Well ma daryl gapped off to Taupo Thursday night to get up early and hit manfeild for the test day on the friday, pretty uneventful trip down, mountains looking mint, weather looking good.
Arrive at the track and start unloading stuff as you do, few bikes out and about, notice a crap load off oil on Daryl R1's fork leg, crap that means only one thing, blown fork seal, headed out for the first session and went about doing my thing while Daryl putted round for a few laps after deciding he wasn't going to do anything with no brakes on the R1. He spent half the day on the phone while i spent the time while the cars were out dismantling the R1, couldn't get hold of a seal, so it was going to be a race day moring fix it jobbie.
I was feeling really good on the test day got a heap of track time in (too much as i found out later) and got out with a best time of 1.12.40 and could run consistent 12's, so was pretty happy with that previous best on the K3 was 1.14.8, i felt under race conditions i would push harder and should see the 11's at some point quite happily.
By the end of the day i was one sore puppy though, was hard to hold onto a cup with my right hand, a good nights sleep will sort that i hoped.
Hooked up with Fizzerman, Mikey (cunt), Deano and Daryl for some steak and headed off to Spuds to be in bed by 9pm, wow!
Race Day:
Wasn't feeling back up to strength by the morning at all, so didn't go out in the scrub in session, was busy unlaoding getting set up and help sorting the R1 to get it back into shape, F2 practice came up i didn't bother going out in it, but daryl did to get the feel for the bike again, i felt i could go out in F1 qual and lay down a reasonable lap straight outta the box with testing the day before.
Pretty much make a pouint of hitting the front for qualifing to get some clear laps in, which seems to work alright, i figured i'd put in warm up laps in 1 and 2 then 2 flying laps and pull in after that, didn't want to spend anymore time than i had to on the track, went reasonably well and set a 1.12.785 so i was back to the pace i was yesterday. This put me 5th on the gird, daryl despite lack of track time came in 6th, mint tis gonna be a fun day dicing.
Race 1:
Well me and daryl had a bit of a mair starting, missed the warm up lap and yeah i'll let daryl or sparky expalin what happened, one of those dumb things aye.
Lined up, took the start, wow another shit start, thats a surpirse, wasn't too keen on being on the inside line, got boxed in and dropped to something stupid like 11th or worse in turn 1, time to get to work and gain some postions can't really remember who i was passing but i slid under daryl into the hairpin and out grunted a couple 600's down denny hulme, ended up 6th and was closing in on Ross in 5th but just too bigger gap to close down in 1 lap so eased off a bit as i had a couple seconds gap back to Derek. So 6th it was. With a fastest lap of 1.12.888.
Race 2: Shortened to 15 laps (thank christ for that)
i was real worried about how my hands were going to cope with 15 full on laps (not very well unfortunitly) I got off the line surprisinly well this time but again got boxed in on the insdie and watched 3-4 riders plough round the outside of us, got Daryl again into the hairpin, though better of turing to give him the fingers this time after what happened last time i tried that lol, put in some good laps and made good ground on the riders in front, Derek and Ross were lapping well but i was closing in quite quickly by the 7th lap i was right on there tail and pulled alongside Ross once or twice, the front four had cleared off so the battle was going to be for 5th i made mistake in the 8th and run real deep into two turns on the 9th i was fucked having trouble keeping my head on the job, even dropped to 1.18 in the 10th lap watched Ross and Derek clearing off, looked like 7th it was but at this pace Nicko and Daryl would chew me up easy, i was trying to relax as much as possible and even found it hard finding full throttle on the straights and hitting braking markers was not easy at this time, Daryl and Nick must've been sensing wounded prey up ahead as they closed in, i kept an eye on the gap as i was exiting the hairpin, Nicko must've got withen 2 seconds , and daryl must've got a little excited seeing me dropping back so quickly and promptly turned the gas on too much out of the sweeper and took a trip out onto the grass, where Nicko got him back. Last two laps i knew Nicko was close i just gritted my teeth and put my head down and dropped back into the mid 13's which was enough to secure 6th again (Ross had retired at some point). With a best lap of 1.13.389.
So Qulaified 5th, and two 6ths in the races, happy but not, really hoped to hit 11's at some stage, but i didn't come close after what was looking good at the test day, dissapointed with myself in terms of my hands killing me mid race, i feel maybe if i didn't do the test day before hand i would've had a better shot, but in saying that i learnt a lot on the test day and really need it, the next round coming up is the long track again, with a 4 lap and another long 12 lap race, so i don't think i'll hit the test day this time just to help the body cope, i'm confident enough i can get out there in the moring and hit under 2 minutes easy enough. The bike went well, and have identfied some areas to improve, one being the brakes, some steel lines will help greatly with feel of the front end, pretty much just trusting teh tyre to do it's job at the mo, still need to play with the rear suspension, was having afew traction issues all day and getting some nice pogo action at times, the gearing change worked well though and with the long cricut coming up am looking forward to it.
Shout out to Spudchucker for putting me and Daryl up again, cheers mate, too good of you. daryl for carring on the muppet tradition at each race, Poo's for taking it too the next level and joining the elite of muppets, KZ, Mikey and RG all showing great pace in clubmans, all be it a little off here and there, nice work though guys, reckon the 1st clubmans race was the best two watch. Nicko looking good on the 675 straight away, Derek Hill, mate you found some pace now, you were looking best i've seen you, keep it up. Ant as alwasy top effort bro, bet ya can't wait until the ZX10R arrives, i can't hopefully it gets lost somewhere lol.
Cheers all(thats my lunch break over, back to work)
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by deano
..."
see you at round 5.
Bookmarks