Leaving Wellington early Friday morning meant I arrived at the track just after 0800. I unpacked the van, got the pit garage all setup and signed in for the practice day. I had only raced at Manfeild once before, on my old RS so was looking forward to getting my new bike out there and getting the track sorted out.
We had four 15 min practice sessions on the Friday and I was mainly focussed on getting my suspension sorted. By the third session I was happy with my suspension setup and was now focussing on getting some consistency in lap times. Having our transponders only functional for the last two sessions I managed a fairly below par best time of 1.19.6. It seemed as though all the 125’s were going fairly slow and so that was actually the second fastest time of the day. I was pretty keen to get down to at least 1.17’s so still had a long way to go.
Saturday dawned clear but with a fairly stiff south-easterly breeze. This would mean all my braking markers from the previous day were useless and so I would have to work these out again.
We were up for first qualifying at about 1030 and so I went out to get a good 8 or 10 laps in. I felt ok and the bike was running well. I was fairly consistently spinning up the rear coming out of the hairpin but was comfortable with this and would be putting on a fresh set of tyres for the second session. The session ended with me putting down a fastest time of 1.19.0. This put me third on the timesheets. I was pretty happy with this and was confident I could go a bit faster in the next session with the new set of tyres.
I did a small jetting change and threw the new tyres on with the intention of doing three flying laps to scrub them for the race and hopefully better my previous qualifying time. Due to not being able to get clear track and also being a bit of a pussy under brakes I didn’t manage to go faster in the second qualifying (1.19.4) and so ended up in grid position 4. I was pretty happy with that, this left me on the outside of the front row, a perfect starting position as far as I’m concerned.
The first race of the weekend was up a few hours later and we gridded up after the warm up laps ready to go. The lights went out and we were away. I didn’t quite get the launch perfect and had to take a second stab at the clutch after slightly bogging it. I tipped into the first corner in 2nd but was promptly demoted to 4th when Cam Horgan stuck it up the inside of me and caused me to run fairly wide mid corner, the also allowed Adam Chambers to pass me too. This was ok and I got good drive out of splash to go round the outside of Adam on the right hander before the hairpin. He slipstreamed past me down the straight and I was following him closely out of Higgins. I slipstreamed back past down the back straight but I was having issues with the final corner and he passed me back up the inside into there.
This went on for a few laps till I made a mistake coming out of the hairpin, changing into neutral instead of first and lost a second or so. By the fifth lap I had been caught by Ashley and Gregor and so a dice with them ensued. I wasn’t quite in the “zone” and my concentration wasn’t at 100% so they came through and I lost touch with them. I could see there was a big gap back to 7th place and so settled for 6th. On the final lap I was about 300m behind Gregor and Ashley going down the back straight with one corner to go. All of a sudden I saw Ashley running off in the dirt and Gregor slowing down quite a bit. I passed Gregor in the final corner but Ashley still managed to finish ahead of me. What happened is that Gregor ran out of petrol and because Ashley was in his slipstream he ran right up his rear which caused him to run off. Not the best thing to happen at 170 or so kph, but glad it didn’t end in tears.
So I’d finished the race in 5th position (luckily) and had managed to get my best lap time down to 1.18.2. The result was ok, but I was still pretty unhappy with the way I had ridden. I knew I was capable of more but would have to wait for the next days races to prove that.
The next morning was a lot nicer weather wise than the previous day. The wind has subsided and it was clear and sunny. Before the scrub in session I decided to do a small gearing change to see what the effect would be. I did 4 laps in the scrub in and instantly could tell that the gearing change was the right choice. Upon checking my lap times my thoughts were confirmed having done a 1.18.4 in fairly heavy traffic. I left the gearing as is and made a small jetting change in preparation for the first race of the day.
Again we had out two warm up laps and gridded up waiting for the lights to go out. This time I got a great start and was second through the first corner and out onto the middle straight. I was passed by Cam and Adam down here and into Higgins but I was just focussed on going a bit harder and keeping touch with the front runners for more laps. They gradually got away from me but I felt good and on the occasional look behinds I could see Ashley and Gregor waiting to pounce if I made a mistake. I kept the good pace up for the remainder of the race and when the chequered flag came out had a comfortable 3 second gap back to Ashley in 5th.
I was very happy with the result in this race. I had properly out raced my closest opposition and done myself justice. Also looking at the timesheets my good result was shown with a fastest lap of 1.16.9, a whole 1.3 seconds faster than my fastest lap in the previous days race. There was still one race to come and after the morning race I was confident that I would be able to repeat my performance again.
We went out for our two warm up laps for the last race of the weekend. On the Cam Horgan had a problem with his bike and had to leave it on the side of the track by the grid, so the front row was depleted to three bikes. I had another good start and was first into the first corner. The 45kg 15 year old auzzie (Jackson Leigh-Smith) passed me coming out of the first corner and after missing a gear Adam went round the outside of me in turn two. I wasn’t going to get over excited and try pass him back so just tried to keep in touch with him for a few laps. Again I was having problems with the final corner and even though I was right on Adams rear going in I stuffed it up and probably lost the best part of a second so he had made a gap on the first lap.
I settled into third position for the next three laps but wasn’t in the groove like I was in the previous race and a few mistakes started creeping into my riding. Gregor came past me on lap four. I thought I could stick with him but my concentration was waning and I just couldn’t for the life of me get the final corner sorted. Every lap I would reel him in through the first half of the lap and then give it all back in the final corner. This went on for the next four laps and now I also had Ashley to contend with. Gregor had gapped us by a bit too much and so it was down to a battle for 4th place between Ashley and I. Going into the last lap I was ahead going into the first corner and kept him behind me through there. He decided to pass me round the outside of turn 2 and was ahead of me through splash. He didn’t get as good drive as me out of splash and so I had enough momentum to stick it up the inside going into the hairpin. I held it tight coming out and stayed ahead down the middle straight and through Higgins. I didn’t dare look back cause I knew he would be right on my butt and it would be who was bravest through the final corner. I went in deeper than the previous laps but it still wasn’t deep enough. He emerged from the sweeper a bike length ahead of me. I managed to get a small slipstream but alas it wasn’t enough. He crossed the line 0.08s ahead of me, about ¾ of a bike length.
Again I had let a possibly good position slip through bad riding. I wasn’t very happy but still took 5th. My race time was ten seconds slower than the morning’s race. I just wasn’t consistent enough, too erratic in my lap times and I paid for that.
So the season’s penultimate round was over. The results placed me 5th for the weekend, so probably about a C+ in my books. After the disastrous south island rounds left me in 12th position overall my Manfeild results had lifted me to 6th and if I have a bit of luck at Puke 5th is still a possibility. Still not where I would like to be but that’s the way racing goes sometimes. So now its off to the final round at Pukekohe in 2 weeks time. Hope to see some of you there.
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Originally Posted by Keystone19
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