nicko
2nd April 2006, 13:38
Nicko #80 Race Report
AMCC Rnd 4
Pukekohe 01 04 06
Sorry for lack of reports lately, but here's a report on Saturday's race meet at Puke.
I still had my thou (K3 Gixxer) in race trim since Paeroa so decided to take both the 6 hundy and thou out to Puke. Thanks to Mike Smith for supplying some of his old Dunlops from the nationals, they'd only done a couple of races so were still in pretty good nick to put on the thou. Incidently for those that don't know Mike has since sold the bike & given up racing, he's had a good run & done his dash and is doing a bit of road cycling at the mo.
Qualifying was interesting on the thousand in F1, the Dunlops are great tyres but if you've got a bad setup then they can be a nightmare as they make the bike twitch a fair bit down the straight due to their steep profile, I had to come in & wind the steering damper right up then went back out and managed a 1.04 before the session finished qualifying 5th. The 600 was behaving well and qualified with a 1.02 in 3rd behind Sam Smith & Dave Manuell.
First F1 race was red-flagged after a K5 Gixxer rider high-sided out of the hairpin, was a classic high-side & the rider was slightly hurt - hope you've come right mate. DSS did well avoiding the carnage. Managed to drop my times down to a 1.02 and got past Daryl to finish 3rd. Thanks to the encouragment from the other KBers who reckoned they would have given me no end of sh*t if Daryl had of beaten me!
2nd F1 race was better as I'd made a couple of changes to the front setup - I got down to a 1.01.2 and bet Dave Lees on the 750 to finish 2nd behind Sam Smith. I need to work on the setup some more tho as with the steering damper up so much it's very hard to flick the bike around and I was getting some wicked bouncing going on round turn 1.
3rd F1 race was a hell of a lot of fun, I got the holeshot and had a great dice with Dave Lees & Sam all race long. We swapped the lead pretty much every lap and were 3 wide going into the hairpin on the last lap but Sam & Dave came out on top leaving me to 3rd with only half a second seperating us at the line.
F2 races were all pretty much identical circulating in 1.02's most of the day, 3rd in the first two behind Sam & Dave and 2nd in the last race as Sam didn't go out. Last race on the double left hander I managed to have a Mynah bird fly across the track and smash me in the middle of my visor which smacked the helmet onto my nose. Luckily the visor didn't break (FFM helmets are tough!) and I cruised over the line with a bloody sore nose. My condolenses go out to the birds family.
Top riding from Sam on the new R6, he's gonna be bloody fast come nationals. Daryl - what can I say mate, awesome first effort on the thou! KK & Frosty nice work in F3. Jill great work getting back out after the crash. Thanks to all the marshalls and crews & thanks to Sam & Blair for their help in the pits.
And as always, thanks to METZELER, COLEMANS SUZUKI, FREDCO MOTORS, FFM, NEO, SPOOL, SBS, DID, SDV LOGISTICS
Cheers,
Nicko
AMCC Rnd 4
Pukekohe 01 04 06
Sorry for lack of reports lately, but here's a report on Saturday's race meet at Puke.
I still had my thou (K3 Gixxer) in race trim since Paeroa so decided to take both the 6 hundy and thou out to Puke. Thanks to Mike Smith for supplying some of his old Dunlops from the nationals, they'd only done a couple of races so were still in pretty good nick to put on the thou. Incidently for those that don't know Mike has since sold the bike & given up racing, he's had a good run & done his dash and is doing a bit of road cycling at the mo.
Qualifying was interesting on the thousand in F1, the Dunlops are great tyres but if you've got a bad setup then they can be a nightmare as they make the bike twitch a fair bit down the straight due to their steep profile, I had to come in & wind the steering damper right up then went back out and managed a 1.04 before the session finished qualifying 5th. The 600 was behaving well and qualified with a 1.02 in 3rd behind Sam Smith & Dave Manuell.
First F1 race was red-flagged after a K5 Gixxer rider high-sided out of the hairpin, was a classic high-side & the rider was slightly hurt - hope you've come right mate. DSS did well avoiding the carnage. Managed to drop my times down to a 1.02 and got past Daryl to finish 3rd. Thanks to the encouragment from the other KBers who reckoned they would have given me no end of sh*t if Daryl had of beaten me!
2nd F1 race was better as I'd made a couple of changes to the front setup - I got down to a 1.01.2 and bet Dave Lees on the 750 to finish 2nd behind Sam Smith. I need to work on the setup some more tho as with the steering damper up so much it's very hard to flick the bike around and I was getting some wicked bouncing going on round turn 1.
3rd F1 race was a hell of a lot of fun, I got the holeshot and had a great dice with Dave Lees & Sam all race long. We swapped the lead pretty much every lap and were 3 wide going into the hairpin on the last lap but Sam & Dave came out on top leaving me to 3rd with only half a second seperating us at the line.
F2 races were all pretty much identical circulating in 1.02's most of the day, 3rd in the first two behind Sam & Dave and 2nd in the last race as Sam didn't go out. Last race on the double left hander I managed to have a Mynah bird fly across the track and smash me in the middle of my visor which smacked the helmet onto my nose. Luckily the visor didn't break (FFM helmets are tough!) and I cruised over the line with a bloody sore nose. My condolenses go out to the birds family.
Top riding from Sam on the new R6, he's gonna be bloody fast come nationals. Daryl - what can I say mate, awesome first effort on the thou! KK & Frosty nice work in F3. Jill great work getting back out after the crash. Thanks to all the marshalls and crews & thanks to Sam & Blair for their help in the pits.
And as always, thanks to METZELER, COLEMANS SUZUKI, FREDCO MOTORS, FFM, NEO, SPOOL, SBS, DID, SDV LOGISTICS
Cheers,
Nicko