After being encouraged by some people I have a lot of respect for I cobbled together a plan to Race in the Pro-Twin class in the Nats.
My goal was to do everything on a budget and just gain experience on new tracks, of the five rounds, the only track I had seen before was Manfeild. I knew that I would be hard on an older, less competitive bike but the great thing about Pro-Twins is that it doesn’t matter too much.
Round 1 – Ruapuna
This was probably the most technical track that I had to learn but very cool to ride. On my first lap during practice I had to be careful not to take a wrong turn!
Mixed weather conditions made things interesting and the fact that I hadn’t invested in some decent wet tyres meant that I should have taken things easy – I didn’t and followed up a good 4th place with a DNF and then a careful 5th in race 3.
Round 2 – Teretonga
A very fast track that made the SV feel like a pocket bike as I must have been at full throttle for 90% of the lap! I never quite got the bike handling properly here, especially in the most important corner of the track – turn 1. Otherwise a very satisfying track to ride.
The lap times didn’t come until I made some big changes to the bike, but too late for Qualifying. It didn’t help that I was getting a false neutral just about every lap which sent me off the track at the end of the straight in race one but then settled down for the last two races for me to pick up a couple of 3rds and got 3rd overall for the round, which I was very pleased with.
Round 3 – Levels
I decided to do an extra test day here on the Wednesday, which was a real bonus. Again, I had lots of problems setting up the bike however and couldn’t get it to go where I wanted. Crucially, I qualified poorly with the bike jumping out of gear on all of my qualifying laps!
Fortunately, I had some help in the form of Richard Newbury and Eric deBoer who pointed out that my new rearsets might be the cause for my gearbox problems – a simple fix that worked!
All three races were awesome battles but as my lap times indicated, I should have been battling further up the field. I was pretty happy with the results however – 3rd, 4th, 3rd.
Round 4 – Manfeild
Finally a track that I know and (more importantly) have a setup for.
I was able to get up to speed straight away here and even took my first pole position after only doing two flying laps to conserve my tyres.
I got good launches in the first two races but a cursed false neutral and getting blocked out at turn one meant I never lead a race, finishing second behind Geoff Booth both times.
In the third race I jumped the start for some reason – maybe because the lights were held for a long time but I don’t know what I was thinking! I had a feeling that I would get a 20 second penalty so I didn’t push too hard but I ended up following another rider over the line who also got a penalty so wasted points (lesson learnt).
A good weekend with a second place overall and the fastest Pro-Twin lap in every race.
Round 5 – Hampton Downs
Having been up for a test day a couple of weeks earlier I knew that I was going to go well here.
A lowside on some dirty tyre marks in the first session didn’t help matters but thanks to Nick Southerwood for letting me borrow his brake lever for the day.
The next day I put some new Pirellis on and everything felt like it was in fast forward, so much so that my old braking markers were too late causing me to run off into the gravel!
The first race was perfect as I managed to work my way to the front of the Pro-Twin field and take the win by 5 seconds! This was by far the highlight of the whole Nats
Unfortunately, I should have packed up and left on a high as I crashed out of the next race when my forks bottomed out trying to out-brake some one. I managed to get the bike ready for the TT race, which I was leading until I went down again on the infamous concrete dust at turn one. This time my luck ran out and my hand got stuck under the bike giving me some nasty road rash and a very well trimmed thumb nail. With this being the 4th off track excursion of the weekend, the bike knew the drill and carried on without me down the track – hope to get video of this!
So all up I finished 4th in the championship and don’t regret a second of it.
Loads of people helped me with advice, labour, accommodation, petrol vouchers and equipment so thanks to you all.
A special thanks to my sponsors Nation Wide Accessories for providing me with the best tyres you can get.
Also, a big thanks to TC (Tony Collins) not least of all for lending me his van for a few weeks and having to be a plumber out of my station wagon.
Hopefully I can get out for the winter series on a new bike!
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Originally Posted by discodan
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