Glen’s Ruapuna Nats Report
Yeeha!
What a weekend aye!!
Ruapuna is an awesome track. So much more technical than Manfeild, and not very fun to learn to race on in the wet!!
Practice 1: Saturday
I got out in the front trying to find some people to show me around the track. Nail it out of the dummy grid and come into turn one for the first time, I decided to follow a bright yellow bike (Yellows makes everything faster, so thought I better follow him) So anyway, we come into turn one, Wow, this corner is a lot tighter than what I was expecting, it really caught me out quite bad! It must of really caught the guy in front of me out too, as about mid turn, im now watching his bike go sliding down the track!! Wow, what a great introduction to the track!!
The race was red flagged so we went back into the dummy grid, and waited for the bike to be removed from the track. As we were sitting there, the heavens opened, and drenched the track for us. Great. I don’t do so great in the wet!! Never mind shit happens.
Got back out there, realized its gonna take a while to learn this track. Sorta muffed about, got passed by a few guys. Got 8th in that practice. Not the best, but plenty of room to improve
Practice 2: Saturday
It was still wet, but I had sat down in-between races and thought about what I needed to do improve.
I felt a lot smoother, and felt like I had improved a fair amount. Starting to get the hang of the track now.
Unfortunately, the bike that I was riding had a known fueling issue. And it came to rear its ugly head in this practice. About half was down the straight the bike would loose power, as if it was running out of fuel. Bugger
Got back in. I had improved my times by 3seconds a lap, but so had every other bugger, so still in 8th
Race 1: Saturday
Thankfully, the track had dried out, so I was really wired up for this race.
As known I had qualified 8th, so I had to start from 8th place. Hmmm.
Never mind.
Get out in the warm up lap, went hard and got my tires nice and warm, was the first to the grid.
Took ages to get all 40 bikes into there grid positions.
Anyways, after a year or so, the red flag is taken out and the lights come up. I held the bike full pin. WTF!! The damn thing revved up to 10k, then just started spluttering and dropped down to 6k.
Lights go out, and I get swamped. The bike sortta spluttered away, then came right(ish) I was back in around 14th for the first turn. Hmm, not pretty!
I passed about 4 guys at turn one, under brakes. Far out!!. 2 passed me back down the back straight. Through the kink, flat out yee haa! Coming into the hairpin, Everyone leaves the door WIDE open on the inside!! A bit of a heroic braking maneuver up the inside got me up 6 places in one move. Nuts!
The next turn I came into a bit hot, and the front end said C-ya later. Managed to stand it up before the inevitable low slide. Into the grass. Look behind me, the guys are a little way behind, keep it pinned, NEVER give up my motto. Back onto the track. Sweet. Got off the hook on that screw-up! Followed a couple of guys through the rest of the track, till the dipper. Where they all looked like they were stopping!! What are you doing!! You can rail the dipper…. Its got so much chamber!! So I slingshot it past them. The dipper is an awesome corner on the 150. As it has SO much chamber, you can carry so much speed through it peg down. The KR I was riding had a funny rear tyre on it, and when peg sliding, it would like to start moving around the track, so as I’m coming out of the dipper, over the crest, the back wheel would ever so lightly drift sideways out of the corner. It felt great!! In the end, I started using the sliding to help me, as the rear tyre re-gripped, it would help me flick the bike over, preparing for the faster left hander after it!! Gotta love that corner!!
So anyway, I get into second place, but by that time, first place had buggered off completely!!
Had a bit of a play with third place, he would pass me down the front straight each lap, then I would pass him back at either turn 1 or the hairpin! Great fun!!
Second overall, with a 1:59 laptime
Scrub In: Sunday
Used this to get a feel for the track before the race… pretty boring, just setting up reference points and brake markers for myself.
Race 2: Sunday
Once again, I went fairly hard in warm up… I wanted to get a nice amount of heat into my tyres.
We grid up, which was a lot faster than Saturdays effort, then I try my bike on full throttle again. Nope its still gonna splutter and slowly die. So what I tried, what leave the throttle off, and hope, that I would be able to match the lights a rev it at just the right time. Haha, I wish! Bogged it down as the lights went past and got monstered off the start. Damn. The Fuel issue was still there
Ahh well, I put my head down and get to it. Past three or four guys at turn one, then another 4-5 at the hair pin. 1 at the dipper, which put me into second. I could see 1st place ahead of me, and really tried to catch him. I was faster through all the right hand turns, (My home track, is a predominantly right hand track vs. Ruapuna, which is a lefty) and just as fast through the slower left hand turns, but, he was a rocket through the sweeper. ( and the straight in comparison to my bike) On lap 3 I see his bike leaving the track, just as I was coming out of turn one. He had run off through the kink. Bugger. I though maybe he had a moment and went off, but as he didn’t come back onto the track, I figured it was a mechanical fault, which it was I found out later, it was
Anyways, due to his misfortune, I won that race, and got enough points to put me in front of him to take the win for the weekend!!
How much fun was that.
1:58.1 was my fastest time VS his 1:55. He’s got skill.
Pretty good weekend, I wish I had some more track time, as with only 20 laps, its hard to get to lap record pace, and on a problematic bike.
Thanks to Pete Jones for the bike, wouldn’t have been able to compete with out it. Cheers heaps mate
No thanks to Andy, for the super gay birthday hug…. Poofter
And thanks to SNIPER, for putting us up for the nights!! Totally awesome man!!
And finally, THANK YOU so much to the Victoria Motorcycle Club for helping me and paying for my entry fee. It was such a help, and i would not have been able to afford it without thier help
Can’t wait till manfeild, I will be there on the 125GP… SO LOOK OUT, for #47, bright yellow.
Later
-Glen
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Originally Posted by RG100!!
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