Paeroa Street Race Report 19 Feb 2012
Sam Croft
Road Racing Experience:
I had never seen the track before so wasn’t quite sure how to approach it. The only street racing experience I have had was (Andy and I) on our 250 Ninjas racing in formula 3 at Wanganui. We both qualified within the time scales from the front runners, but we knew we would be at the back of the field as the little Ninjas could not compete with the more powerful machines. That was great and it seemed really fast so I was expecting it to be pretty scary on the SV 650 at Paeroa. This course looked bumpy and not very wide, so I felt at a disadvantage there being only a few places to get past safely not knowing the track. I hoped I wouldn’t get caught up in the mid field traffic, still I’m a fast learner and I expected to do well enough rather than focus on the negative staff.
The Bike:
Peter Harkess from D H Racing and Motto TT fame kindly enough to offer me a ride on their 02 Suzuki SV 650 in the recent Tri- series but that was not to be as the machine developed mechanical problems which took time to fix. Before Paeroa I had ridden the SV650 twice at the Taupo track. I got two seconds overall in formula 3 on those occasions and was getting used to the bike. It’s pretty fast and handles well whilst not being too bulky so it’s a good fit for the Paeroa track.
Free practice:
This challenging track was tricky to learn. On the second lap I came in too fast to the kink in the back straight and ran it too wide on the exit taking out the 50m braking marker before the hairpin. Ouch! My foot hurt with that, but luckily I didn’t crash and managed to avoid the hairpin hay bales ..Just. Confidence now dented I kept going to post a time of 54 seconds which placed me 13th on the grid. Gutted, but I knew I could do better.
Qualifying:
After my previous hairpin incident I decided to concentrate on being smooth and keep out of trouble. I qualified 5th out of 22 with a time of 51.9 seconds and thought that was OK, being my first time at the track riding an older generation machine (albeit well sorted one).
Race 1:
I had a terrible start and I ended up 7th or 8th into the first corner. I managed to come back to 5th only to run wide at the end of the start finish straight putting me back in 6th. I ended up being right behind 5th place until the very end only 0.008 seconds at the finish line. I got 6th with a time of 50.8.
Race 2:
This time I had a better start at 6th into the first corner. I managed to make the pass on the hill around the outside and I kept in 5th for the rest of the race. Those in front of me were much more experienced racers with faster machines who knew the track well. My focus was to keep the bike upright and have fun. 5th place wasn’t bad for my first attempt and on a 10 year old bike. Special thanks to Peter and Paul from DH racing for their support and the use of their machine.
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