Hi Guys,
Talk about a mission just to get everything ready in time! As we can't cross enter the same bike in F2 & F1 I decided to race my road bike (K3 GSXR thou) so had a fair bit of work to do in the couple of weeks leading up to the race. Thanks to Mike Smith I was sorted with a set of race fairings and thanks to Dan & the team at Colemans for the last minute bits & pieces.
Qualifying went well on the 600 with me in 8th on the 2nd row, the 1000 was a pig at the start of the day and I qualified in 13th. The 600 races were good fun, I diced with Hayden Fitzgerald and a couple of the Aussie boys for most of the races, I nearly got David Johnson over the hill in the last lap but missed out by .1 second to finish 9th. A better start saw me 7th in the 2nd F2 race to finish the day 7th overall in F2.
This was my first ever race meeting on a thousand but I was pretty surprised how well I got on with the bike once I got the handling sorted, the bike is great fun to spin out of the corners & wheelstand down the straights, turned out to be quite an eventful day on it...my times were better on the 1000 than the 600 so I decided to race the 1000 in the Robert Holden races too. First F1 race I had improved the handling with a few tweaks but I was getting some wicked chatter going into the corners under brakes, turns out I was using all my rear shock had to offer and looks like I need a heavier spring (improvement for Paeroa I'm hoping). First F1 race I got an ok start and soon got my way up to 10th place where I stayed for the race, I caught up to Lance Lowe but couldn't get past and again finished up .1 secs behind.
1st Robert Holden Heat & I managed to beat Lance this time, little did I know but due to the bike chattering so much under brakes my fairing mounts broke & the fairings were dragging on the ground round the corners, luckily it was only 2 laps to go & I managed to finish the race.
2nd F1 race & I got an awesome start, was holding 6th then Lance Lowe crashed on the hill & the race got red flagged. Restart and I got shoved around in turn one, got to turn two & got shoved again and getting on the gas ran wide into the haybales, a bale grabbed my ankle rolled it back & in the process broke off my footpeg & bent my rearset! Luckily managed to stay on & I only realised the footpeg was gone when I tried to get going again, I could still change gears so I just rested my foot on the rearset & finished the race, managed to regain a few places and finished 10th again.
2nd Robert Holden heat was a good race and diced with Hayden & David Johnson, had held them off till the last lap when David put a pretty impressive late braking move under me into turn one which let Hayden through as well & I had to settle to finish behind them.
So in all 7th in F2, 10th in F1 and about 10th overall for the Robert Holden. Real happy with my first go on the thousand and am looking forward to giving it a good nudge at Paeroa, thanks to all the KBers who stopped by & said gday.
Thanks to Colemans Suzuki, Metzeler Tyres, FFM Helmets, Neo Gloves, SBS Pads, DID chains, Ross King Painters, Wairau Paint Centre, Fredco Motors, Mike Smith
Cheers,
Nicko
p.s. gotta give big ups to the new FFM helmet, see the photo & check it out at your nearest bike shop, it's way better than the old one's - light as, bugger all wind noise & looks pretty cool too!
p.p.s Photos from Terry Stevenson attached (please don't use without permission - I gotta pay him for them yet!)
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SENSEI PERFORMANCE TUNING 
Originally Posted by Drew
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