TS Race Report Wanganui B.O.T.S. '05

[Two Smoker]

Hey everyone,

With the help of KK taking my bike down (huge thanks mate) Chloe, Milky and I made it down to Wanganui (We travelled on bikes). Leaving Auckland at 4pm we arrived at Hooks' place by 11:30pm (Big thanks for putting us up mate )

It was an Early start to Boxing Day. We were up early at 4am to ride accross to Wanganui for the morning scrutineering and sign in. Once that was all done it was time for my 4 sighting laps (ive never done Wanganui before) I got out there and had to scrub in my tyres at the same time as my sighting laps. What an awesome circuit!!! The funny thing is i didnt even notice the railway lines until the 3rd lap!!! It had bumps everywhere and a nasty rise in the braking area for turn one... I was keen to get out there and go hard.

Qualifying: We were given two sessions to do qualifying but each session was only three laps long. I managed to get out early in the second session to put in a semi decent lap and that resulted in my placing of 7th on the grid with a time of 56.764 in a sea of motards. I was stoked with this, being my first time there, and knew i could get more out of me and the bike, so was keen as to get out there in the race.

Race one: Revving the motor on the start line, the flag dropped and it seemed like 50 million motards went past me. Turn 1 was absolute chaos, but with late braking and a bit of pushing and shoving i settled into 7th place. Then on lap 2 i braked too late into turn one, resulting in the back wheel coming up and another motard got past me. It took me the next 3 laps to finally get past him and I was finally back in 7th place. I crossed the finish line in 7th place and was absolutely stoked!!! My new best time was a 55.954.

Race 2: I got a shocking start and got pushed out by motards in turn two, I was sitting in about 10th place when the race was red flagged due to a motard crashing on turn one. We sat on the run off area before our race was lined up again on the grid (glad to see the motard rider was ok)... I was on the start grid waiting for the flag to be waved, then two of the front row guys shot of the start before the flag was waved. I thought "Ah ok, false start" so i dropped my revs to wait for the start... BUT NOOOOO!!!! They waved the flag anyway... My revs were at about 4000rpm, and my start was a joke. I dropped back to about 17th and with alot of going around the outside of people and late braking i pushed upto 13th. I was in a big dice with Mark Wiggley and a guy on a KTM motard. I would get Wiggley under brakes and try get the martard on the inside, but the motard would cut me off everytime and because of the slower corner speed result in me having to brake in mid corner... This happened every lap for the rest of the race. I was really disappointed in myself for letting my revs drop, but also in the event organisers for not calling it a false start. Ah well thats racing, and there is always next time. My best lap time in that race was a 56.579 which should have seen me in at least 7th place.

Due to my time i had put down in race one, i had qualified for the fastest 40 non-qualifyers of the Robert Holden Memorial Race. This put me 3rd on the grid. Being on the front row, i got a great start and quickly settled into 4th place behind a ZX-6R. I was chasing him down hard, then made a braking error into turn one resulting in a motard getting past me. After another 2 laps i got past that motard putting me in 4th place again, hot on the heels of the ZX-6R. Then on the final lap I went up the inside of the ZX-6R on Robert Holden Corner, and made it stick in turn 8. I pushed hard towards the finish and just made it in 3rd place overall!!! With a new personal best of 55.946 and winning the F3 class.

Huge thanks to my girlfriend Chloe for the support, Milky for being my mechanic, KK and Nod for taking my bike down, Shaun Harris, Hooks, and all the KB'ers that came and watched, or said gidday.

Only one issue with the day, and that was the motards. Awesome bikes, and wicked to watch them racing. But i dont believe they belong in F3, it is a completely different style of riding and results in confrontations (would you mix V8 supercars with drift cars?). They have their own class, and most of them are eligible for Bears aswell. The Supermotard class also got 3 races while everyone else got two. This results in a shitload of racing for them and putting alot of the F3 racers off.

But anyway, Cheers everyone

[froggyfrenchman]

good onya, have to agree with ya bout the motards, but what can you do...

[wari]

I Was wat-ching out furr ya ... butt ..

SOme-how I Missed ..

[Jantar]

Great write up TS, and sounds like good racing too. I would disagree with your comments on the Motards though, street racing is one thing they do well and the results show that in these circumstances they certainly can foot it with the fast guys. On the track it would be a different story.

Keep it up. I hope to watch you race down here one day.

[mv.senna]

good on ya TS. thanks for posting the report for those of us that couldn't make it down there. nice to know how you're going!

was KK racing?

cheers,
jo

[enigma51]

With you on the motards they have different riding styles which makes it diffucult to pass them (Says one that have never raced against a motard but looks like that from the side line)

Good work TS !!!!!!

[emaN]

dude...watched you in that last race just back from the 1st corner, waving you on an' all!
great ride that was,got a pic of you on the brakes, back wheel an inch or two off the road...i'll send it to ya when i get home, along with some others,(assuming you want 'em).
good to meet you and alex on the day!
am in the very early phases of talking myself into "having a go"....who knows?
well done anyway!

[loosebruce]

Mint one chris, were you on ya 400cc or did you end up on the 650cc??

Will catch up with you soon mate, if i dont see ya beofre the new year thingee whatever the hell that is have a good un, and ya knows if ya hungry where to go.

Later mate.

[sAsLEX]

Great write up TS, and sounds like good racing too. I would disagree with your comments on the Motards though, street racing is one thing they do well and the results show that in these circumstances they certainly can foot it with the fast guys. On the track it would be a different story.

Keep it up. I hope to watch you race down here one day.

true but as TS said they had there own class! Of which they had three races versus the F3's 2, obviously cause its good for the spectators seeing Briggs backing it in from a couple hundred metres back from the corner.

I dont see why they are in pretty much all the classes though, they were in bears f3 f2 and their own class, sure they are cool to watch but what next, motards in with the sidecars?

[Joni]

You did real well Chris, Congrats!

[k14]

Great write up TS, and sounds like good racing too. I would disagree with your comments on the Motards though, street racing is one thing they do well and the results show that in these circumstances they certainly can foot it with the fast guys. On the track it would be a different story.

Yeah, as much as everyone else will hate me for this, i agree with you. They are allowed to enter F3 and so whats the problem, doesn't faze me. It just teaches better racing and passing techniques. I was held up by them on a few occasions but didn't really have a problem with it. My 2c anyway

[Milky]

was KK racing?

cheers,
jo

KK was, albeit on his less than standard 400 which limits his achievements...

Mint one chris, were you on ya 400cc or did you end up on the 650cc??

TS was riding the mighty 400 - Guy Martin from the UK rode the SV among other bikes over the weekend

[Two Smoker]

Cheers for the comments guys Any photos would be awesome Eman

Re the motards, Im usually sweet as with the motards being in the F3 class. Due to the fact that it makes it more interesting and me a better rider. For instance they have better brakes, and have so much torque that punches them out of a corner, where i can still be late on the brakes and hold a higher corner speed.

But the main problem is the fact that they were in SO many classes. Most of the motard guys got at least 8 races in the day.... Where I only got in 3...

[k14]

But the main problem is the fact that they were in SO many classes. Most of the motard guys got at least 8 races in the day.... Where I only got in 3...

Yeah thats true, only having 3 races was a bit of a bummer, seeing as they only last 6 mins max. Maybe they should limit everyone to only being able to enter in 2 classes, or something like that. Pretty sure it does cost extra to enter in multiple classes though. Could have bought the bucket and entered it in post classics lol.

[erik]

Neat report.