I'd been looking forward to Round V of the VMCC Actrix Winter series since our seriously competitive previous round on the WBP Racing GSXR1000. Securing a race win left me hungry for more and I was determined to reduce my 100% crash to meeting ratio on the new bike. Sadly for this event I was without my usual pit support of Sue and Glen as they were stuck at work so Dad took the time off to come and help out. Although I'd planned a fantastic timeline after the last off, once again it came down to the wire in terms of time. The experts at Cannon Signage Concepts working furiously to finish the signwriting while I paced the workshop, it was loaded into the van about 3.30pm on Friday afternoon and I was off like a shot for Manfeild arriving in Palmerston North around 10pm. As it turned out everything except backpackers accomodation was booked out in the whole region so Eddy, Dodgy Matt, Nicki and Shane kindly put up with our late arrival and arranged for us to crash with them.
Saturday we headed for the track really early to set up and make sure everything went smoothly for the two days of racing ahead of us and other than a couple of drops of rain early on, the morning fined right up and the temperature was soon warmer than any previous morning. Woohoo!!!! A properly dry track for once. Went for a bit of a wander and introduced myself to Mr Shirrifs as he's been thinking about career change to poet and thought I might offer some spelling tips. Another bonus was the arrival of Martin, Liz, Steve and Naomi to offer further support and it was really cool to watch everyone in the pits turn, jaws on the floor as the Aston and GTS cruised through first thing Saturday morning. Sort of a "Yeah. They're with me" moment. Quick spanner check on the bike and it was time for the Super Sport practice. I cruised around for a while, checking out the track and generally getting a feel for the bike with its new lower bars and higher pegs. It felt bloody weird to be honest but a couple of adjustments later things were back on track. For the Superbike qualifying I just tried to get some clear laps and see where I'd end up. Towards the end of the session I had a quick glance over my shoulder to see a fairly rapidly closing #56 GSXR. After my trash talking via text with Craig the night before he obviously thought it best to show the newbie just how a proper Superbike and rider combination performs, wheelying past the WBP bike like I was literally chained to the tyre wall, entering Higgens well sideways with a tonne of smoke from the rear. Very bloody cool indeed. The man's a freak. Anyway, I got down to a 1.11.2 on one meeting old tyres, qualifying 6th.
Due to the format of this meeting there was a hell of a lot of standing around which gave me the opportunity to actually watch some races for a change which was nice. Something I was pretty nervous about was the length of Saturdays race. I'd never done more than ten laps in a session on the K7 and knew I was really going to feel 25 minutes straight of racing. We headed out as the last race of the day and it was a real buz to line up a row behind the likes of Sam and Craig. I focussed totaly on the starter and after what felt like an eternity the green was dropped. I got my best start to date on the the thousand and found myself passing a few of the front row sitters. Unluckily, so did Neil Martin, although he was on his front wheel and travelling seriously faster than anyone else. He bounced off the side of David Lees in spectacular fashion, ending up in the kitty litter. I kept calm and managed to slot in behind Sam and Craig for a while, losing another place to Carey Briar soon afterwards. I was suffering a little with rear grip but to be honest, the bike felt pretty good. What didn't feel so great was my fitness and stamina. Derek McAdam came past about a third of the way through the race and although we're normally pretty evenly matched, I couldn't stick wth him and he pulled about a 5 second gap, very slowly increasing it throughout the race. Around lap 17 I had a little glance back and once again found myself staring down the barrel of the 56 bike. This annoyed me no end as although I'm fairly new to this game, I thought I had a bit better pace than to get lapped in a 20 lap race while in fourth place. I gave Craig the fingers out of the hairpin to underline my displeasure at the situation, he responded with a nicely executed powerstand 'round the outside of me. I finished the race a fairly lonely fourth, simply not having the strength or stamina to catch Derek but managing to get down to 1.11.1 and only 25 seconds behind Sam after 20 laps. Speaking to Craig later he explained he hadn't lapped me at all but had stopped in the pits a few times to make setting changes. Tell ya what though, I was buggered!
Attempted to have an early night after a pleasant dinner out with the team and Luke, Drew, Vicki and Tania. Sort of succeeded and got a fabulous nights sleep, ready for action on day two.
Before the racing we threw on a new set of slicks and front brake pads, I was feeling pretty confident of a good result for each of Sundays races. Gridding up for race two of the weekend, I got not too bad a start but from as early as turn one I knew I was in trouble. The bike was seriously lacking in rear grip, giving heaps of wheel spin at any hint of brisk acceleration. Neil quickly got past whenI had a huge moment through the sweeper, as did Chris and Jason Hulme. After a number of incidents in previous rounds I decided discretion was the better part of valour and cruised home in 6th place, thoroughly disapointed in my effort and only managing to dip into the 71 second lap bracket for the final lap. After much head scratching we decided the rear tyre was pretty much bung so Eddy kindly pulled the wheel out of his own bike, giving me his fairly worn but much better looking tyre.
Race three and I was hungry for a good result, intent on gaining some points on both Chris and Neil. Coming through the esses on lap one amongst some heavy traffic the bike suddenly snapped sideways, spitting me of the top, over the bars and screen, landing back on the tank. Amazed that I actually kept it upright, I glanced back to see a wildly grinning Jay giving me the thumbs up. I still wasn't getting drive off the turns very well and was starting to get frustrated with myself. On lap three I had a huge slide in the hairpin from the front, my foot slipping off the footpeg in the proccess and managed to run my left ankle over. In agony I almost pulled in but instead wombled around in ninth for the whole race, short shifting the bike and cursing my rotten luck.
So after a pretty dissapointing day I'm looking forward in more ways than one. I know Taupo is going to be a lot of fun, provided we can make the most of some warmer track temperature and gain some rear grip. Only fourteen points seperate Neil, Chris and myself, in that order. Taupo's gonna be a fantastic race for the title!!
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Originally Posted by Drew
, I too kinda have a curvy figure which makes it worse beacuse im a guy. Well the waist kinda goes in and the bum pushes out. When I was in college the girls in my year would slap me on the arse and squeeze because apparently it is firm, tight...
I wear jeans
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