After a fantastic weekend at Ruapuna we were looking forward to more of the same at Hampton Downs, a new circuit to test the level of the IMD250 and also our student rider Marc-Antoine Jacquet. This round of AMCC racing would also double as Rd 1 of the Hyosung cup, so were were hoping that MA would go well in the cup.

After a very rainy day at Manfeild with VMCC Rd 5 coaching Amy, I headed off to chez Percival, out the back of Te Kauwhata, arriving in surprisingly good enough time to have a beer and a chat.

Sunday morning at HD dawned wet but not all that cold and the skies were looking promising. We set everything up, the two bikes and all and got the rain wheels on the bike. Well, that was a good omen as the meeting took a bit longer to get going that anticipated and during that time the skies cleared and the track dried, so off came the rain wheels and back on with the slicks.

QP went well enough, except for two issues. We deliberately started off with the settings from Ruapuna on the bike to see how sensitive it is to changes in circuit. Sure enough, MA found the bike a bit squirmy on the brakes and a bit wobbly round the fast corners at HD, so we changed out the fork springs and reset the rear pre-load which tidied up the bike and we could see it rail around the last turn and it was clearly railing into T1 as MA was consistently passing other riders through T1.

However, the bigger issue was the rear engine breather that I had fitted to the engine with the thought that it would assist with engine air breathing. Turns out that this was not such a brilliant idea and it simply became a route for the oil to end up in the catch bottle. Slightly more came out than the bottle could hold and it sprayed over the bike and was caught in the belly/oil catch pan.
So after we cleaned all that up and sealed up the breather we were ready for R1. MA had qualified near the rear of the 30-odd strong Superlite field, but following a great start was in the top 10! The better HP and drive of the 450's and 650's was enough to eventually let him slip down the field, but there was one other 125GP bike (Jimmy Jarman, ex-Moto Academy NZ student and NZ#4) against whom we paced ourselves. MA was about 2 sec per lap down pretty consistently, most of which we can count as rider time and time being held up by slower Superlite riders who would get in the way in the corners and blast off down the straights.

We made a gearing change for R2, going a bit taller (faster) but in hindsight I think that we might have been better off going a touch shorter (slower). That might have bought the revs a bit higher going up the hill and into T1. Next time maybe.
The rest of the day continued to be sunny and warm with a nice breeze. The breeze did claim our EZi-up (cheap knock off version), but that was about all.

MA went really well on the Hyosung but after 8 races and 2 QP's the day caught up with him and his last couple of races were a bit down on speed as he became more tired. But how else can you get so much track time for such a good price?
So, all in all another really successful test and race meeting for Marc-Antoine and the IMD250. It was great to have Martin Dunn and family and MA's family on board to see how well we are now going.

If the bike is going this well with the standard KTM 250SX-F in it, we can only imagine how well it will go with our Kelford tuned engine and even more with a new 2013/14 SXF engine.

Mods for the next event which will probably be VMCC Rd 6 at Taupo will include: Powder coated frame, repainted swingarm, Kelford tuned engine, 41.5mm taper bored FCR carb, new carb stack (maybe), new airbox and dyno tuning. Can't wait to see how much HP that engine makes!!!

Thanks again to all who have helped us get to this point so far.

We are in negotiations to run MA, the Hyosung and IMD250 for NZSBK, so fingers crossed that all comes together.

We would love to have a branding sponsor on-board, so if anyone is interested, or knows someone who might be able to help, please get in touch.

Cheers
Steve
Innovative Moto Developments.