Prior to this round I had been trying to locate an intermittent misfire that has plagued me for the past couple of rounds.
The bike will run off song, like it has dropped a cylinder. It does this for a few seconds only, making it difficult to find.
Thinking it might have been water around the plug caps a mate and I basically drowned the engine while it was idling away – no misfire.
The coils have been checked while under load, the plugs looked ok. I also put a cup of meths into the tank to scavenge any water that might be in there.
A ten minute run up the back roads and it seemed to be running fine………
Qualifying
After turning up with the wets on the sky was pretty clear and the track drying fast, so changed to the supercorsas. Then it starts raining – back on go the wets.
Start up the bike and straight away it runs fluffy – not as severe as if only on one cylinder but……..
I roll out on to the track and try and get up some good pace, but the bike wouldn’t run 100% on any lap.
Qualified 8th on the 2nd row.
Race 1
I only needed to finish one race to get enough points to take 3rd in the championship. Given the misfire I was going to start at the back of the grid again, but it ran fine on the warm up lap and a little voice told me to get up the front.
I got a good start but so did everyone else so was chasing a big group through the first lap. I was mindful of getting enough points to claim 3rd and so was being a little careful just to bring her home in one piece. The bike misfired a few times which slowed me down a bit, and then when the rain started I had a couple of rear slides and backed off a bit.
The rain stopped as quick as it started and the track dried very quickly. I could see Zane Brookes up ahead (4th in championship), and so made an effort to catch him. I got close enough to slip stream him down the back straight, and when he braked for the sweeper I held off for a nanosecond and shot up the inside. I was surprised to see the chequered flag out as I had missed the white flag the lap prior, but was stoked that I had taken 3rd from him.
What really surprised me was that I had posted a personal best time in the last lap chasing down Zane, albeit by a few hundredths of a second. I didn’t feel like I was pushing that hard so bit of a shock really.
Race 2
I got another good start and was happy to see the bike running well and not missing (which lasted the whole race).
Zane low sided right in front of me at Splash but fortunately slid away from my race line.
About mid race I ran a little wide on the exit of turn 1 and Dillon Telfer came past me. I chased him back and got ahead of him up the inside of the hairpin on the following lap, with a block pass that slowed both of us down considerably.
Then Paul Duncan came past me which was a red rag to a bull. I chased him hard and showed him my front wheel here and there, culminating in a big lunge up the inside into turn 1 – Paul was having none of that and shut the door well and truly – I had to take evasive action but it was my fault for not being committed enough early enough. I gave it another shot at the sweeper, with a little backmarker assistance and we drag raced to the finish line – Paul pipping me by 0.03 of a second.
I got 3rd place in this race as well to take 3rd overall in Pro Twins for the year.
Congratulations to Geoff and Rob for 1st and 2nd respectively – and only 3 points separating them both.
I unfortunately missed my opportunity at prize giving to say a few words –(Ken was a bit quick calling up Rob for 2nd place) so will thank the appropriate people here.
Huge thanks to the Vic Club and volunteers/marshals/helpers for putting on a great series. You can’t do much about the weather !!
Thanks to my sponsors below who have supported me not only financially but with encouragement and advice.
Special thanks to Sue Ure of MotoTT.
And last but certainly not least – my lovely wife Nikki and my family for coming along and supporting me when you could. And to all my mates who have encouraged me and/or helped in the garage with changing wheels etc.
If I can get this misfire sorted I’ll be at Wangas.
Feel free to give me any ideas about the misfire !!
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