Short story, finished race one in 12th and race two in 11th, which in the small fields of the Superbike class equates to last place!
Long story
I got to Teratonga race track early on Friday. It was 93 since I last raced there. got a few practice laps in on the 9 about 4 years ago though.
I saw Robert Taylor the moment he arrived to get my shock re-valved. He was not able to do it till the arvo as the "guns" shocks needed attention 1st, fair enough.
The day was very windy, but dry. I went out in the 1st session and my rear tyre started to tear apart right away, so I had no option but to wait until Robert could do my shock.
Once the shock had been re-valved, It was out on the track again, I noticed the bike was handling a lot better, but the tyre was continuing to tear as it had gone past the point of no return. I took it off and turned it around for the last session of the day. It worked ok ands I did a 1:03.7. The only other rider from the Superbike class to do that session with a transponder on was Aussie Chris Setton who did a 1:02.245.
All the other superbike riders had been there Thursday and were saying how much help it had been. Wish I'd known about that!
Saturday Practice Qualifying:
Got to the track early and it was really windy still, then the rain started and did not stop till mid afternoon. I put on my wets for one session, my front wet was made last century lol. Was just plain yuk.
It dried out and I put new tyres on for qualifying. They delayed the superbike session for a impromptu 150 race that they never started, then finally sent us out where upon it started to rain on lap 2 and the track just got wetter, grrrr.qualified 12th out of 15 with a 1:04.855
From my point of view the day was a write off and I was spewing I'd not heard about the Thursday practice day.
Sunday Race Day:
I went out in morning scrubs session even though I had nothing to scrub as I was desperate for more track time. After 6 laps the flag came out. The rear tyre was starting to tear so I added in 3 pounds pressure and cranked compression up a few clicks on the shock.
Race 1: I noticed the people who qualified behind me did not front the race, gulp. I got an OK start from the 3rd row and started to learn about the bike now it was set up better. I placed 11th with a best time of 1:03.212 on lap 18. This shows I was learning all the time.
I have no spares so if I crash I'm going home early, that would mortally wound me, so coming last merely dented my pride!
The tyre was tearing just a little, so I turned it around and ran it reversed for race 2.
Race 2: Got an OK start and put my head down, was holding onto Glen Williams but made a huge mistake that lost me a lot of ground. I considered saving my tyres for Timaru but a few laps later decided I needed to learn now! I got my head down again and again finished last, but averaged nearly a second a lap faster than race one and bettered my lap time on by now old tyres to a 1:02.989 also on lap 18!
The good news is I finally have a good base setup, my tyres had stopped tearing and the bike was handling loads better. I just need to learn what I can do with it now, and I'm a fairly fast learner.
Sugilites observations....
To give you all a idea of pace in the top class at the nationals...had I ridden that hard in the actrix series I would most likely have won every race!
There are no easy beat riders in Superbike, well erm, except me for today only!
Those Aussies are fast!
So is the 10, it is nearly as fast as the other bikes in standard form! (just pipes and a ecu so far) The other SB riders gave me a "yeah right" look after letting them know it was standard when they asked what had been done to it.
The top guys could hold tighter lines than me, I think it is just a ride height issue left over from when I was trying to tame the evil dunlops.
Pirelli Diablo Slicks rock! I turned the tyre around for race 2 and went faster! And it still has loads of meat left for testing at Timaru.
So there you have it, hardly and auspicious start, but no excuses from me, for today, the bike was better than I was.
There is a test day at Timaru Wednesday, and I WILL BE THERE
Derek McAdam has an easy as trick that will get me another 6 horse power and we will be putting exhaust probes on our bikes and tweaking our maps, Yeee ha!
I'm very determined to do well and are not going to have a cry about todays results, it's onwards and upwards from here on in because AT LAST I have a BASE LINE SETUP THAT WORKS!
Till next Weekend, Sugilite out!
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Karma ... Justice catches up eventually !! 
Originally Posted by sugilite
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