Lead Up.
After only getting 1.5 sessions at the last practice day at Manfield due to clutch slip, I knew I had a bit of work to do to get it race ready.
I finally got time to get into it at 11:30 pm Thursday. I worked through the night re-building the clutch, I re-jetted/cleaned the carbs for the colder weather as I'd last set them up for a balmy 27 deg day at puke. I also grooved up a slick as a intermediate front. Took me all bloody night to get that lot done, so I did not bother going to sleep. I waved the kids off to school only an hour after finished the bike!
I did some work on my business and then took the 9 for a test ride about mid day on my, er private track hehehe
Holy cow! The jetting changes had given me heaps more power in the midrange and was pulling my arms out their sockets in the top end. I now feel my old clutch had been slipping since Richard put the big bore kit in!
The 750 was at Hewitts bike shop having the valves shimmed, the shims had only just arrived Friday morning! I also by chance found why it was not revving over 8k, the ignition speed restricter by-pass wire was damaged! So got that sorted just as the bike shop closed, whew, thanks guys!
I gave the bikes a quick wash before getting ready to load them into the van, I started the 750 and it cut out with a weird electrical fault, uh oh, after a few helpful phone calls to Richard in Australia I FINALLY got the electrics back on line, but now it would not run for a minute before blubbering to a stop. By this time it was 2am and I was stuffed, so I loaded it in the van along with the 9 and everything else and hit the hay at 3am. The alarm went off at 5am groan, only 2 hours sleep total since Wednesday morning, not good!
RACE DAY
As I was getting some gas for the 750 (ever the optimist) in Fielding, it started to hail big time, uh oh!
I never got the to race the 750. I was gutted.
POST CLASSIC
I manged to trace the fault to the fuel pump, but could not get it sorted.
A big thanks to Bert for helping me try to fix it.
As a result of not being able to race it, I've dropped from 1st to 5th in that championship. I was gutted as the bike had been well and truly worked over since round one with a fresh shock, ride height adjusted, new air filter and jetting, 7 tight valves adjusted and a new EBC racing clutch installed, it should have been set to WIN! Boo Bloody Hoo Bye Championship lead
SUPERBIKE
I got set up in the pits and as there was a fair amount of blue sky showing, I decided I'd try intermediates in the supersport practice that the Superbikes are allowed in, bad move, the frount seemed OK, but out back there was more spin than a parlimentry pres secretarys convention!
I dived back into the pits and threw some BRAND NEW wets I'd got cheap off Tony Rees. Now this was a special occasion for me as these were the first new set of tyres I'd put on in the last 3 years! I also fitted a breath guard onto my helmet for the 1st time to give that a go. It was so freaking cold everyones breath was hurring in the pits!
Straight away the wets felt better and I tried to pick up the pace a little. I had a huge near high side coming out of the hairpin. In the 4 years I've been racing the 9 I've only crashed it once, and it was one year back, nearly to the day in the same crappy conditions on the same corner, a near carbon copy! Only this time I was lucky and came back down onto the bike, sort off!
It also turns out the breath guard was a breath "retainer" and my helmet fogged real bad, there were a few corners there where I literally could not see at all. I ripped that sucker off the moment I'd got back in the pits! I'd also tried a rain suit and nearly fell off the side of the bike as it was really slippery, so I decided I'd ditch those for the race even if it was raining. I'd qualified 13th out of 28 qualifiers. That meant a 4th row start
RACE 1 - I got a OK start and just took it easy for a few laps, I started to explore the limits of the tyres and had found them by about lap 5. I was sliding into some corners like Higgens quite often and was spinning it out of quite a few too. My new found midrange was now my enemy and it was ridiculously easy to spin up the back wheel at anything over a fraction of throttle exiting the turns! I really notice the extra weight of my bike over the other new lighter bikes as the old girl really pushes them at the apex of each turn, so my mid corner speed really suffers as a result.
I started to catch a few riders and passed them, I took me a lot of laps to get passed Derek Hill, he was much faster through the middle of the corners and I was having to make up time down the straights and under brakes into Coke, Higgens and the sweeper. I finally got passed him but I could hear him buzzing me through the infield and hairpin!
As mentioned I was sliding into and out of a lot of corners so could not push harder, but alas on lap 14 I could hear the race leaders coming to lap meI moved over to let them through and was well impressed with their pace!!! Un-fortunately my sleep deprived brain did not register I'd also let Derek back past me and given him a near 300 meter lead heading into the last lap before I realized!!!
I tried but could not pull back the gap to make a pass, so I finished the race in 6th place out of 22 starters. 4 people crashed out making for an attrition rate of around 20%!
RACE 2 - Only 17 riders frounted for race 2 which may give you an idea of how bad the conditions were.
I got another OK start and had lonely kind of race just holding 6th again. I was riding just the same, sliding into a few corners and spinning the rear out of a lot of them. On the last lap I was coming down the back straight admiring the sun (mmmmm warmth!!!) streaming through the thunder clouds and some cheeky sod on a GSXR1000 caught me nappingand passed me going into the sweeper. Still smarting from my race 1 last lap snafu, I was not going to be having any more of that
, so exiting the sweeper I stepped out the rear end and held it there, thus tightening up my line getting under him, I just kept the throttle pinned and won the drag strip to the finish line, YAY! As with a few riders I dice with, on the slow down lap they point at my bike and ask "What the hell is that thing?" I can only assume they do not visit the museum often
When I got back into the pits, I went to check the rear tyre temperature and straight away I noticed I'd managed to wear out a whole set of tread blocks on the right hand side tyre from all the spinning. So good bye one brand new tyre in only 22 laps!
I've now dropped from 1st position to 3rd position in the Superbike class. I knew I was going to be up against it in the wet against the modern bikes, so I'm quite pleased with limiting the points damage to the degree I have. I'm happy enough with my riding, I'd kept it on it's and my limit the whole day and stayed upright
I do not enjoy racing in these conditions, though I do get a measure of satisfaction from being crazy enough to do so!
For sure the most pleasure I got from the day was putting on a dry pair of socks after each race!!!
But please Santa, please pretty please, bring a fine day to the next round!
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Good on ya
Originally Posted by texmo
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