Taupo Road Race Spectacular 2007
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these.
I’ll start at the trip up and more importantly when we were in bulls a lovely lady behind us decided not to stop when we did and slammed the rear end of or van. Bugger. Details swapped and a quick look over the van to make sure its drivable. Luckily it was so all good. Just had to figure out how we were going to get the door open to get the bikes out.
Practice day:
We rock on up pretty early and get the pits setup, and scrutineerd. After a bit of duct tape to ‘fix’ my leathers I think it would possibly be one of the first times I have ever been that early getting organized. It was great!
I fire my bike up and warm it up. I’ve just added a Guhl thermostat to my RS125, which means I no longer need to run tape on the radiator to keep the right temperature. I was so looking forward to that as it is just one less thing for me to worry about during the day.
Headed onto the track and did my thing. Was feeling great. I’ve also finally done a bit of suspension setup on the bike, and the difference is only described by the word “amazing”. It’s a totally different bike now. Gone is the old hard to ride, wallowing pig that it was into this defined machine that give me so much feed back it’s... well.... amazing.
There isn’t much to describe for this day, I just kept working on different corners, and having fun.
Race day:
Again at the track setup early, put some fuel in the beast and got geared up. Riders briefing over and all is well.
The 125’s had been put at the back of f3 as there wasn’t enough of them to have our own class.
It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the traffic can get annoying when battling.
Race 1
Flag drops and I feel like I’ve got a good start until I see Stefan up ahead. Damn it!
Never mind he tried for a inside line and got bogged in the middle of the corner, where as I went around the out side of about 8 bikes at turn 1 and another 5 or so at turn 2.
The whole race was just constantly passing bikes. I think there was 30 or so F3 bikes that I was making my way through. I managed to get into 5th position but unfortunately had ran out of laps to do any better than that
Pretty happy with that though 1st 125 home by a comfortable margin and 5th in F3 after passing 25 odd bikes plus lap traffic!
Race 2
Flag drops and I think I’ll try my same tactic of going around the outside of people at turn 1. Worked ok, but not as great as last time. Someone ran a bit wide and cut me off. Never mind, passed some more at turn 2 and so on. I was trying really hard to catch up to the front group, but after they get off the line from front row, it takes me a while to get through the 25 odd bikes to catch them.
Never did catch them but wasn’t far off. As I came through the finish line they were just leaving turn 1.
Another 5th in F3 and 1st in 125GP
The weird thing was this race was as soon as I went past the start finish line my bike died. I pulled over at the exit of turn 2 and started pushing it back to the end of pit lane not to hold up the races.
When I got back to the pits and tried firing it up, it was fire but then cough and splutter then die again.
I checked everything. And replaced everything I could. Coil, spark plug, lead, cap, charged batt, reeds, even tried a different Ignition box.
Thankfully I had my dad on hand who saved me from spitting my dummy as far as I can see. He talked me into swapping the motor with the spare one that I bought along that I was supposed to be trying to sell. I didn’t think it would work as I was convinced that it was an electrical problem not mechanical.
Anyway, in 30min flat we had swapped the motors and do or die time had come. Will it fire. It sure did!
I had enough time to fill the radiator, put my gear on then head out to the track for my race. Talk about cutting it close!
Race 3
This race was totally awesome!
Despite all the drama and stress of the bike, I felt relaxed on the bike and was looking forward to it. Although on the warm up lap I had already discovered 2 issues with the bike. 1 the jetting for this motor was waaaaay to rich, and it coughed and spluttered at low revs, second the clutch slipped at any more than quarter throttle.. Never mind!
Got off the start a lot slower than normal, but managed to slot behind Stefan for the opening laps. We carved our way through the traffic and got a little bit of clear ground. I made a couple of passes on him, but he easily took them back. On the final lap backed off at turn one to try get a good run through turns 2,3and4. Stefan’s a little bit slower through the corners than me making it hard to maintain corner speed, which then made the slipping clutch issue even worse down the straight. With my run up, I got past him into turn 4 and held it to turn 7. Turn 7 Is the long fast sweeping left hander after the hairpin.
Unfortunately, the 125s are pinned out through there, so with the whole clutch thing going on, Stefan went round the outside of me like I was standing still. Bummer! I stuck right on his tail as we swallowed up a SV650 coming onto the back straight. I was hoping to try a pass into the final turns, but I couldn’t pull it off. I came very close to hitting the back of the other 125 on the final turn though. That was scary! Luckily no harm so came second in that race. And don’t know where in F3
I would like to say thanks to:
My dad who talked me into swapping the motors
To the organizers for putting on such a awesome event
All the people that gave me good comments on the day
And to any Future sponsors that are interested in helping a youth chase his dream.
Cheers all,
Glen Skachill
www.47.solobike.net.nz
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Originally Posted by Drew
.... sounds like a good if not slightly frustrating day 
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