Went over Saturday about 2pm thinking I would get a reasonable pit and found all the dummy grid road spots already taken. Spotted team piston broke and Mikey (bless his heart) offered to let me pit with them. I cannot thank Deano,Mikey,Fizzerman and Co. enough as this made my day so much more enjoyable and easier. And also Stu from TSS motorcycles.
Newbies had a 4 lap orientation session which made us aware of any areas of the track that needed care before proper practice began. The main corner of note for me was turn 2 which is quite a dip through the apex of the corner and a manhole cover there as well. Threw the esses its quite easy for the front end to lift even on a bike of low power like the SV so I was glad to have a steering dampener fitted.
First practice was just a short one for eveyone to get dialed in. Wanganui is very easy to learn but going fast is a different matter. My old age and lack of fittness didn't help and after that session I had a sore back probably due to crashing through turn 2 and bottoming the suspension while being lazy and sitting on the seat rather than standing on the pegs.
Second session got in what I thought where a few reasonable laps. Ended up qualifying 26th one place behind Torque with Deano quite a bit faster than us on his old post classic. Bit embarassing really but I knew Deano would be fast.
First race I was happy with my grid position and got a good start as SVs are very good off the line and found the gaps to get through. Race went ok but dropped 3 places towards the end just from letting off the pace abit (will I ever learn). Finished 19th. Came in after that race with a real high had a talk with Deano who was just behind me about how our races went. Just wanted to get back out there for another race.
After waiting for what seemed like half a day...
Second race grid positions were your finishing place in the first race so I was now on the outside of the track directly behind Jarrod Wintle. This was ok as Ive raced against Jarrod before and knew he would get away well. Only concern was getting pushed out into the bales at Turn 1 I thought. We got away ok and threw the first turn. Turn 2 Alan Zitnik lowsided and Jarrod tangled with him. I was back a little and had time to go wide and miss it all but my gear lever got caught up on the bales or something and ended up twisted around too far to change up (see pic). Jarrod lost his right hand footpeg but still went on to finish 21st. I was feeling good and wanted to give my all but these things happen in racing. So DNF was the result.
Lots of drama during the day and some very good racing. Think Andrew Stroud holds the new lap record with somewhere around 49.3. Sam Smith was flying for his first time but unfortunately had an off later in the day but bike didn't look to bad.
Motoracer rode impressively and his pitcrew were prettier than the Pirelli Girls.
Next year I hope to be back to put into place all of learnt this time round. My advice to anyone thinking of having a go is just do it.
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Gutted about your DNF...
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