CHOPPA
26th January 2009, 20:36
Testing;
We managed to get out to the track on Tuesday for a few sessions to get familiarised with yet another new track, Sam smith offered to show me the fast way around the track and by the 3<SUP>rd</SUP> session I was doing 36s so I set a goal of running 33s in the racing
Thursday testing was a non event as a bolt managed to snap itself off inside the clutch so I took the time to watch some other guys and go get some BMX practice at some of the local tracks
Practice;
Friday rolled along in the blink of an eye and I was out on the track again and trying to push for some better times, we had a frustrating time with the front suspension the bike didn’t seem to be using all its travel but it felt like it was bottoming and skipping on the slow corners and on the fast corners it was getting a mild chatter.
I kept pushing forward to try get my times down until I lost the front in turn 1 over a couple of bumps and dislocated my thumb further damaging the ligaments. Thankfully this seemed to make my hand a bit better as it was totally numb and it wasn’t really an issue to ride with
Qualifying;
We were still chasing problems with the front end and we finally found a new direction, we had been trying to make it softer as we thought we weren’t using all the fork travel but the forks actually hit the stops about 20mm from the end of the forks. We now quickly started tuning in the opposite direction and things were slowly getting better but we had already lost a lot of much needed track time.
We decided to leave on some old tyres for qualifying as the Dunlop’s I am running don’t seem to deteriorate, I managed to qualify with a 33.9 for 6th
Race 1
There is something up with the clutch! Its notoriously hard to get the bike off the line, the clutch is on or off and you cant slip the clutch away from the line, anyway I dropped to around 9<SUP>th</SUP> and by the time I had got back up to 7<SUP>th</SUP> the other guys had made a decent gap, I didn’t have the speed to catch and without being able to be dragged along I decided to play it safe and safe some energy for the second 15 lap race
Race 2 NZ GP Title
Again I had trouble off the start but I only dropped to 8<SUP>th</SUP> and quickly moved to 7<SUP>th</SUP> behind Craig Sherrifs, I knew if I could get behind these guys I could get dragged along. The way the power is with my bike made it difficult to get the punch out of the corners so I was trying pretty hard to keep my pace up everywhere else to stay in touch, I managed to stay within a few seconds of Craig and Ray for around 10 laps but fatigue was really starting to set in and I made a few mistakes so I backed down the pace until around lap 13 when I saw Bugden coming back onto the track after some misfortune of his own, I started to catch him until he realised I was coming then on the second to last corner I saw Ray go down and I managed to finish 6<SUP>th</SUP> with a best time of 33.4 and keeping my 5<SUP>th</SUP> placing in the championship
Its still early days but without speed-tech.co.nz supplying me with the 2008 zx10r and letting me run up a horrendous account with them id never be able to do what im doing, please if your interested in any sort of performance riding kit suspension, tyres etc for racing or track days get in and see the guys or give them a call! The way things are with the economy and stuff at the mo its such a privilege to have guys like this involved in the sport.
Also LG, there putting so much behind this team its great to have all the positive support you guys are showing towards them! They are actually having a big promotion on Saturday 31<SUP>st</SUP> of January and the more bikes we can get there the better! Trust me if we can keep a positive partnership going with LG there will be some great benefits for us all in the near future!
Thanks Eddies for looking after absolutely everything! Its so much easier when everyone around helps out so much, maybe I could even stop talking so much when im supposed to be setting up hahahaha
http://www.lgfunrun.co.nz/
We managed to get out to the track on Tuesday for a few sessions to get familiarised with yet another new track, Sam smith offered to show me the fast way around the track and by the 3<SUP>rd</SUP> session I was doing 36s so I set a goal of running 33s in the racing
Thursday testing was a non event as a bolt managed to snap itself off inside the clutch so I took the time to watch some other guys and go get some BMX practice at some of the local tracks
Practice;
Friday rolled along in the blink of an eye and I was out on the track again and trying to push for some better times, we had a frustrating time with the front suspension the bike didn’t seem to be using all its travel but it felt like it was bottoming and skipping on the slow corners and on the fast corners it was getting a mild chatter.
I kept pushing forward to try get my times down until I lost the front in turn 1 over a couple of bumps and dislocated my thumb further damaging the ligaments. Thankfully this seemed to make my hand a bit better as it was totally numb and it wasn’t really an issue to ride with
Qualifying;
We were still chasing problems with the front end and we finally found a new direction, we had been trying to make it softer as we thought we weren’t using all the fork travel but the forks actually hit the stops about 20mm from the end of the forks. We now quickly started tuning in the opposite direction and things were slowly getting better but we had already lost a lot of much needed track time.
We decided to leave on some old tyres for qualifying as the Dunlop’s I am running don’t seem to deteriorate, I managed to qualify with a 33.9 for 6th
Race 1
There is something up with the clutch! Its notoriously hard to get the bike off the line, the clutch is on or off and you cant slip the clutch away from the line, anyway I dropped to around 9<SUP>th</SUP> and by the time I had got back up to 7<SUP>th</SUP> the other guys had made a decent gap, I didn’t have the speed to catch and without being able to be dragged along I decided to play it safe and safe some energy for the second 15 lap race
Race 2 NZ GP Title
Again I had trouble off the start but I only dropped to 8<SUP>th</SUP> and quickly moved to 7<SUP>th</SUP> behind Craig Sherrifs, I knew if I could get behind these guys I could get dragged along. The way the power is with my bike made it difficult to get the punch out of the corners so I was trying pretty hard to keep my pace up everywhere else to stay in touch, I managed to stay within a few seconds of Craig and Ray for around 10 laps but fatigue was really starting to set in and I made a few mistakes so I backed down the pace until around lap 13 when I saw Bugden coming back onto the track after some misfortune of his own, I started to catch him until he realised I was coming then on the second to last corner I saw Ray go down and I managed to finish 6<SUP>th</SUP> with a best time of 33.4 and keeping my 5<SUP>th</SUP> placing in the championship
Its still early days but without speed-tech.co.nz supplying me with the 2008 zx10r and letting me run up a horrendous account with them id never be able to do what im doing, please if your interested in any sort of performance riding kit suspension, tyres etc for racing or track days get in and see the guys or give them a call! The way things are with the economy and stuff at the mo its such a privilege to have guys like this involved in the sport.
Also LG, there putting so much behind this team its great to have all the positive support you guys are showing towards them! They are actually having a big promotion on Saturday 31<SUP>st</SUP> of January and the more bikes we can get there the better! Trust me if we can keep a positive partnership going with LG there will be some great benefits for us all in the near future!
Thanks Eddies for looking after absolutely everything! Its so much easier when everyone around helps out so much, maybe I could even stop talking so much when im supposed to be setting up hahahaha
http://www.lgfunrun.co.nz/