TonyB's Sound of Thunder

[TonyB]

I have to confess, its been a few years since I have spectated at a SOT. Mrs B and I used to go every year back in the early to mid 90's. But after that, houses were bought, storks delivered bundles of joy, and basicly there was always something better to do. After I bought the Monster, someone asked me if I was doing the SOT. Honestly, I hadn't given it any thought. "Might do, I 'spose" was my response.

Eventually I got off my bum and put in my entry, and once the entry was in, I started to remember some of the things I'd seen there. Things like seeing a 1906ish Harley Davidson racing alongside other pre WWI bikes. The incredible sound of highly tuned pre Hinkley Triumph Tridents- I once heard the phrase "god rides a Harley", after hearing these things it seemed only fitting that the devil must ride a Trident. And then of course there were the Brittens. I remember vividly standing at Pot Hole/ The kink and actually feeling the ground beneath my feet vibrate as the V1100 belowed through. Later they wheelied in pairs the full length of the straight.

There's a bit of history involved with this event, and it always used to draw big crowds, and gradually it dawned on me that I was actually going to be on the other side of the fence this time. Strange things started happening- I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up every time I thought about it, or typed the words "Sound of Thunder". Stupid I know

I had booked half a day off on the Friday so I could get in some much needed practice- I start at 6:30am, so by 10:30 I would be ready to go. The day dawned wet- the thick drenching drizzle Canterbury seems to specialise in. I was keen to make sure i practiced in the wet, just incase the forcast was wrong. I didn't exactly power through the work that morning, feeling pretty bloody amped and distracted. Doing my timesheet I realised I could leave at 10, so I bolted out the door to find VERY thick drizzle. Oh well.

Realising that it was likely to bucket down all day, I decided it wouldn't hurt to take my time and only get a couple of sessions in. I quickly whipped into Pit Lane and bought some new grips off don, as the old ones were prettly slippery. My dodgy old van wasn't exactly helping me to convince myself that there would be plenty of grip at the track- she was spinning up and hanging the tail out at the slightest provocation... then there was a good 30 metres of compression lock up as I changed down for the tunnel road roundabout... 4 wheels can be awesome fun sometimes....

Got home, fitted the grips and lockwired them. Tried to piss about without success before qucikly succumbing to my desire to get out on the track as soon as possible.

OFFICIAL PRACTICE
The van was far better behaved with 200kg of Ducati in the back
Pulled up at the track to find about 30 odd bikes there, but only one actually circulating, in light rain. I pissed about for a bit, and the rain stopped, so I put on the battle gear and tiptoed out. A couple of tentative laps convinced me that there was more grip from the Super Corsa Pro's than I had been led to believe, so I gradually upped the pace. I noticed a bit of rain on the visor, but it didn't seem like much. Funnily enough I ended up using bloody near the same brake markers as I had in hot dry weather the Sunday before. I came in after maybe 15-20 mins feeling pretty good. It was only when I took the helmet off that I noticed it was raining heavily (by Canty stds), apparently it had been the whole time I was out. Sweet! Bring on the rain.

I pottered about yacking to all and sundry, looking at bikes and generally pissing about. After a while the rain stopped, so "Might as well have another crack at it" thought I. Gotta say, I love free practice! Go out when you want, for as long as you want. No rush to get ready, no pulling in just when your going well! It started drizzling as the gloves went on, and on the track there were now a couple of patches of standing water, as well as water streaming across the track at the apex of the kink at the end of the front straight. I kept going round and round for a while, and then noticed Don was about 500m behind me. Was thinking about coming in when I noticed Don was further back. Hmmm.... "Naaaaah, he's just warming up". A couple more laps and the gap increases. A couple more- still increasing... "maybe I DO want it to rain?" I saw Don in the pits later:
"Hey Don, were you pushing at all before?"
"Yeah, I saw you out there.... sorry mate, I was just tooling around", finished off with a sympathetic pat on the shoulder Oh well...

[onearmedbandit]

Great read Tony, looks like I'm going to have to go do a rain session myself.

[TonyB]

DAY 1

Got a reasonable nights sleep and woke up early feeling pretty average. Blocked nose, sore throat, lots of green muck coming up, and a decent headache. "Tough shit body, you've got work to do". Downed some brekky, fluffed about for a bit and then headed off, with the weather not exactly looking flash. As mentioned before, there was a definite sense of 'occasion' about this for me, and I was definitely amped up on the drive out there- the adrenaline took care of the remainder of the headache etc that the Panodol couldn't deal with.

Pulled in the pits and found a good spot. Don (Pit Lane Motorcycles/ Cycletrads) had generously loaned me his Ezy-Up shelter as he had gone halves in a garage. I used his suggestion of pointing the vans nose into the wind and putting the Ezy-Up over the back... and tying it on, the wind was fairly strong at times. There was a fair old wait till 10:30 rolled around, but with plenty of bikes to look at and tons of like minded souls the time went quick. A tour of the pits revealed quite a few Motards. Walking down to the grassed area on the other side of the control tower revealed a large marquee filled with KTM Motards (que "psycho" stabbing scene music)

PRACTICE
There was still the odd bit of drizzle coming in by the time practice came along, but the track was mostly dry, the wet patches were of course right where no one wanted them. Shit happens. As most of the punters hadn't ventured out on the track the day before, they were tentatively tiptoeing around, and I was happy enough to tiptoe with them. There was one chap on a Motard who kept feeling all indecisive and putting his foot in... no out... no in... Of course whilst most of us were prepared to bide our time and let everybody warm up, there were a few heroes who felt the need to carve everyone up... what IS it about guys who race wearing rib knit wool jerseys and steel capped work boots anyway? Eventually things stretched out a bit, although I did pull to the lift and dordle down the straight to let a large pack get away at one stage- with more than 60 bikes on track at once, it wasn't a bad idea and I got into a bit of a groove. Lets just say that as usual, any ideas that I might one day be world champion were well and truly stomped on, but I was fairly happy with how things were going.

We ended up getting another unexpected practice to allow the time keepers to get in some more practice- "Be rude not to then" I thought. I must've been a bit too keen, and I found myself getting waved out onto the track with F1.... when they came in, I went out again. The pace was a bit quicker the second time out, but then so was I. Things were going well.

Yawn- i'll finish this tomorrow. Ni night.
.................................................. ....................................
Right then, what happened yesterday.... ummmmm.... I really should take notes!

Superstock Ltd:
This would be what you'd call a 'no excuses' class. My Monster has the largest engine allowed in this class. I was up against the Motard hordes, a few proper Ducati SS based race bikes of unknown capacity (from the way went they accelerated they were probably 750's), and quite a few quick Ducati 400 SS's and a few quick Nortons and Triumphs. Suffice to say that I ended up barely managing to stay in front of the 400's. One or maybe two got me at "nanna's" as I got a bit ragged towards the end of the race. I was in front of a couple of Motards, but the majority were in front of me. I had a great race with a black Ducati 500 SL which had very similar power to my bike. Eventually he got by and pulled a decent gap on me.

Best of Italian:
I have almost no recollection of this one. I remember doing OKish, but according to the score sheet I got 6th, or 8th if the two guys who wrote their names in were right. I seem to recall holding off the 500 SL in this one.

BEARS FII:
Had a good tussle early on with Tony Mac on his Gilera. He was doing his quickest laps ever on that bike, a full 5 seconds quicker than usual. he put that down to the new Dunlop slicks it was wearing. Tony eventually slowly pulled away, and yet again I got ragged on the last lap and let a bloody 400 through. Had a wicked race though, and I noted that the 400's were finding it harder and harder to get by, and I had pulled a small gap on the 500 SL

At the days end we had to put in a time for the bracket racing. I had been timed at 2:02 earlier in the day, but I put in a time a second or two slower than Tony Mac's 1:57 as the gap between us seemed to be constant and crossed my fingers that I was right. If I was indeed right, then my times would have been a full 5 to 6 seconds quicker than they were the wewekend before...... but still BLOODY slow!

[dangerous]

Good shit Tony, I will come out today for a catch up and looksie... hows them leathers looking

[TonyB]

Jacket fits perfectly, pants are just hanging off! Had to walk around holding them up with one hand

[dangerous]

Jacket fits perfectly, pants are just hanging off! Had to walk around holding them up with one hand

Thats the in cool look man, kinda like ya shit yaself and are carring it around

[TonyB]

Wicked shit! Third day in a row at the track. I wasn't anything like as amped driving to the circuit as I had been the day before. But I felt good, and confident that I would improve some more. Even at 7:30am, you could tell it was going to be a hot day. Don from Pit Lanes Ezy-Up was gonna be well worth having!

PRACTICE
Practice involved putiing slow buggers, like me, out with fast buggers on Triumph 675's and the like. IE- F1. As it turned out, I hadn't sat far enough back on the dummy grid, and there were still quite a few of them behind me... but not for long. I felt kinda out of place- not a good way to start the day.

SUPERSTOCK LTD
MrsB had turned up to keep me company, and she figured out that her cell could be used as a lap timer, recording the times of each lap. Sweet! Time to prove to myself that I was inside the 2 minute snail barrier.
We had to grid up according to our placings the previous day- suffice to say I just hung well back, looked around and figured out roughly where I should be.
Turn one used to be my least favourite corner- probably something to do with 235kg of FZR1000 and 240km/h combined. On the monster I love it. I still turn in a bit early and brake a bit early, but pretty much everyone else was turning in ridiculously early and braking miles before they needed to. So I was now starting on the hard right hand side of the track and then ride around as many as I can without causing mayhem. It was working well, but the rest of the race wasn't brilliant, I didn't feel like I was riding as well as the day before. I did OK, with Bryan Ashworth(?) and another 400 getting by towards the end. The lap times were a bit depressing- 2:02's and 2:03's. Oh well, brake later, lean further.

FII
Got a reasonable start and tried to stay focussed. As the race progressed I noticed the 500SL and the 400 I had been battling with in earlier races were behind and dropping further back. I felt much faster, and it was becoming apparent that the next block to going faster was the fact I nearly shit myself everytime my toe scrapers or knee sliders touch down! I could hear Bryans bike behind me and I knew one little mistake would see him past. Yet again I made a mistake DAMMIT! and he got by at Nannas when I got my fingers tangled up. I lost about 10 bike lengths on him and tried real hard to make it up I nearly got him again by the finish line, but in the end he got me by a wheel. WICKED race! I came in feeling pretty elated, and MrsB showed me the times 2:00.?, 1:59.4, 1:59.3, 1:59.7 Yes I know its still slow, but I was stoked! The best part was, if not for that one mistake, the last lap would've been quite a bit faster.

BRACKET RACING "C" is for ccclow
Sitting on the grid, I noticed the brakes were pretty bloody spongy. I decided they might improve and carried on. They didn't improve... at all! I was having to brake at least 1.5 times further out than normal, and I was still only just getting in. I had a tussle with a quick old Triumph- eventually I rode around the outside of him and was pleased to see i pulled a good gap. Other than that the race was about survival. I came in 20th...

I looked at the pads. They had worn alot. I figured the reseviour could be low. It was pretty much dry. I didn't have time to bleed the brakes, so I "borrowed" some fluid from the owner of Thunderbike in Nelson - top guy. I pumped the lever about 500 times and it came right. When I went back later the brakes were better still. I didn't know this was a very bad thing...

CONTI CUP- open to all bikes on treaded tyres.
Shit, what happened? Can't remember! Will post more tomorrow.
.................................................. ....................................
OK, Conti Cup. This is a race for any bike on treaded tyres. With the help of another racer, I had convinced a guy called Stu who had pitted next to me, to enter. Stu is from Nelson, and he was running 1:46/7's on a pretty much standard 2001 900 SS We told him that most of the fast guys would be on slicks. As we pulled up at the dummy grid we noticed that all the 675's were there... oops. I got a good start and just kept pushing. A few guys who I considered to be much faster than me didn't get by for at least a couple of laps, and I think this is the race where I was at the rear of a flying formation/ freight train of Motards, 4 KTM's and one white one, which I was HOPING was the Aprilia V-Twin, but was probably the Husky. We did about 2 laps all hooning around with just a metre or so between each bike. It was wicked fun! One guy was backing it into the hairpin and it just looked awesome! One guy dropped off when his bike started backing in and he freaked out- can't say I blame him! They would pull a bit of a gap starting at the 2 left handers before the dipper- I'm always too slow into there- and through the dipper itself, where I basically just suck. By the time we were all at the hairpin we'd all be together again. It was huge fun and I think I would have been lapping faster than ever. On the last lap the lead 675 came by me as I climbed out of the dipper. Those 675's are awesome wee bikes, I couldn't believe how fast it accelerated out of there while still getting good grip. Triples seem to be a bloody good compromise between the power of a 4 and grip of a twin. Anyway, came in 17th I think. Which isn't bad really considering all of the 675's, the TT 600's, all the quick motardds and several quick Ducati's were out there. The feild had pretty much everything that wasn't on slicks- 40+++ bikes.

BRACKET "C"- final
After blowing the first one with dodgy brakes, I was pretty determined in this one. It was immediately after the Conti Cup, so I had nice sticky tyres. The warmup lap felt like slow motion compared the speeds we had been doing moments before. I lined up well back, but on my favoured right side. The flag dropped and I nailed it, right down the right side, nearly on the grass. I got around a heap of bikes braking into turn 1, went around the outside of a couple in the turn, block passed a guy into the kink, got another one into the hairpin and then it all settled down. For the first time all weekend I had gotten a great start, and fuck that makes a HUGE difference! Now I understand why people are so desperate into the first few turns- you don't get caught up in the traffic jamb (think of how long it takes for people to move 50m back from a green light, the same delays apply on the track, just not so bad). The 400's and Motards I had battled with all weekend were nowhere to be seen, Bryan was well back, and I was able to hold my postion, lapping the fastest I've gone yet- no idea of times though. I had found the current limit for leaning the Monster, with the pipes going 'ting...ting' as they gently touched the track, I couldn't get any further off the bike, so the only way to go faster would have been to grind the pipes on the track. I crossed the line in 5th (I think) feeling absolutely elated.

I came into the pits absolutely fizzing, then the PT MrsB and I have been using (I've only had two sessions) turned up. She had trouble understanding why racing a bike was so physical, so she had come out to see for herself. She had caught the last lap, and could see the sweat pouring off me, so she was getting the idea. I decided to go in the Flying Farewell, so that she could have a good look at how hard I have to work to get the Monster around the track. I checked the brake pads and found there was just enough pad left to do the race.

THE FLYING FAREWELL
This is a free for all. I decided to give it a good hard nudge, and lined up on the grid, with 675's, big Ducatis and Motards all aound me. The noise was unbelieveable- even with earplugs in it sounded like a jet engine on takeoff.... or maybe the "sound of thunder" ... very angry insane thunder on a bad P high. Absolutely unreal. The flag dropped and I nailed it, but the 675's in front of me and on either side just rocketed away once they cleared their throats. I took off in hot pursuit, with fast bikes roaring past on either side. Turn one was mayhem, with at least 30 bikes trying to get into the same spot. I chickened out and puled back a bit, so two bikes grabbed the spot- after that I made sure there wasn't a gap. The kink was damn near as bad. Someone crashed at the hairpin. THREE crashed at the first righthander, then it all started to settle down. A dude on a BIG twin pipe KTM Motard was holding me up- can't remember if I passed him or if he powered away. Then I ended up behind a Thruxton, it had good power but was holding me up a bit. He got away down the straight, but I had him again by the kink. He was pretty aggressive, slamming the door on my attempted block pass, and again at the hairpin. I backed off a bit and waited to go around the outside or do an 'over and under' at the sweeper. I left the braking fairly late (I thought) and went to pull the lever. NOTHING!!!!!!!!! It flopped about as though disconnected, I had no front brakes at all!!! Somehow I kept it all together by running wide and using the gears/ engine to scrub off speed- obviously I must be too slow going into the sweeper then eh! I shot down the exit lane and pulled into the pits. Disaster averted, but HIGHLY pissed off to have missed the race. Mind you, if that had happened at turn 1 or the hairpin......

[trump-lady]

What an awesome thread cuz.... I actually couldnt stop reading. (your a great writer) Im kicking myself now for not coming out and spending time watching and catching up with shells......grrrrrrrrrr.....me and dad actually looked at going but on the website it had midget cars. We even went "somewhere" riding this afternoon and went passed the turn off to ruapuna and at the next pub said lets go have a look and by that time it was 4 Now after reading your post im kicking myself. Last night I watched the superbikes race till 130am (never watched or cared) and was glued to it. Im sure I woulda love to have seen the bikes out there and its always more fun if you know someone.

Crap crap crap........... you must tell me when the next one is!

[PLUG]

Wicked read there T ... looking forward to the next installment

[TonyB]

I've edited the above posts with some extra stuff.

So that was it, the weekend was done. I walked around yacking to people for a while. Jannelle the P/T helped me take the Ezy-up down- it's quite useful to have a former NZ and World Champion power lifter to help out. Then I yacked some more, basically avoiding packing up. In usual fashion, my battle gear was spread all over the show... Eventually I reluctantly packed up, I had to get home to MrsB and the kids before she went mad, but I wanted very much to stay and soak up the atmosphere of the best racing meeting I have attended to date.

Thanks to all the SOT committee, volunteers etc, you did an awesome job. Thanks to Don from Pitlane Motorcycles for the loan of the Ezy-up, and to John Fitzwater from Thunderbike for rescuing me with some brake fluid.

AND as Dangerous so rightly pointed out below, many thanks to Dangerous for the loan of his leathers and his race stand. I couldn't have done the meet without those leathers- my leathers have.... errr... shrunk, and it turns out the pressure they are putting on the shoulder area is cutting off the circulation to my arms. Hence my BIG problems with what I thought was arm pump- ie: 1.5 laps and I'm having trouble, 2 laps and I'm struggling to pull on the brakes, wind the throttle, or hold myself up. The relief I felt on the Friday when I realised the problem was gone was immense.

It was an awesome race meeting, and I doubt I'll ever forget it.

[dangerous]

Thanks to all the SOT committee, volunteers etc, you did an awesome job. Thanks to Don from Pitlane Motorcycles for the loan of the Ezy-up, and to John Fitzwater from Thunderbike for rescuing me with some brake fluid.

Ohhh... and also a big thanks to the fella that made it all possible whom loaned me the leathers and race stand, you rock

[dangerous]

your welcome, any time

[TonyB]

Ohhh... and also a big thanks to the fella that made it all possible whom loaned me the leathers and race stand, you rock

your welcome, any time

You're talking to yourself again you silly old c&^t.

Sorry dude, knew I'd missed something! Post ammended

[scumdog]

The brakes man, the brakes, what happened to the brakes??

(Or did I overlook something in the long posts above?)

[gav]

Great write up!! But yeah, so what happened with ya brake lever, did it get knocked by another bike or something? And what did you get your times down to in the end?