It's about learning from the experience and moving forward.
This is a really handy quote to trot out when something fucks up and it may be your fault !!
Even though I have had about two months to fix the 675 up after my adventures at Paeroa the paint on parts of it were still tacky when I took it for a test run down our (normally VERY quiet) Cul De Sac (what the French and real estate agents like to call a dead end street) on Thursday morning.
After an absence of over two months it felt a little weird, but it ran sweet and looked OK from a distance. I tried on the leathers that had arrived back from Celtic that week, no exercise since I cracked my sternum, so they are a bit snug.
Luckily I have a list of things to take so I was not too worried about forgetting something. I managed to get the van loaded, fuelled and ready to go on Friday night. The drive up to Manfeild on Saturday morning in the pissing down rain was starting to make the Metservice forecast of showers look a bit optimistic.
After getting unloaded and signed in the first order of business was to visit Mr Harris and his tyre changer, I was going to get my first experience of running on “full wets” !! Truthfully I wouldn't mind if I was still waiting to try them out. I managed to wobble round in both F2 and F1 practice without falling off, the wets were pretty good, but I didn't have the bottle to push them even a little bit so was well down and had grid position 20 for both classes.
F2 Race 1
Not bad start from the back of the grid, managed to pick up a few places round the outside at turn one and lost some of them back through splash. The track was now pretty much dry and the wets were getting stuffed, I was having a pretty good duel with John Hannah (I think ?) and on the last lap thought I had his measure when heading down the middle straight towards Higgins for the last time the 675 cut out – It was so sudden I thought is must be electrical – I coasted to a stop and pulled off the track to a safe spot. A marshal on a quad drove up to check on me and tell me that I would have to wait until the next race was over before I could get a lift back to the pits. While he was there he suggested it might be my tether kill switch, to which I replied “I don't think so, all the gauges still work” and switched the ignition on to demonstrate, petrol began to gush out of the side of the bike. I instantly knew what the problem was and switched the ignition off. The petrol hose had come off the pump ! It is a push on device which had obviously not been pushed on quite hard enough.
It's not about apportioning blame, it's about learning from the experience and moving forward.Which probably wouldn't have been the case if I had anyone but me to blame
F1 Race 1
By the time I got back to the pits the first F1 race was about to start, the petrol hose problem was quickly sorted, but the track was now dry and I still had my now stuffed wets on
So the morning was good fun but a DNF and a DNS meant no points for me...
F2 Race 2
With the wets replaced with my usual conti race attacks I was ready to go for this (or so I thought).
I got another average start, but again managed to pick up a couple of places round the outside of turn one, only to loose most of them again before the first lap was over. I had a pretty conservative race with no “moments” and a pretty conservative time to show for it. About 7 seconds a lap down on the leaders and about 3 seconds a lap down on my PB.
F1 Race 2
Another ordinary start, but again managed to pick up a few places round the outside at turn one, a bit of swapping places and ended up having a bit of a duel with scratcha (which he won ).
I didn't know it at the time but that was my last race for the day.
All in all a pretty good first round, Katie and I enjoyed catching up with everyone. One of the things I like about the bike race scene is that the people are pretty friendly. Also I got to try out wets, I was pretty conservative – some of that due to being the first time on the race bike since I cracked my sternum at Paeroa and some of it due to the fact that Katie and I are leaving for the UK on the 27th and I would be REALLY pissed off if I couldn't go because I had injured myself.
So I won't be at round 2 – my next race report will be a spectators experience at the IOM TT
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks