on the outside of Higgins, nothing too bad but enough to make you change your line slightly. On one lap I decided to test out the damp spot and to my surprise the bike didn’t move around at all. After the session I had a quick chat to Kwaka-kid about the damp patch at Higgins. Tempting fate I told him that “It was sweet to ride over” after him saying he was too scared to ride over that part and me thinking he was just a pussy, how wrong was I to be.
The first race was up, we gridded up in our correct positions and the light was off. I got a pretty decent start and settled into 8th position. I felt good and was holding off the guy behind and seemed to be keeping the gap to the 2 guys in front of me fairly constant. In the 5th lap I braked a bit later than I should have coming into Higgins and was running slightly wide on the exit. Instead of doing what a normal racer with a brain would do I thought that I’d be a hero and ride over the wet patch. Bad bad decision. Had a fairly big slide (as far as 125’s go) but managed to stand the bike up before it was too late and headed for the grass. As soon as I hit the grass bam, the bike fell out from under me. It was a big mud bath/swamp due to all the rain and I had no chance of keeping it up. I hit the deck with the bike falling on top of me. I picked the bike up and then wheeled it over to the tyre wall to wait for the race to finish. Inspecting the damage there was only 1 thing broken and that was the screen. Only other effects were a lot of mud and crap everywhere. I got back to the pits and informed Kwaka-kid that it was infact a good idea to stay well away from that damp patch on Higgins. He now knows never to take advice from me.
After getting the bike back to the pits and cleaning up the fairings et al we had the bike ready for the next race. I checked out the time sheet from the first race and was stoked to see that I had done a 1.19.6 on my first flying lap. If only I didn’t crash, oh well “that’s racing” as they always say. Now I had 2 more races that I knew I had to finish to try and salvage something from the weekend.
The 2nd race came up and by now the track was totally dry. My start wasn’t too bad but not great either. I was holding 9th for the first few laps, taking it fairly easy after the crash. The guy behind me caught up and we had a bit of a tussle for 2 or 3 laps until I let him get away on me. So 10th it was to be, not too bad but not as good as I was capable of getting. I was consistently 2 seconds or so down on my lap times in qualifying and the first race. Best lap was a 1.21.2 or so and most were in the 1.22 bracket but I was gaining my confidence again and was happy to finish.
The third and final race came around and I knew that I could get atleast 9th this time, hopefully 8th. I had a really good start this time and was 7th going into the hairpin. I was passed by 2 guys down the straight and so was in 9th again. The guy that bet me in the 2nd race was right on my tail but I was determined to beat him this time. I was ahead of him in the 2nd lap coming into the final turn when I felt the bike loose power again. I instantly knew what had happened, the same thing as at puke, the clip had again fallen off the needle. Oh well, the price of racing a 15 year old bike, worn out parts that keep on breaking. It’s my own fault for not checking it out fully at puke and just assuming it was a 1 off thing. It won’t be happening again, that’s for sure.
So that was the end of the weekends proceedings. A very crap weekend in all. But that’s what its about, I still learnt a ton of things so it wasn’t totally wasted.
Good to meet some new kbers. Ivan (you were going good mate, keep going at it), svs, kwaka-kid, two smoker and probably some others that I’ve forgotten. See you guys next time.
Next race is Wanganui on monday Monday, hope to see some other kber’s there.
We arrived at Feilding on Friday night after driving down from NP, got signed in at my motel and got sorted for the next day. Was pleased to see that I was in good company at the motel with Ray Clee staying in the room a few doors down. Maybe some of his skills could “waft” through the walls whist I was asleep (if only, I thought).
Saturday dawned very nice although there had been quite a lot of rain on Friday and the previous days so there was quite a lot of water around. We arrived at the track, got setup and signed in and was ready for the first practice. Being my first time at the track I took it easy for the first few laps just trying to get the lines sorted. The main aspect of a good line at Manfeild was trying to avoid all the bumps and potholes as opposed to the conventional racing line. I learnt from my mistake at puke of not following someone that’s more experienced at the track and followed a guy who I knew I would be faster once I learnt the track a bit better. The session ended with about 12 laps or so. I was happy with my time of 1.23.0 which put me in 8th place out of 13 entrants.
For the 2nd qualifying session I knew that I had to up my game if I wanted to stay on the 2nd row. There were two guys who would qualify in the top 4 that didn’t make it to the first qualifying due to mechanical problems, but I was feeling confident and getting more and more used to the track. After the 2nd qualifying session I was stoked to see that I had dropped my times to 1.20.2, which left me 7th on the grid, a big improvement over 15th on the grid at puke. This gave me a good starting position for the weekend’s three races, one of which was supposed to be on Saturday. Just as the first round of races were about to commence the heavens opened and it completely bucketed down. After spending around an hour getting the wets sorted on my bike etc the officials decided that it was too much and the rest of the days races were postponed until Sunday morning.
As on Saturday morning it was clear blue sky again on Sunday and the ground was nearly dry as we arrived at the track around 8am to get ready for the days 3 races. We undid all of the work we had done on the previous day and got the bike back to the dry weather setup. I also changed the rear sprocket up 1 tooth as I was only using 5 gears down the back straight and thought that I could benefit with the extra pull out of the corners. I went out in the 10 min scrub session just to get a look at the track and test the gearing. The track was 95% dry, apart from a small patch on the outside of Higgins, nothing too bad but enough to make you change your line slightly. On one lap I decided to test out the damp spot and to my surprise the bike didn’t move around at all. After the session I had a quick chat to Kwaka-kid about the damp patch at Higgins. Tempting fate I told him that “It was sweet to ride over” after him saying he was too scared to ride over that part and me thinking he was just a pussy, how wrong was I to be.
The first race was up, we gridded up in our correct positions and the light was off. I got a pretty decent start and settled into 8th position. I felt good and was holding off the guy behind and seemed to be keeping the gap to the 2 guys in front of me fairly constant. In the 5th lap I braked a bit later than I should have coming into Higgins and was running slightly wide on the exit. Instead of doing what a normal racer with a brain would do I thought that I’d be a hero and ride over the wet patch. Bad bad decision. Had a fairly big slide (as far as 125’s go) but managed to stand the bike up before it was too late and headed for the grass. As soon as I hit the grass bam, the bike fell out from under me. It was a big mud bath/swamp due to all the rain and I had no chance of keeping it up. I hit the deck with the bike falling on top of me. I picked the bike up and then wheeled it over to the tyre wall to wait for the race to finish. Inspecting the damage there was only 1 thing broken and that was the screen. Only other effects were a lot of mud and crap everywhere. I got back to the pits and informed Kwaka-kid that it was infact a good idea to stay well away from that damp patch on Higgins. He now knows never to take advice from me.
After getting the bike back to the pits and cleaning up the fairings et al we had the bike ready for the next race. I checked out the time sheet from the first race and was stoked to see that I had done a 1.19.6 on my first flying lap. If only I didn’t crash, oh well “that’s racing” as they always say. Now I had 2 more races that I knew I had to finish to try and salvage something from the weekend.
The 2nd race came up and by now the track was totally dry. My start wasn’t too bad but not great either. I was holding 9th for the first few laps, taking it fairly easy after the crash. The guy behind me caught up and we had a bit of a tussle for 2 or 3 laps until I let him get away on me. So 10th it was to be, not too bad but not as good as I was capable of getting. I was consistently 2 seconds or so down on my lap times in qualifying and the first race. Best lap was a 1.21.2 or so and most were in the 1.22 bracket but I was gaining my confidence again and was happy to finish.
The third and final race came around and I knew that I could get atleast 9th this time, hopefully 8th. I had a really good start this time and was 7th going into the hairpin. I was passed by 2 guys down the straight and so was in 9th again. The guy that bet me in the 2nd race was right on my tail but I was determined to beat him this time. I was ahead of him in the 2nd lap coming into the final turn when I felt the bike loose power again. I instantly knew what had happened, the same thing as at puke, the clip had again fallen off the needle. Oh well, the price of racing a 15 year old bike, worn out parts that keep on breaking. It’s my own fault for not checking it out fully at puke and just assuming it was a 1 off thing. It won’t be happening again, that’s for sure.
So that was the end of the weekends proceedings. A very crap weekend in all. But that’s what its about, I still learnt a ton of things so it wasn’t totally wasted.
Good to meet some new kbers. Ivan (you were going good mate, keep going at it), svs, kwaka-kid, two smoker and probably some others that I’ve forgotten. See you guys next time.
Next race is Wanganui on monday Monday, hope to see some other kber’s there.