gpercivl
25th July 2006, 15:10
No Hair Race Report from Greg
Actrix VMCC Superbike Champs Round 3, July 22nd.
Time for another race meeting at Manfeild and also a work commitment on the week before. This time I had to be at a function in Wellington on the night before so Ian & I took the day off work and loaded up the trailer (after getting new WOF & Rego) and left the Waikato in the SV6. Stopped at Ngaruawahia (learnt how to spell that on TV1 on Monday night!) to fill up and reached for my wallet...DOH!!! Either drive back home and add another 60mins to the trip (if we made it home) but luckily Ian pulled out his trusty credit card and we were off again. Nice quiet trip on cruise control at 95kph saw us at Tim Gibbes place in Palmy to drop off the trailer at ~4:15pm. Tim had a flat battery so we charged it off the SV6 before heading south. We hit snow flurries driving over the top of the Akatarawa's and were glad we weren't riding down.
Saturday morning and we left my brother's place in Upper Hutt just before 6am, picked up the trailer and was at Manfeild by 8:30 in time for rider's briefing. The program for the 3rd round was for 3 races in each class for 4 laps over the extended 4.5km circuit. Supersport qualifying was up first and I managed 16th with a time of 2:16.5. My personal best for the long track was 2:09.44 in April '05 when it was a lot warmer. The track this time was quite slippery & damp in some parts and all day I had small slides on the painted lines thru the esses which is usually grippy enough for me. Superbike qualifying saw me at 22nd (worst qualifying this year) but a better time of 2:10.4. Shirriffs qualified 1st at 1:58 on the new 600 Suzi and Derek was down in the 2:02's and feeling very good on the R6.
Supersport race 1 and I got a great start but couldn't hold on to the group in front of me who were doing 2:05's and 2:06's, I did 2:10.0 but finished 14th with a 6 second gap to that bunch. I had a problem with my left tricep entering the left hander after Higgins... it basically locked up and I had to slow and counter-steer with my shoulder to make the bend. A bit of a surprise the first time but I manage to live with it for the rest of the day.
Superbike race 1 was much more fun and I managed my best time of the day at 2:09.6 chasing Gordon Pullen & Mike Ingoe on their 1000's. They got into the 2:08's on the last lap but I thought I might just get Mike when he ran very wide at the hairpin but he accelerated away before I could get past. I finished 23rd and this was pretty much the same in the 2nd Superbike race.
Race 2 and race 3 of the Supersport class saw me get slower and slower as my lack of fitness became more evident (too much sitting on aeroplanes this month :-). I finished 16th in the 2nd race and surprisingly 13th in the last race due to other rider attrition. Tehana on his vee twin Hyosung 650 showed me how slow I was going halfway thru the last race, so I tried a bit harder and finished in front only doing 2:12's.
I called it quits for the last Superbike race and we loaded up the trailer and left the track just after 4pm. Not a bad day's racing but I definitely need to keep my fitness level up between meetings.
Scoring no points in Superbike dropped my series position from 13th to 20th out of 41, but wasn't quite so bad in Supersport managing to pick up another 20 points to drop from 11th to 14th out of 36.
Big thanks again to Henderson Motorcycles, Pirelli Tyres and the Missus! Thanks also to SSSLodge 'for real horsepower' and www.ezsite.co.nz for their continued support.
Catch u L8R, Greg
No Hair Racing
http://www.nohair.co.nz
Actrix VMCC Superbike Champs Round 3, July 22nd.
Time for another race meeting at Manfeild and also a work commitment on the week before. This time I had to be at a function in Wellington on the night before so Ian & I took the day off work and loaded up the trailer (after getting new WOF & Rego) and left the Waikato in the SV6. Stopped at Ngaruawahia (learnt how to spell that on TV1 on Monday night!) to fill up and reached for my wallet...DOH!!! Either drive back home and add another 60mins to the trip (if we made it home) but luckily Ian pulled out his trusty credit card and we were off again. Nice quiet trip on cruise control at 95kph saw us at Tim Gibbes place in Palmy to drop off the trailer at ~4:15pm. Tim had a flat battery so we charged it off the SV6 before heading south. We hit snow flurries driving over the top of the Akatarawa's and were glad we weren't riding down.
Saturday morning and we left my brother's place in Upper Hutt just before 6am, picked up the trailer and was at Manfeild by 8:30 in time for rider's briefing. The program for the 3rd round was for 3 races in each class for 4 laps over the extended 4.5km circuit. Supersport qualifying was up first and I managed 16th with a time of 2:16.5. My personal best for the long track was 2:09.44 in April '05 when it was a lot warmer. The track this time was quite slippery & damp in some parts and all day I had small slides on the painted lines thru the esses which is usually grippy enough for me. Superbike qualifying saw me at 22nd (worst qualifying this year) but a better time of 2:10.4. Shirriffs qualified 1st at 1:58 on the new 600 Suzi and Derek was down in the 2:02's and feeling very good on the R6.
Supersport race 1 and I got a great start but couldn't hold on to the group in front of me who were doing 2:05's and 2:06's, I did 2:10.0 but finished 14th with a 6 second gap to that bunch. I had a problem with my left tricep entering the left hander after Higgins... it basically locked up and I had to slow and counter-steer with my shoulder to make the bend. A bit of a surprise the first time but I manage to live with it for the rest of the day.
Superbike race 1 was much more fun and I managed my best time of the day at 2:09.6 chasing Gordon Pullen & Mike Ingoe on their 1000's. They got into the 2:08's on the last lap but I thought I might just get Mike when he ran very wide at the hairpin but he accelerated away before I could get past. I finished 23rd and this was pretty much the same in the 2nd Superbike race.
Race 2 and race 3 of the Supersport class saw me get slower and slower as my lack of fitness became more evident (too much sitting on aeroplanes this month :-). I finished 16th in the 2nd race and surprisingly 13th in the last race due to other rider attrition. Tehana on his vee twin Hyosung 650 showed me how slow I was going halfway thru the last race, so I tried a bit harder and finished in front only doing 2:12's.
I called it quits for the last Superbike race and we loaded up the trailer and left the track just after 4pm. Not a bad day's racing but I definitely need to keep my fitness level up between meetings.
Scoring no points in Superbike dropped my series position from 13th to 20th out of 41, but wasn't quite so bad in Supersport managing to pick up another 20 points to drop from 11th to 14th out of 36.
Big thanks again to Henderson Motorcycles, Pirelli Tyres and the Missus! Thanks also to SSSLodge 'for real horsepower' and www.ezsite.co.nz for their continued support.
Catch u L8R, Greg
No Hair Racing
http://www.nohair.co.nz