Well I guess most of you have heard about Biff Baff's incident at the training day, well it was also fairly average for me.
After arriving and signing in at 9, the briefing began. After that we were out for a walk to some corners on the track and get a overview of them from the racers who were giving tuition. These were Dean Fulton, Jeremy Holmes and Brad Selfe.
So the first session rolled on and after 1 lap of following one of the pros, I got a bit bored so tore off by myself so I could get used to my bike a bit more. Also the fact that I knew the track previously and didn't really want to dordle around in 1st gear all day letting the bike overheat. I noticed that on the main straight it was struggling to rev past 11000 or so rpm and this worsened towards the end of the session. After the session I pulled off the tank and took the sparkplug out to see if I could diagnose what was wrong. I found that a bit of the insulation stuff up inside the electrode had broken off, creating a messy spark and most likely being the cause of the loss of power.
So I tore off into town in my van to try and track down a replacement. After about 4 shops I had to give up and go back to the track to pack up. Bit of a pain, but definately highlights the need for carrying a decent array of spare parts. I was able to get a 50% refund on my fee so all was not lost.
So after I had packed everything up I saw that Dean Fulton had taken a guy for a blat round the track on the back of his CBR1000RR. I was in for this, and jumped onto the back first opportunity I got. For the first 2 laps he took it fairly easy and then turned it up, DAMN that thing can fly. I saw 235kph on the speedo before braking for the first corner at the end of the straight. I had to hold on very tight at this speed or else I would have been blown off. Then had to carefully coordinate resting my hands on the tank at the perfect moment so as I didn't squash Dean up against the tank. He also threw in a few wheelies for fun, gave me a bit of a surprise but just made it even more fun. Very very fun indeed, I won't forget those 5 or 6 laps in a hurry.
After that Manuboy generously offered me a few laps on his SV1000. Was quite a bit of fun actually, cheers man, much appreciated. So the day had come to an end and we packed up and headed home.
So a very mixed day, was pretty guttered that I didn't get to ride my RS a bit more and get used to it before the next race meeting. But the smile was definately put back on my face after those laps on the CBR.
Manu has some photos somewhere that he can post up. Oh yeah good to see other Kiwibikers out there, Zapf, Rider in Black, Manuboy, Biff Baff, Lynda Blair (and probably some others that I have forgotten).
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Originally Posted by Two Smoker
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