The weather was forecast to be terrible for both Friday and Saturday, but when I arrived at the track on Friday the weather was great!
I was thoroughly looking forward to having a go on my new bike. It was my first ride on the bike and my first proper ride since the nationals.
The day went well, Steve Ward was there to help set my bike up for me so I spent the day going out on the track until I found a problem, and then coming back in to fix the problem. Mainly just making suspension adjustments. By the end of the day was I had my bike set up, and it felt great so I was pleased with what we had achieved in the day.
The Saturday turned out to be a nice sunny day also which was a bit of a relief, practice ended up being a bit of a joke, there was a red flag on the very first lap and then with 41 riders of every different riding level it made it very tough to get any clear track at all.
They had decided to allocate grid positions based on the last rounds results. Because I was sick for the last one and didn’t get to ride, it meant that I was back on the fourth row of the grid. I got an average start and started picking my way through the 25 or so bikes ahead of me, but some of the 650’s were quite difficult to pass and took me too much time to pass so the white flag came out while I was still fighting my way through the pack
After a small carburetor jetting change and a bit of lunch we were all on the dummy grid again for race 2. I got a far better start this time and got through the big four strokes a bit quicker, I came up behind Kirk on about the second lap and had a few goes at passing but the strong winds were affecting my bike handling and making me run wide. I chased Kirk around for the rest of the race, putting my front wheel in front from time to time.
The wind had died down a bit for race 3 and for some reason one of the marshals put me up onto the third row of the grid, and then there were 6 bikes so I think he pushed the other guy out of his grid position and left me there. I got a very good start and was into the first corner just ahead of Ashley with Kirk again just in front of me, together we were picking our way through the four strokes but Kirk got away while me and Ashley were struggling to pass an SV. We were closing on Kirk again but got stuck behind yet another SV, Ashley was trying hard to get past but couldn’t so I passed Ashley to have a go. The guy on the SV got really bad drive out of the hairpin so I went round the outside and Ashley must’ve too as he came past me again. The white flag came out and I was chasing Ashley until he got another SV between us to hold me up, I was stuck behind the 650 right until the end of the race.
I was happy enough with how the day went, my new bike is as good as I had hoped which was a relief.
Thank you to the people that help me!
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Originally Posted by Tim 39
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