Thought I better do one of these myself..
The journey started back in August when happily killing time on the internet, Chris Lawrance sows the seed by mentioning the Barry Sheene Trans Tasman Challenge (First I had heard of it) and then promptly asking me if I wanted to come up for it?
At first I was like, nice thought but I've got barely enough money to put fuel in the bike and get it to our little club meetings let along get it all the way north and fund a big race meet like that miles from home and anyone I know..
And then the rest of yas came to the party and started to make it happen, Chris tempted us with free entry to the event and Sidecar Bob chimed in quickly with ideas on cheap interisland transport solutions for the bike, offering up his van to sleep in and offering coverage of entry fees and race gas! Shit.. it was all starting to happen and more and more offers popped up by private message or on the sidecar thread of free accomodation and financial support from Wildman, Scrivy, other people offering Gordys van to sleep in haha. It was brilliant and I was getting way too excited for a 25 year old man, with all the offers and help we had everything covered so all of a sudden Fast Eddie was going to go race on the North Island with a full field of bikes and even some aussies! EPIC!!!
After convincing the swinger to come along I grabbed a couple of cheap flights for us and we set about making sure the bike would start and run for the weekend, After all we had only just bought the bike and it was still brand new to us and in need of a lot of work! We did our best between work and uni to commute up to ChCh where the bike is stored from Dunedin where I live and work on the bike every weekend - at the end of the day we spent more time driving between Dunners and ChCh than actually working on the bike.
We managed to repair the fibreglass fairing and do some aluminium welding to fix some splits and cracks, welded up the broken exhaust headers and muffler etc, welded up new exhaust hanger, made a new gear shifter set up and ironed out the bugs so it worked how I wanted. Set the brake pedal up for my longer legs and put new fluids through the brakes and clutch, some new motor oil (Agip all round) some new coolant in it and Kickaha even gave us his new rear tyre from his bike since ours was shagged.
Got some yellow color on it and put the old Agip Stickers back on.. Looked better than before at least and ran well.
Took it out for a last shake down at Ruapuna and we were ready, We packed the bike up ready for BikeTranz to pick up and take it North to Hampton Downs! woo hoo!
Bike was picked up by BikeTranz and then the wait began, no more bike to play with and an awesome weekend to look forward to..
Labour weekend finally arrived after some sleepless nights on the lead up to it! I was more excited than a wee kid at Christmas to be on a start line with more sidecars than I had ever seen in real life..
We had driven up from Dunedin to Chch on the Friday night, got in and crashed at about midnight at the swingers house and was up at 5.30am to get up and head to airport for 6.45ish flight to Auckland. No delays ChCh to AKL and we linked up with Kickaha when we landed, Spyda tried his luck at hitching with us after snagging a standby flight from welly in the early AM - he was outta luck though, after seeing our luggage and crew he just said "see ya"
Quick drive from Auckland with Kick in his rental from airport to Hampton Downs via pukekohe for a quick look at that track, first time we'd seen the track - looks pretty cool, would like to race there some day.
In a flash we were at Hampers (and late) and had to quickly get our shit together, sign in and fill out a little paperwork and get a late briefing.
Massive thanks to all of you for getting the bike ready for me - the Agip bike had already been unloaded, stripped, taken through tech inspection/scrutineering and cleared ready to race - Big thanks for that aye, we arrived and were ready to go..
Brief introductions around the pit garage and sorta put some faces to names from KB, everything was hectic and everyone was getting their bikes ready and shit but I was happy as to be there and be part of it - Exciting as hell, Thanks to Kickaha for scoring me the pit garage space too. We were in a good spot and part of the group, was awesome. Best race meeting I'd ever been to and I hadn't even gone out on the track yet!
Thanks to Wildman who had got me 60 litres of fuel and Henk for having it ready and waiting for me at the track, brilliant! We filled up the bike and fired it up, borrowed tools and guages to check the bike over and put loctite on shit and we were good to go.
First practice session was awesome, we set a fastest lap of 1:28.45 and had a blast learning the track. First time we had seen it and first time on a track with some elevation and shit - was such a blast! Swinger said he had no problems (only 2 lefts to change over for) and we had a blast first time out with no fatigue. We kept going round and round until the flag came out and we had to pit in.
We had nothing to do on the bike, apart from think about an understeer issue I always have, we checked tyre pressures, lowered the front a little and pumped up the side a little and filled up fuel, checked fluids and we waited for our next outing. Sadly Gordy and Kick were a bit rough on gear and blew the classic beemer up before they even made it out of pit lane so we could at least kill time and watch them pull the old bmw apart..
Second Session was mint, we circulated around and set a fastest lap of 1:23.6 as we managed to tag onto the back of Tracey on pinky. Agip bike was running best yet, Phil had started moving further forward with his weight which really helped cure some understeer (not all of it) the new rear that kickaha gave us was scrubbed in and we got meaan drive out of the corners and heaps of grip - bike was running at its best, best outing of the weekend in the end. We were having so much fun we even left the track twice on the right-left S bend (on the right hander) but its a good corner to come off on as you just go through some sand and back onto the track.
Qualifying was cool, again we had nothing to do on the bike (everyone else seemed to be fettling away so I offered my help but no one wanted it haha) and just waited our turn, when we went out the bike felt a little bit funny, the front was really strange and sloppy - We circulated around and felt like we picked up some better braking points and were braking quite late into turn one and 2 and into the hairpin.. the braking into there is fun as you come over the crest the back unloads and bike gets all out of shape but in a good way (I think henk and that bike got a bit sideways there, but they managed not to flip it during a spin and think henk stayed on eh?) We qualified with a 1:25.5 - So was disappointed at being a bit slower than our 2nd prac session but when checking over the bike the mount/plate that holds the handlebar/steering setup together had come loose and was making it feel a bit weird. Tightened them back up but its a crap design lol - needs a rethink.
Had the welcome feed and some brews in their function room thing at HD and then back to the pit garage for some more beers and scrivy buying me a shower, ensuring I was clean for him later..
A good wind down from the first day anyway, nothing crazy. Steve n Tracey gave us the caravan and transit for the Agip bike crew to sleep in and there was plenty of bedding around thanks to Tracey, Steve, Scrivy and think Tina gave us some towels too. Chur!!
First race day and we wake up in the cosy caravan... shit - We get less rain than this in the South! but never mind, it was still warm temp wise and I don't mind getting wet, off with the slicks and on with the wets - fairly easy job and we are getting good at it now, front ends a bit funny but we got it sussed. rear and side are piece of piss.
We got 2 practice laps in, bike felt sweet.. we like the wet and the bike goes alright in the wet, you can hang it fairly sideways and you can brake pretty late and its forgiving as when it slides around.. But the engine and electrics didn't like the torrential rain and monsoon amount of water flying everywhere. As we lined up to the start line I could tell the engine was sad, as I pulled the clutch in to coast up to my grid position, the engine would try and stall.
I kept the rpms up with the throttle and hoped we would get underway and keep the engine up in higher rpm where it seems to be able to run when wet. Sadly when the grid marshalls wanted us to move from our correct 12th position up to 10th for whatever reason, I fuckn stalled the bike and it would not restart. Fustrated we were pushed to the side of the track and I watched the rest of you guys go out and play - fuck it.. my first DNS.. stupid rain
Rest of that day was canned, Thanks again to Kick for the pit garage space cause it was wet as fuuuck there and we really appreciated being in the garage (even if it was a bit wet in there too) we pushed bike back to pit, put battery on charge and fired it back up - seemed to run sweet as. Shut it off and left batt on charge.
Since we had nothing to do for the rest of the day, Spongebob leant us his BMW (good man!) and we took off to Auckland to visit the big smoke.. Was a bit further than we thought but good time killer anyway, bought some beer n shit and headed back to the track and got on the piss with Ash and Chris and Richie while he was awake, there were a few others around, people came and went, chatted about sidecar racing, some of the old bikes built here, old mo bikes.. good yarns and I loved listening to whatever came up, some good stories of Ash n Chris's trip round Europe back in the day too haha, more racing tales and sinking the brews - Think I hit the bed at about 2am.. up at 6.30am next day..
Third day, back to dry (dryish) we took the wets off and put the slicks back on, They just kicked off the race day where they had to finish yesterday so classics were up pretty early, we watched Kick n Gordy race round they looked good and then not long after it was our go.
First race warm up lap wasn't good, after leaving pit lane and first couple of corners the engine dropped a cylinder and ran on 3 until we got to the start line.. As we launched off it bogged right down and everyone passed me as we limped off the line running on 3.. over the race we managed to get back up to 12th our starting position and held that or the rest of the race to finish 12 running on 3.. not bad - we set a fastest lap of 1:25.6 running on 3! hehe Bike was going sweet as far as braking late goes and keeping up some corner speed.
Second race of the day we were amped, gave it a bit more air in the sidechair wheel cause I found it understeering a lot on the last corner before the straight, kept telling phil to move further forward as well because that seemed to help when he managed to do it.
Start of this race was good, engine was running OK, we launched off the line in 12th and picked up a couple places into 8th I think, just braking late into the first corner, think we tucked in behind Pete the pirate, first few corners were a blast, the lawrances skimmed by on the right before the hairpin and we tagged onto the back of them (for a few seconds), had a ball for the first lap and a bit as we sat in 9th I think and could see the lead pack not THAAT far away.
On the second lap I think, Patι spun it right infront of Pinky. With me following pinky, we both snuck through and gained another place! having a ball now (and not realising it had started to rain) we circulated another lap or so, I was starting to get electric shocks from one of the ignition leads that was close to my arm and the bike was cutting in and out from 4 to 3 cylinder - Darren recovered from his spin and got us back after a lap or so and we tagged onto the back of him, lasted about half a lap before the right then left s bend got me, I entered the right hander good and had the line I wanted, cut in close on the left and the bike was doing what I wanted, we got through the best bit of the corner and I started winding on the throttle, for some reason then the chair lifted up suddenly (even though I was easing out of the turn and straightening it up) then the back slid a little and then next thing I was out of track and on the grass.. shame.. into the wall and tipped over.
Fuck it, that was the end of our meeting - But we managed a best lap in that race of 1:24.7 and the bike was still cutting down to 3 cylinders on and off.. found out later the HT leads were fucked and one was really rooted (the one that was arcing out to me and anything around it.
Third race we watched from the sideline, bit bummed but oh well - it was a good race to watch, with another short bike trying our trick and slamming into the wall at the hairpin, the rider was tossed out and the passenger continued with the bike before bailing as well..
Lawrances gave Scrivy the biff and tried to break his ankle, losing their sidepod at the same time, was funny watching Richie trying to kick it off down the straight after the hairpin.
Bloody good racing and weekend all around though - I had a blast and can't really thank you all enough for everything, paying our way up there, organizing the transport, the entry, the bike scrutineering/log book, feeding us, accomodation, sleeping gear, the fuel, the beers, food etc etc, everything aye. Tools, help/advice. Was brilliant and what makes sidecar racing so freeking awesome for me. The people that ya race with!
Thanks Steve, Tracey, Scrivy, Warren (wildman) Chris L and Kick for the bulk ingredients to a fantastic weekend and the rest of ya for the seasoning. I had a blast, so a big thanks for that aye - much appreciated.
I really hope I haven't forgotten to mention anyone, thanks to spongebob for the loan of his car on the rained out day, thanks to all the interest in the agip bike, got a few connections and a few new bits of knowledge about it and its setup.. Thanks to everyone there aye!
All the organizing and time that went into the meeting too, well worth it I think, much appreciated all the work put into the weekend it was a great meeting and I really hope it will be held again next year - I'll be there!
Thanks Biketranz for the deals on transporting the sidecar
Can't wait for the next meeting, Thanks to Neville Mickleson who towed my wreck from the track back to his and has taken on the task of fixing the bike and preparing it for Wanganui for me - Legend!!
Thanks to colour connection, Dunedin for the paints and Custom Signs for the signwriting, It looks like I'll be back to get another of everything for a repaint haha!
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Originally Posted by Fast Eddie
yea bro was awesome aye! and def hats off to all involved. A lot of people put in a lot of work so we racers could all go out and have heaps of fun hehe. Was mint having the aussies there too, heaaps of bikes and people around it was really cool aye
That was true too.......
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