Paeroa BotS Race report 19th Feburary 2006. F2 #91
on Saturday we had camped in the northern end of the pits with some sidecar guys, I have only been thru Paeroa a couple of times before. I had a couple laps walking around, then a couple of laps on my push bike. We exposed the bikes and bits for scretineering. We passed. I was pretty stressed about the whole thing to begin with, but I had spent too much of other peoples money to pull out now. I had talked to Shaun Harris about abit of coaching as I was starting from scratch, and he gave me a couple of laps in his van explaining how the track worked. It was pretty hard to imagine it as a race track when it was just a buzy little town! My pitcrew from D.A.F.T Contracting, Wellington, Brett and Leith had done everything for me so that I just had time to get my head around the track. Sunday was hot, very hot. I awoke to Queen being played on the speakers, choice, I was hot and sticky and happy to get up and peel the sleeping bag off me. We did stuff to get ready for the racing, riders breif came and went, 60 first timers were to line up for the first practice of the day. They sent us out in a couple of lots. After my first couple of laps, all I could think that was "shit it's gona be really fast" I was just still trying to get it into my head to get it tapped out going around the kink and we were called in. The first practice was going ok, I was following Mike Grayling around the track trying to get slightly consistant lines, on the hairpin I was going to make a pass on Mike, but he crashed right in front of me! I braked very hard, did a big stopie, just missied him and as I was in the middle of a turn, it just crashed to the ground on it side. I got away with a few grazes, Mike had to retire as his shoulder wasn't working so good. The next practice was abit better, as I didn't crash, but there was still a whole lot of stuff to take in. For the first race the start was good for me as the two bikes in front of me on the grid were missing (one being Mikes). I had a hell of a job finding the green flag, but spotted it just before go and had a realy good start. We were going into the first turn and I made the dumb mistake of using my usual breaking point and forgot that we were going in at about half speed, anyway, I was soon last as I came into the second corner. I put my head down and rode as smooth as I could, picking a few places as I gained speed. With a couple if guys DNF I got 13th and a lesson on how not to take the first corner. The second race saw a reshuffled grid and a better start than my first race, I managed to get in front of a couple of guys that I had been behind at the end of the first race, I got passed by a couple of guys that had to start at the back of the grid, they were very fast. That big hump in the backstraight had it's way with me a few times, on the third lap I screwed up the hairpin losing alot of time and two places as well. I slowly recoverd, and was on the tail of a bike when the white flag came out, I had to pass soon. On the 6th corner we had been warned of the surface lifting, as we peeled into that corner, the bike in front tucked in tight to the curb, missing the soft bit totaly, but also losing alot of speed. I took to the squishly tar very gently, it wasn't too bad, I got on the gas proper and the rear spun a little before getting traction as the surface improved. The front wheel poped up quick as you like, I sniked another gear and the front wheel came down so it could do abit of work again. The other bike was somewhere behind me, I took a peek after the hairpin, but he was in no position to pass me, So I just relaxed and enjoyed the ride to the chequered flag. 14th. What a great day, awesome. Thanks to all of the people that must have to work for along time to get it organised. Thanks to Shaun for the coaching. Thanks also to Motoracer for taking the time to do the pre race write up.
Other sponsors that have made it all possible are:
Foot Engineering Napier
D.A.F.T Contractors Wellington
Hewitts Motorcycles Dannevirke.
Thank You
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Originally Posted by Sparky Bills
cheers.
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