Kornholio
2nd January 2009, 14:45
Pre-race
What a way to break a race cherry than doing it in a 3hr Endurance race.
It took months of bourbon/rum/beer/sambuca/absinthe swilling days and nights in Spud's garage meticulously preparing the bike and race stategies for our debut on the track in race conditions. Had a couple of hiccups along the way, first was noone brought a book or pen to take minutes and notes so most (read: all) of the clever plans and ideas we had strategised were forgotten the next day... Hmmm she'll be right <_< .... Basically, we drunk too much and pretty much talked shit all night and had the usual Suzuki vs Honda arguments lol .... Great days :D
About a week out from the race the GSXR decides to run on 3 cylinders(not unusual for my bike as I use the dirty old fuel can from the old mans garage and the fuel filter blocks regularly... no spiders this time tho lol) so clean the fuel filter and fire her up... same problem, had a dirty injector problem a while ago so found the troublesome culprit and gave him a good blow out and clean, put back in and Fire in the Hole, we are away with 4 cylinders again.... Sweet au!!!
The Saturday and Sunday before race was spent putting the numbers on bike and last minute adjustments and stuff... Plus it got cleaned!!!!!
Race day
Arrived at track just before 8 and parked up next to Gordon and Dumpty and proceeded to set up camp... Borrowed a gazebo from someone's parents and tryed putting that up, What the Fuck!! we were missing some poles or so we thought so cursed a bit and then Olivia came to rescue and swapped some poles around presto, she was up.... Outstanding... just as well cos we needed it for shelter and not from the sun like we thought we would ...
First Practise
Fish went out first on the new scrubbed in Racetechs and proceeded to get some laps in...halfway through we threw the Coro Demons Pitboard out we swapped over and I had a go.. Checked out the times, 5th on grid.. High 5...
Then the unthinkable happened... It started raining... HOW RUDE!!!! The MotoTT track day boys went out ... Spud did 3 laps on his slicks, run off the track and come straight back in... He wasn't amused lol... He said someone had come off in turn 2...Oh, we said ... Then a certain British bike came back into the pits looking no where near as pretty as when it went out... Oooooh Doh.....
Second Practise
Went out for a couple of laps on the Racetechs to see what sort of pace we had... Probably would have been quicker riding in the grass... Pitted, gave the bike to Fish... pretty much shrugged my shoulders and walked off... Fish was back 3 laps later and said Oh Bugger.... As I was watchin all the teams putting their nice rain tyres on Jon(eMan) informed us he had a set of Matt Blecks Wets in the van he was selling.... JOY!!!!!!! Sniffed him out and the bargaining began... Apparently Dumpty already had dibs so negotiated a bit and the tyres were ours YAY!!!!!
The Race
Fish was doing the first stint so off he went around the track to line up for the Start... As none of us had used wets before I asked what that lap was like? He said 'Giddy Up' so all was good... The flagged dropped and the riders ran/wobbled/ambled over to the bikes and engines were started and they were off... Out of the first corner we were in 9th, all good... settled in to watch race ... Man it was wet and it was still pissing down too.
Fish was slipping and sliding around track but he was making good pace so watched on til our pit board went out for the 10 min left mark(In his session)(Lol in Spuds excitement he nearly dropped the board on the track below LMAO) Suited up and waiting Fish brings her in and the fueling process begins... he lets me know of a few hazards around the track...which was pretty much the whole track... It was still pissing down and away I went... Was sorta curious to see how the wets would go, but got quite confident and started finding a good pace... Felt for the guys with road tyres on cos they didnt look like they were having a good time...
Most insane part on the track for me was down the back straight... with the amount of water on the track and pushing through at 240kph was certainly something that could go pear shaped pretty quickly.... following someone was a million times worse cause it felt like they were throwing buckets of water at ya.... Chaos, but very exciting :stupid:
Got my signal to come into pits and handed back the reigns to Fish after another flawless fuel stop/rider change ....
Rain was stopping now and the track was starting to dry so times got a little quicker but the wet tyres were starting to get a lil hot... Swapped over again and went out find a big dry line on the track and bugger all standing water... After a few laps the rear tyre was starting to get a lil squirmy but we had another problem starting to rear its ugly head...the injector was starting to block up again... CUNT!!!!!! At the beginning of race I was passing 600s under power down the back straight, now I couldnt even get into a slip stream behind them...they were disappearing away from me.... Then I noticed Matt Bleck creeping up behind me... His Racetechs were coming into their own now and he was flying around the track
Last lap and M Bleck was only a corner behind me, got onto the back straight and turned around and waved to Timmay and buggered off and got to the finish line a few seconds in front of him... It didnt matter he was a lap down on me :p
Got back into pits and every one was clapping and cheering the riders... It was a special moment.... looked like everyone had a ball despite the weather.
Someone came up and told us we had got 5th... YEEFUCKINHARRR!!! Didnt expect that... I had a blast and so did my team... Best day ever!!
Thanks so much to Scrivy and Chris Lawrence for organising this, we will be back next time fer sure. Big thanks to marshals and crew and laptimers and dude with the tyre machine ... Also a big thanks to Sidecar Bob for being our own personal Fireman... we didnt need him to extinguish anything but a few tips here and there went a long way.
Massive thanks to the Coro Demons crew and team and sponsors who made it all possible for us to be there: Me, Fish, Spud, Yvonne, Trina and Jayden, Darrell(Idrumm), Glen(Saul), Olivia(Wybmawhatsit) Jonboy(eMan), Golly from Whangamata, The Harvey Crew, Super Liquor Te Aroha(lol) and my Mum and Dad :)
Cheers all... will see yas there again next year... Giddy Up!!!!
What a way to break a race cherry than doing it in a 3hr Endurance race.
It took months of bourbon/rum/beer/sambuca/absinthe swilling days and nights in Spud's garage meticulously preparing the bike and race stategies for our debut on the track in race conditions. Had a couple of hiccups along the way, first was noone brought a book or pen to take minutes and notes so most (read: all) of the clever plans and ideas we had strategised were forgotten the next day... Hmmm she'll be right <_< .... Basically, we drunk too much and pretty much talked shit all night and had the usual Suzuki vs Honda arguments lol .... Great days :D
About a week out from the race the GSXR decides to run on 3 cylinders(not unusual for my bike as I use the dirty old fuel can from the old mans garage and the fuel filter blocks regularly... no spiders this time tho lol) so clean the fuel filter and fire her up... same problem, had a dirty injector problem a while ago so found the troublesome culprit and gave him a good blow out and clean, put back in and Fire in the Hole, we are away with 4 cylinders again.... Sweet au!!!
The Saturday and Sunday before race was spent putting the numbers on bike and last minute adjustments and stuff... Plus it got cleaned!!!!!
Race day
Arrived at track just before 8 and parked up next to Gordon and Dumpty and proceeded to set up camp... Borrowed a gazebo from someone's parents and tryed putting that up, What the Fuck!! we were missing some poles or so we thought so cursed a bit and then Olivia came to rescue and swapped some poles around presto, she was up.... Outstanding... just as well cos we needed it for shelter and not from the sun like we thought we would ...
First Practise
Fish went out first on the new scrubbed in Racetechs and proceeded to get some laps in...halfway through we threw the Coro Demons Pitboard out we swapped over and I had a go.. Checked out the times, 5th on grid.. High 5...
Then the unthinkable happened... It started raining... HOW RUDE!!!! The MotoTT track day boys went out ... Spud did 3 laps on his slicks, run off the track and come straight back in... He wasn't amused lol... He said someone had come off in turn 2...Oh, we said ... Then a certain British bike came back into the pits looking no where near as pretty as when it went out... Oooooh Doh.....
Second Practise
Went out for a couple of laps on the Racetechs to see what sort of pace we had... Probably would have been quicker riding in the grass... Pitted, gave the bike to Fish... pretty much shrugged my shoulders and walked off... Fish was back 3 laps later and said Oh Bugger.... As I was watchin all the teams putting their nice rain tyres on Jon(eMan) informed us he had a set of Matt Blecks Wets in the van he was selling.... JOY!!!!!!! Sniffed him out and the bargaining began... Apparently Dumpty already had dibs so negotiated a bit and the tyres were ours YAY!!!!!
The Race
Fish was doing the first stint so off he went around the track to line up for the Start... As none of us had used wets before I asked what that lap was like? He said 'Giddy Up' so all was good... The flagged dropped and the riders ran/wobbled/ambled over to the bikes and engines were started and they were off... Out of the first corner we were in 9th, all good... settled in to watch race ... Man it was wet and it was still pissing down too.
Fish was slipping and sliding around track but he was making good pace so watched on til our pit board went out for the 10 min left mark(In his session)(Lol in Spuds excitement he nearly dropped the board on the track below LMAO) Suited up and waiting Fish brings her in and the fueling process begins... he lets me know of a few hazards around the track...which was pretty much the whole track... It was still pissing down and away I went... Was sorta curious to see how the wets would go, but got quite confident and started finding a good pace... Felt for the guys with road tyres on cos they didnt look like they were having a good time...
Most insane part on the track for me was down the back straight... with the amount of water on the track and pushing through at 240kph was certainly something that could go pear shaped pretty quickly.... following someone was a million times worse cause it felt like they were throwing buckets of water at ya.... Chaos, but very exciting :stupid:
Got my signal to come into pits and handed back the reigns to Fish after another flawless fuel stop/rider change ....
Rain was stopping now and the track was starting to dry so times got a little quicker but the wet tyres were starting to get a lil hot... Swapped over again and went out find a big dry line on the track and bugger all standing water... After a few laps the rear tyre was starting to get a lil squirmy but we had another problem starting to rear its ugly head...the injector was starting to block up again... CUNT!!!!!! At the beginning of race I was passing 600s under power down the back straight, now I couldnt even get into a slip stream behind them...they were disappearing away from me.... Then I noticed Matt Bleck creeping up behind me... His Racetechs were coming into their own now and he was flying around the track
Last lap and M Bleck was only a corner behind me, got onto the back straight and turned around and waved to Timmay and buggered off and got to the finish line a few seconds in front of him... It didnt matter he was a lap down on me :p
Got back into pits and every one was clapping and cheering the riders... It was a special moment.... looked like everyone had a ball despite the weather.
Someone came up and told us we had got 5th... YEEFUCKINHARRR!!! Didnt expect that... I had a blast and so did my team... Best day ever!!
Thanks so much to Scrivy and Chris Lawrence for organising this, we will be back next time fer sure. Big thanks to marshals and crew and laptimers and dude with the tyre machine ... Also a big thanks to Sidecar Bob for being our own personal Fireman... we didnt need him to extinguish anything but a few tips here and there went a long way.
Massive thanks to the Coro Demons crew and team and sponsors who made it all possible for us to be there: Me, Fish, Spud, Yvonne, Trina and Jayden, Darrell(Idrumm), Glen(Saul), Olivia(Wybmawhatsit) Jonboy(eMan), Golly from Whangamata, The Harvey Crew, Super Liquor Te Aroha(lol) and my Mum and Dad :)
Cheers all... will see yas there again next year... Giddy Up!!!!