What an awesome weekend!!
4:30am start for work Thursday morning (too tight to take a day of annual leave), left Auckland at 12:30pm, tiki tour to Feilding, arrive about 8pm just in time to meet Jas, Robyn, Tom and Stevey for some food. Eyes practically on fire from the contact lenses I've just started wearing (they don't seem to get on well with heater in the van along Desert Road).
Roll along to the track, not quite sure when it's opening or what the hell is happening. Get unpacked and wait for it all to start. It was my first time here so I was curious to see if it's as rough as people say. Fair enough, it's not billiard table smooth, but I didn't really have much of an issue with the bumps, apart from those in the hairpin which were pretty filthy. Got about 8x 20 minute sessions in, and was well knackered by the end of the day.
Race Day:
Woke up at 4am and couldn't sleep 'cos it was cold as. Finally rolled out of bed at 6:30 and tanked up on curry and rice.
Qualifying:
Utter crap. Was in the 1:22 bracket, a good 5 seconds slower than the day before. It was cold, for sure, but I wasn't really challenging the tyres even in these conditions, and was really quite annoyed with the effort.
Got 23rd in Supersport and 29th or something in Superbike.
Racing:
I don't really remember all of it, but here are some of the highlights:
Supersport Race 1:
Pull out for the warm up lap. A few nerves, but really excited about the race ahead. I stopped at the number 23 painted on the ground, and then realised that everyone else was about 100m ahead of me. Oooops, this is obviously the car grid, couldn't really hear what the guy was saying at the briefing. Gassed it up to the back of the pack, still couldn't figure out where the hell I was meant to be starting. Gav had obviously cocked it up too, and was right with me at the back.
Got a pretty mint start, passing a fair few bikes, and got a decent line in to the first corner. Someone ran wide across my face which slowed me up, and I got back on track, just behind Gav. Gained on him through the infield, then lost a little ground out of the hairpin and in to Higgins. Gained a bit on him in to the sweeper and thought 'fark, I'm running wide, what a lemon, you won't pass him now'...until I realised he was a mile wide and still leaning further and accelerating hard. Look for his appearance in Dirtrider magazine next month. I continued on in the race a bit disappointed as I reckon it could've been a good battle. Had a few tussles in the second lap, notably with some dude on a green SV or Hyosung who was riding it really well. I felt like a bit of a burglar blowing him away on the straight, but life is unfair.
Finished up 13th which I was pretty happy with considering my start position (30+). The dude ahead of me was a good second and a half faster per lap though, so I wouldn't have caught him even if I had been in my proper position from the start. I was confident at this stage that I could make up that much time later in the day. Best was 1:19 or so, I think.
Superbike Race 1:
Had a crap start from memory. Ended up 21st after a mad fun battle with 'Dr. Steve Bragshaw' on his Honda NSR250. Had a bit of trouble making a pass stick, even though I had him on the straights, but I managed to string a few good corners together on the last lap and hold him out.
Supersport Race 2:
Was going pretty well. Had a mean start and somewhere along the way found myself in 11th or 12th I think. Started to get some good laps in but then turned in way too early to the sweeper. Tried to get the gas on but was too tight at the start. Kept getting the gas on and was way too wide at the end of the corner. What a muppet!! Knew I wouldn't make it so stood the bike up for a bit of gravel tracking at 140ish. Weighted the pegs and steadied the throttle and managed to make it in to the pitlane. Thought about restarting but said screw it and went back to the garage.
Superbike Race 2:
Got a crap start and was stuck behind a Gixxer 1100 for the first 3 laps. Gotta give that man credit for hustling that old beast around like he did. I could have taken him under brakes way earlier, but lacked the balls, so held off a bit. Wasn't too worried about the course until F%^&'N EDDIE comes up the inside of me on the 4th lap to burgle my place in the results again. 'Anyone but him', I thought, and hustled it past the 1100. I managed to hold on to Eddie but didn't really make up shit all against him. Fair win to the big Gix. Best lap of my day was in this race at 1:18.007. Quite disappointed I didn't better that, but there's always next time.
Supersport Race 3:
Got a stunning start and found myself in 9th or so by the second corner, fired up and ready to go...back to the pits, thanks to Jason (VTec) being spear tackled by his own CBR exiting turn 1 to the inside of me. It didn't look that bad from where I was, and he didn't go that high, but obviously landed him with some force on his head, as he apparently started speaking Spanish to the Ambo people. Race was restarted just for Nicko so that he could complete his trilogy of Splash crashes. After sitting in the pits wondering if I'd have enough gas, the race was postponed.
Superbike Race 3:
Wound up 14th, mostly thanks to attrition. Lap times by now were taking a huge hit. The bike and track still felt fine, but I was really feeling the effect of 200 odd laps of this place in 2 days. !:19.6 or something like that.
Supersport Race 3, try again:
Got a decent start but not as good as I'd wanted. Tried to make up for it by braking extra late. Cocked that up big time and couldn't make the corner. Ended up in gravel, but kept it up. Decided to wander around the track thinking that I'd be all alone, until I saw a Ducati ahead of me and passed him. Saw another couple of bikes up ahead and again couldn't stop myself from having a go again. Finally, after all the laps I'd done here I got Higgins somewhat right and got much better drive out of there. Hard out in 5th gear over that little crest at the end of the corner. OHHH SHIT!! That's why people buy steering dampers. Lock to lock a few times and the bike massively unstable had me shitting myself. Pulled in the brakes to test them, and predictably, they weren't there. Pulsed the lever as fast as I could and the pistons came back out of hiding just in time to scrub a bit of speed off for the sweeper. From here on in I chucked in the towel and just cruised the rest of the race. I could've probably had my first VMCC top 10 finish in this race if I'd had my shit together, but not really too worried about it.
Overall an awesome fun weekend. Heaps of room for improvement, on every corner, which I'll be thinking about before I return there. A bit disappointed that I couldn't quite transfer all of the good vibes from Friday to Saturday, but not overly unhappy about it, as there's always next round.
See ya all there.
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Originally Posted by Toast
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