Phillip Island '08 - The pits

[pritch]

Pictures from a pit walk at Phillip Island the other day.

Some luck is needed with these pit walks, sometimes most of the garage doors can be closed and the place looks like a South Auckland shopping centre in the weekend. All closed roller doors.

I went between practice and qualifying in the hope that they'd all have work to do. It seems most did...

[pritch]

And herewith (hopefully) more pics...

[pritch]

10 characters

[yod]

great pics man

[ArcherWC]

but what about the chicks??????

[pritch]

but what about the chicks??????

They generally hide them away when the peasantry come through... Actually there were a couple of tasty looking ladies handing out posters but I had both hands full with the camera.

[Devil]

Something interesting I noted in the first set of photos was the chain is on the right hand side of the bike. Is that usual or unusual for these bikes and why would they have it different?

Often depends on the bike and type of engine. My old 250 had the chain on the right, but the triumph and ktm had it on the left.
Weight has a bit to do with it too, lateral balance.

[steveyb]

Look closely at the photo of the Campetella team with the two 250s on the benches, the second from the left in the top 4 photos.
At the extreme left of the photo is one of the riders.
It is my good mate Simone Grotskyj-Giorgi. His bike is number 35.
He rode for Campetalla Junior team in 125 in 2006 and team Multi Media in 2006. It is his first part season (it was Pogiallis bike) on the 250 and he already has 2 points.
Great stuff.

Points of interest for trainspotters. The Gilera/Aprilia RSW250 has many options available for the riders, one of these is the choice between an Al or Carbon swingarm. The carbon ones are pure works of art to see and touch in the flesh. As I managed back in 2006 at Estoril when I was in the garage with the team. Oh yes, in the gge on the pit lane, with the bikes, riders, mechanics, and helping out once in a while. Great fun.

Cheers

Steve

[pritch]

Something interesting I noted in the first set of photos was the chain is on the right hand side of the bike. Is that usual or unusual for these bikes and why would they have it different?

On checking the photos it appears mainly to be the 250s, Aprilia, and Gilera of course being same horse different colour, but also Honda...

Otherwise most seem to have the drive on the left.

[nudemetalz]

Awesome pics, thanks for sharing :)

[steveyb]

Check out the rain tyres! Where have I seen those before??

Oh yeah, on the Moto Academy NZ RS250 LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Check out also the swingarm on Takahashis 250. Waaaaaay longer than the standard RS250 NXA.

Cheers

[Movistar]

Great pics Pritch!

Maybe we should get a slide show evening happening...

Did you get to do a few laps of the track?

[CHOPPA]

Cool pics! Me and nick odermatt got into the gp pits and were walking around checking everything out but we couldnt go getting out cameras out cause we would have been spotted straight away! We saw 80% of the riders it was mean! Hopkins and Caparossi kept going in and out of this portacom with these hot little grid girls and coming out with big smiles hahaha The riders are so small! I was standing on pit lane next to melandri, west and hayden they are all midgets except for toseland that i saw.

Highlight of the weekend! Had to try act all cool like we were supposed to be there

[SKIDA//00]

Highlight of the weekend! Had to try act all cool like we were supposed to be there[/QUOTE]

haha good on you choppa,,,so we will have to lose weight and shrink to go fast then????

[Suzi Q]

What I want to know is how you got into the pits. We went over and I wanted to buy tickets to the pit walk and was given conflicting advice and ended up believing I couldn't buy them. When we went to SBK in Brno in 2005 we purchased pit walk tickets and it was fantastic.
We were in the Gardner stands on the home straight near the start finish line. Rossi was right in front of us on the fourth row - unfortunately there was a speaker stand there as well!!!!

[wharfy]

Something interesting I noted in the first set of photos was the chain is on the right hand side of the bike. Is that usual or unusual for these bikes and why would they have it different?

I wondered about that too. I just assumed that when they designed the motor/gearbox the most compact design ended up with the output shaft on the right ? Every bike I've ever owned had the chain on the left. Every pushbike I've ever seen has the chain on the right - Are Harley chains/rubber bands on the left or right ?

[Swima]

Hey Suzi Q
A group of about 30 of us went with the Honda Riders Club
There were two organised Pit walks each day,you could have gone on both if wanted but as Ron mentioned,it was a bit of a lucky dip of what we got to see.Not many of the Big Boys pit doors were open.We choose not to go on Sun
Seated and well feed about the 200m brake mark on Gardner Straight.
Good bunch to go with
Cost appox 3k

[t3mp0r4ry nzr]

losing the front at mg corner, but saving it on the elbow!:Punk:

[CHOPPA]

What I want to know is how you got into the pits. We went over and I wanted to buy tickets to the pit walk and was given conflicting advice and ended up believing I couldn't buy them. When we went to SBK in Brno in 2005 we purchased pit walk tickets and it was fantastic.
We were in the Gardner stands on the home straight near the start finish line. Rossi was right in front of us on the fourth row - unfortunately there was a speaker stand there as well!!!!

I already had a pit pass for the oz superbikes to get into the pit lane but to get into the gp pits we were standing on the roof above the pits and looking down to the gp pits and it didnt look like any security gaurds on the steps so we ezzed down but there was a dude halfway down, we just smiled and kept walkin haha

Yeah skidda! i been on that shrinking buzz but im over it lol i just got a superbike hahaha

[MDR2]

Me and my Dad were sitting on the bass straight stands. will definately go there again next year. Or maybe Siberia.

Good day, good sun, good racing.

getting home after the racing... meh can't have it all now can we

[t3mp0r4ry nzr]

Me and my Dad were sitting on the bass straight stands. will definately go there again next year. Or maybe Siberia.

Good day, good sun, good racing.

getting home after the racing... meh can't have it all now can we

after walking the perimetre of the circuit we decided on MG corner. Watching the run over lukey heights into the downhill turn was awesome! Rossi losing the front end under brakes was great to see but even better to see his save.

Being on a slope you got a very good view of the racing from lukey heights through to the bass straight straight

Pitty the roads from melbourne to the island were dead straight. the one corner on the whole journey, the turnpike onto the freeway on the return leg, I was cutting niggers up left right and centre on my CB250 rental bike!! no shit, right through the middle of a busa and r1 one time. This is a CB250 loaded down with packs!! dont think they knew what to do when they encountered a corner!!

[MDR2]

We did the same last year. walked the circuit and watched from MG, racing was tame the year before and there was hardly any action on that spot.

from bass straight we saw them coming downhill from the start finish, through turn one lots of people breaking late into that corner with surprising success (toseland out braking rossi had the crowd going) all the way down to turn four and along to lukey hieghts,, though by that time you would be eatching the big screen to make out what was going on. I think the racing that day was on par with Laguna, maybe without quite as much biff though :D

[pritch]

Pitty the roads from melbourne to the island were dead straight. the one corner on the whole journey, the turnpike onto the freeway on the return leg, I was cutting niggers up left right and centre on my CB250 rental bike!! no shit, right through the middle of a busa and r1 one time. This is a CB250 loaded down with packs!! dont think they knew what to do when they encountered a corner!!

We were constantly amazed at how law abiding everybody is in Victoria.
Everybody does 100kph. Bikes just sit in line at that 100 and do not pass anything. Cars, trucks, anything! Everyone is so "correct" it is scary. That 100kph and the lack of corners mean a lot of the bikes have humungous chicken strips. Sometimes only the middle one third of the tyre has any wear.

So you have 1098 Ducs with all the fruit salad riding everywhere at 100kph.
There is no 10kph allowance in Vic as there is here. 103 will apparently get you a ticket and a wad if demerits. That, and the fact that the cops wear guns, seems to create a whole different respect for the road code.

So while the ideal bike for Victoria would appear to be a DR250 with a big tank, nearly everybody rides Ducatis, R1s, etc etc. Harleys are popular too and actually start to look like a sensible choice.

I hope we didn't get a glimpse of our future, but I fear otherwise...