My early memories of Wanganui were from TV and of Hugh Anderson and the McIntosh Vincent in the Battle of the Twins, a young Aaron Slight, and the GSXR Cup and of course the Sidecar guys and I’d always wanted to race there so after being a spectator for a couple of years and having done SI street circuits I teamed up with Diesel Pig to make the trip North to foreign lands
We left at 4am on Christmas day and shot through to Blenheim where little brother put on a BBQ breakfast and then we headed off to the ferry, a nice smooth sailing and then we’re on the road to Wanganui where we arrive 11 ½ hours after leaving home and pretty fucking tired
Off to scrutineering and we breeze through that and head off for tea
Mr Batch is up early and down to the pits at 6am to get us a spot and as we sit in the Hotel eating Bacon and eggs he give us a call to head down for riders briefing, so we wander down and listen to what they have to say and then I hunt up a “newcomers sticker” so I can do the extra 4 lap familiarisation
First impressions of the circuit are that it’s wide compared to the street circuits I’m used to and it’s also a much faster circuit, the bumps in turn 2 bother me a bit until I follow a line of bikes that take it tight and go between the manhole cover and the kerb, trying to find a nice line and carry the speed I want across the railway tracks is also proving difficult
Practice 1
I concentrate on working out my lines and braking points and aren’t to worried about how fast I’m going, I’m over geared for the circuit and haven’t bothered to bring anything lower so I’m stuck with what I’ve got
Practice 2
The gearing is turning out to be a problem as I’m either revving the nuts off it in 3rd or not quite quick enough to carry 4th across the railway tracks and through the left up into the s bends but as I have no other options I have to live with it and I settle for using 4th, there’s a group of bikes I can stick with and have high hopes I can stay with them during the race, I’ve sped it up a bit and knock 2 seconds off the first practice times which puts me 26th on the grid (last in other words)
Race 1
We get to the dummy grid and then due to crashes in F2 have to sit there for what seems hours, we eventually roll out onto the track and around to the grid, some people seem to struggle with the basics and don’t seem to know where they are meant to grid up but it gets sorted and the flag drops, I take it fairly cautiously I think I’m last into Turn 1, I set off after the group in front of me, there’s a RG framed DR600 in front and I take him into the corner that leads up to the bridge and set off after the S2 Kawasaki, I’m catching him up through the cemetery but everywhere else it’s pretty even and then I cock up the railway line and run out of laps
Race 2
I move up a few spots on the grid to 22 and get a marginally better start and I ride around the RG/DR in turn one and tag on the back of the S3 a with a XJ550 just in front of him and that’s pretty much how it stays for the whole race, I go a bit wider in turn 2 a couple of times and the bike doesn’t like it much, I’m a bit quicker through the cemetery and they’re quicker in other parts and we stay line astern a few lengths apart the whole race
Race over and I can’t get my gear off quick enough and bugger off to watch some of the other races while top bloke “Mr Batch” loads it all up, one of the things that becomes quite obvious is there a lot of fuckwits amongst the spectators with people climbing the fences and crossing while there are delays in the racing and ignoring the official crossing points and direction from the marshals
But I’d have to say ½ way through the day I’d decided I was unlikely to come back racing, as far as I’m concerned the event is pretty poor value for money compared to the South Island street races, the delays were worse than any other event I’ve ever competed at and whether I was on the dummy grid or watching the racing if a race was stopped no one bothered to tell you what was happening, I might be back next year but chances are it’ll be as a spectator
I'd have to say a big thanks to Diesel Pig and Mr Batch for carting us up and back and Joni for putting up with the early mornings and longs days up there and back
Originally Posted by scracha
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