Wednesday - i fly to Auckland from wellington, and almost miss my flight due to my luggage being overweight - i had 2 wheels, a pair of forks, brakes, yokes and clip ons for another project in my bag.. We pick up a burned honda trailbike during a 600mile round trip.
Thursday - the crank for our bike arrives in the mail, the engine is taken to the bike shop who assemble it, then take the engine to the engineering shop to have the barrell skimmed as the crank is a shorter stroke. we have a guess at an exhaust bend and so have a front pipe fabricated for the bike.
Friday - engine is back - time to go to work. so me and the old man try and get the engine in, apparently the same as what was last in the fram however 3 of 5 engine mounts line up, it'll have to do, so now to put the engine bolts in... the what? dad's forgotten to get them while picking up the engine, pipe etc...
Saturday - we spend 3 hours sorting both our bikes for practice and qualifying on the 400m kart track.. having missed all but the last session, we are automatically relegated to the back of the grid.. no matter i'm riding my dads "B Bike" and its pogo-ing like a mountain goat on crack - after two front end slides and adopting a slow is smooth, smooth is fast approach i settle into something resembling riding for 10 mins then the day is over.. right, back to the "A bike".. At present the bike has no tank, seat, pipe, engine bolts, or wiring loom... and we have 15 hours.
Saturday night - we fettle like mad, i make a wiring loom, dad sorts the engine mounts with a drill a crowbar and an angle grinder (it seems we've learned heaps from the "Fettle like a BSB team article in the mag") We slowly descend into talking like crazy japanese mechanics. It gets dark. we finally get some oil in the bike, and bump start it with the exhaust we got from the shop that doesn't fit. a blue-orange cone of flame from the pipe on the throttle, bike sounds good. We drill the sump plug for wiring, i refue to incase it gets holed. dad's mate puts a hole in it instead. we go watch valencia motogp 125's and moto2 then bed. its 0100 sunday.
Sunday morning - we awaek with a plan - rob the B Bike of all its worth. a trip to the shops gets us gasket goo, hose clips, zip ties and drill bits.. all we need... A friend brings us a new sump plug, pre-drilled and oil tight. We screw in the tacho cable and the front of the cases chips away, its been glued in before and now its fucked. Fuck. Sakes. The bikes are doing practice, preparing for superpole and the B graders 40 min enduro, meanwhile im lying in the gravel trying to remove engine cases from the second bike, while dad angle grinds away the front of the rear brake lever so we can get the shoe horned engine forward enoiugh to remove the holed cases. its 1200 and the race starts at 1400.. shit. the bike isn't even run in. its about 25 degrees C and no wind. I'm baking, then i skin my hand trying to remove a split pin. Blood, sweat and oil. Not just in the movies y'know.
Bikes almost sorted having robbed the case and exhaust from me dad's bike. I get my kit on and run the bike in in the 40min enduro. Barely. Its running well, but the wheel bearing is floating due to no spacers inside the sprocket carrier. we pack it wish washers and i'm back out for a shakedown. sorted...
2hour.
Le man start - we start way at the bike as we missed superpole. After ten or so laps i'm scraping my sliders, boot, pegs... Last turn a high-kerbed hairpin and im scraping my knee, peg, boot, Doohan style when the bike runs off the edge of the tyre, i hold it on my elbow for a microsecond then i'm off. Mint. Cluthc in, but too late, short push back to the pits, the bar protects have done their job and i'm back out with another push start. 25 mins later dad hold the "716" board out and we swap places, me watching nervously as he rides around. I'm doin 35's he's ten seconds slower but no big deal.
We swap again after 30 mins, splashing some fuel in top be sure. I recirculate and am run wide over some very bumpy parts of the track well offline. The front tucks. I run the bike the 100m back through the pits and i'm off again, two crashes in one race. now i'm down to consistent 32s laps. Its so hot, sweat filling my lid, tickling my nose as i breathe in. i wonder how they do it on full fat superbikes. I get waved in, dads turn again.
I see the faster teams swap dead on every half hour, so there's 30 mins left. The old man is concerned about the fuel state so pits with about 15 mins to spare. I'm rested and got some water in me so i jump on after a splash of gas for the bike. have a bit of a second wind and start passing bikes but its too little too late and finishing is the abjective anyway. i see the white flag so pop up the front wheel past our pits and off to the finish.
We finish fourth to last and with a big cheer and a clap from the rest of them for our efforts.
168 laps, 67km. the winners did 223 laps.
Can't wait until next year.
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