Vic club Rd 5 20/8/2005

[Bartman10]

Hi Folks

Free sausages and snitzel sammies tomorrow at Manfeild...

Come and have a chat to Fraggle, Velox and me! We'll be 'manning' the free BBQ courtesy of the Vic Club social committee.

See ya's there.

Bartman

[Racey Rider]

Wahoo!

I'm on my way!

Hope those sausages are hot by the time I get there!!

[GSVR]

Good on you guys twas a great day today.

[Riff Raff]

Good on you guys twas a great day today.

Is that all you can say? How great was it? Were the sausages and schnitzels particularly sizzly? Was the sauce piquant (sp)? Were there any sausage catastrophes?

[Coyote]

(Sigh) wish I could've gone

[GSVR]

Is that all you can say? How great was it? Were the sausages and schnitzels particularly sizzly? Was the sauce piquant (sp)? Were there any sausage catastrophes?

well all I could possibly add Is I got Flame grilled on the track 3 times. By the end of the day I was charcoaled. But I did manage to finish ahead of Mitch in all 3 races (she was driving the safety car)

Great day with no major incidents.

[Velox]

Is that all you can say? How great was it? Were the sausages and schnitzels particularly sizzly? Was the sauce piquant (sp)? Were there any sausage catastrophes?

No sausage catastrophes - a minor schnitzel one though. ......ahem.

But mmmmmmmmm - lightly cooked "steak" sammies with onion - mmmmm.

[gpercivl]

No Hair Racing Race Report

Vic Club #5

Still Lots To Learn!

It was an action packed 2 days for me as I flew back from Melbourne at midnight on Friday then jumped on the plane for Palmerston North at 7am on Saturday morning. Mark was at the airport to meet me and chauffered me to the track by 8:30am with plenty of time for sign on and rider's briefing.

The first thing for me to learn was not to leave the petrol tank key at home! Luckily there was enough in the tank for the qualifying session then afterwards I removed the tank, tipped it upside down and refuelled it around the fuel pump in the base of the tank.

Qualifying was a ripper!!! My previous best at Manfeild fell by almost 2 seconds and I qualified in 17th just a few tenths behind Deane Labrum & Derek Hill which really surprised me (and them).

Race 1 and a good start saw me placed in behind Deane after the first corner. The R6 had a bit more power and I managed to get past him on the back straight (I think). I then had Barry New & Derek in my sights. Down the front straight then into Coca-Cola (turn 1) and they were both in front so I opened the throttle as wide as I dared exiting and ran a bit too wide.

Lesson #2, when the rear tyre looks like it needs replacing and you have a new tyre sitting at home, maybe it's a good idea to fit it... 'cos the old one let loose at least 30 degrees then regripped and flicked back. I stayed on, but headed out into the grass to do a bit of motor cross.

Lesson #3, road tyres don't work as well as knobblies on the grass...I tried to turn gently back onto the track but I lost the front and did a 180 at reasonably low speed. I had hit the kill switch just before it fell over, so I quickly pulled my leg out from underneath, picked up the bike and it restarted right away. I did a 'U' turn onto the track, then took it quietly to rub any mud off the tyres then tried to catch up before the 6 laps were over.

Craig Sherrifs went past easily but I managed to hold Derek Mc Adam up in the hairpin for a second (sorry Derek) and passed one of the super motards before the chequered flag came out. So, last in the 600 class...not what I had hoped for, but I did drop another 0.3 seconds trying to catch up.

Race 2 wasn't as much fun as I let the closest bunch get away from me but I did manage to drop another 0.1 secs for my fastest time of the day at 1 min 18.077 secs finishing in 16th.

I had a quick chat to Dave Cole before race 3 as I was finding the rear of the bike was going up and down under power through the esses. He suggested I increase the compression damping which I did and this settled the bike a lot, and also helped exiting Coke and Higgins.

Race 3 and the track was cooling a little and I had another small slide exiting Higgins so I didn't try too hard after that, my best lap being a 1:19.069. Karel Pavich got past me on her TZ-250 doing 1:16's and I finished in 17th.

It's amazing how helpful the other competitors are in motorcycle racing, Sean Bishop, Gordon Pullen & Todd Sutherland all had good suggestions with regard to bike set up that I'll try next round (thanks guys).

Even though I had dropped the bike I felt that it was a very positive day and I'm sure I can get into the 1:16's and catch up to the next bunch of riders. The bike only suffered minor scuffing of the paint work, so once I had picked & washed out all the mud and grass it looked almost new again.

Lots of thank you's are in order: Nevina Knight for giving me a bed and a ride to the airport on Saturday morning, Bob Knight for bringing the bikes down from Auckland, Dave, Sean, Gordon & Todd for words of advice. Also thanks to Uncle Fred for accomodation in Feilding & Mark for airport pickup & pit support.

And thanks to our sponsors, Henderson Motorcycles...that R6 with Arrow exhaust is very strong compared to the competition!!

Thanks too Pirelli Tyres... apologies for trying to run another meeting on an old tyre, but at least I know what to look for now.

See you all at Round 6 next month. It will be on the long track so I'll have to wait until the National's to see if I can get into the 1:16's.

Bye for now,

Greg

No Hair Racing
http://www.nohair.co.nz

[White trash]

It's amazing how helpful the other competitors are in motorcycle racing, Sean Bishop, Gordon Pullen & Todd Sutherland all had good suggestions with regard to bike set up that I'll try next round (thanks guys).

Good write up Greg and I'm pleased it's getting better for you.

This statement above really reminds me of what a generally good bunch of folks there are racing.

At a track day, I speant the morning hounding Glen Williams on his ZX10. I had the measure of him everywhere except hard braking. After three sessions of almost but not quite passing him, I summon up the courage to ask his expert advice. Couple of adjustments which he sugested and Voila! A transformed Gixxer 1K capable of outbraking a race preped ZX10.

The selfless attitude of the majority of NZ bike racers can only help bring more racers to the fold.

[Bartman10]

For all you folks who enjoyed a sausage and a snitzel sammie, how about some rep points for Fraggle, Velox and myself? C'mon!

[gpercivl]

Good write up Greg and I'm pleased it's getting better for you.

This statement above really reminds me of what a generally good bunch of folks there are racing.

At a track day, I speant the morning hounding Glen Williams on his ZX10. I had the measure of him everywhere except hard braking. After three sessions of almost but not quite passing him, I summon up the courage to ask his expert advice. Couple of adjustments which he sugested and Voila! A transformed Gixxer 1K capable of outbraking a race preped ZX10.

The selfless attitude of the majority of NZ bike racers can only help bring more racers to the fold.

Thanks WT, are you out their racing too? You should be 'cos Glenn's no slouch!

[gpercivl]

For all you folks who enjoyed a sausage and a snitzel sammie, how about some rep points for Fraggle, Velox and myself? C'mon!

Yep, I grabbed a staek sandwich plus onions...very yummy...mucho gracias!

[James Deuce]

Good write up gpercivl. I did a track school with Tony McMurdo (Multiple F3 champ) many years ago and went from doing 1:23s to 1:16s at Manfield in the space of a weekend. It's one of those entrenched traditions of NZ motorsport that racers help out anyone who asks, and when they start offering their services people should jump at it.

What astounds me though, is that an '05 R6 is as quick as my RC30 was. Probably the rider though Technology has come a long way, and we take road bike performance a bit for granted these days. Any of the modern 600s would make an early '90s Superbike look a bit sad I reckon.

I'll have to come and watch some Vic club rounds, now that I know there's an '05 R6 out there.

[gpercivl]

Good write up gpercivl. I did a track school with Tony McMurdo (Multiple F3 champ) many years ago and went from doing 1:23s to 1:16s at Manfield in the space of a weekend. It's one of those entrenched traditions of NZ motorsport that racers help out anyone who asks, and when they start offering their services people should jump at it.

What astounds me though, is that an '05 R6 is as quick as my RC30 was. Probably the rider though Technology has come a long way, and we take road bike performance a bit for granted these days. Any of the modern 600s would make an early '90s Superbike look a bit sad I reckon.

I'll have to come and watch some Vic club rounds, now that I know there's an '05 R6 out there.

Don't go by my times, I'm a 600 proddie slug...Derek Hill is out there on an '05 R6 too and he's raced it twice and is already in the 1:14's. Shirriffs & McAdam both got into the high 1:10's on Saturday. By all means come up and watch there's some really close hard racing going on in a lot of classes. Next one is Sept 24th.

Just as an added note, back in the old Formula 2 days, Dave Cole did 3 laps in the 1:09's on the Moller's prepped '97 Thundercat YZF600, I haven't seen anyone do better than that yet

[James Deuce]

Don't go by my times, I'm a 600 proddie slug...Derek Hill is out there on an '05 R6 too and he's raced it twice and is already in the 1:14's. Shirriffs & McAdam both got into the high 1:10's on Saturday. By all means come up and watch there's some really close hard racing going on in a lot of classes. Next one is Sept 24th.

Just as an added note, back in the old Formula 2 days, Dave Cole did 3 laps in the 1:09's on the Moller's prepped '97 Thundercat YZF600, I haven't seen anyone do better than that yet

Aaron Slight was doing 1:07's in '92 on a Kawasaki ZXR750RR. MId-teens is all I've got to go on (being old and slow now) so I'm happy to go by your times. It's an ego thing.