What a great days racing. It was my first time on the SV 'in anger' so to speak, after only having done 1 track day at Manfeild on it.
As there were not likely to be any motards in F3 this year, I set myself a goal of top ten, which I thought was pretty realistic. I was optimistically aiming for 6th as I thought winning a bit of prizemoney would be the icing on the cake.
First of all - big ups to Drew, Vikki and Jimmy, who all did bloody well.
F3 - Practice 1 - this went pretty well, although a guy crashed up ahead of me on the back straight - he looked like he had a handful of front brake as he went over the hump on the second cross roads and it locked up when it hit the ground, spitting him out of his seat and giving a bit of a tank slapper - it looked like he would recover it but then dumped it pretty hard before the right hand kink. Does anyone know who it was and if he was ok ?
After practice I checked my grid position, and was a bit gutted when I saw that I was 19 or 20 out of 22. Positions were based on Wanganui 07, and as I didn't compete this left me with a really crap placing.
In keeping with tradition from last year, I missed the second practice. One second there was just an RS125 on the dummy grid, next minute they were completing the first lap.
Race 1
I was determined to get a top 10 placing despite starting from the back of the pack. I got an absolute blinder of a start and went straight to the left and up the inside of about half the pack. I carried on going pretty well I thought, then the red flag came out - someone had crashed at the esses.
The restart was the total oposite to the first. I was about a row or two back from where I should have been
After launching, a wall of bikes appeared in front of me and there was just know where to go but follow. I had a lot of ground and places to make up.
I put my head down and got on with it, not really having any hairy moments. Maybe not pushing quite hard enough ? I did manage to clamber my way back up to 11th so was pretty happy with that, given where I had to start from. Best lap time was a 53 something.
Race 2.
I was very pleased to learn that the grid positions for race 2 were based on placings from race 1.
So I started from 11th, on the second row.
I got a great start and went through the esses, counting the number of bikes ahead as they entered the back straight. 6.....great, I had one place to get to achieve my 'optimistic' goal. The bike in front was an RGV250, and exiting the haiprin, I thought the torque of the SV would get me past, but alas, he got into his power band as I started to gain and I couldn't quite keep with him down the straight - that was one quick 250. He peeled further away with each lap.
With only a couple of laps to go, Ray Nairn binned at turn 1 - I heard later he got tangled with his son and another rider. He seemed ok so that was good.
So I thought I was in 6th place with know one close behind me. I finished and was elated. But then when I got the results I learnt I was 7th. I guess my counting while cornering wasn't that great.
Anyway - 7th place was most definitely a top 10 result and I was stoked.
Best lap time was 52.52s, which I don't think was too shabby, given I'm on a pro twin spec bike.
Overall position was 9th with 24 points.
I hope the bike was easy to spot in it's bright KTM orange.
One of the days highlights was getting the front wheel up at the dummy grid intersection.
Once again it was great to have people drop by with support and encouragement - cheers guys.
Thanks to Veronique for holding the brolly for me in race 1, and Poos for providing the Pirelli brolly dolly for race 2. And yes, I was on Pirelli's !!!
Thanks to pit buddies Drew and Vikki, and Rob for their help in the pits, and my wife for all her support.
That was a great lead up for the hillclimb next month. But I don't know whether to enter the CBR in F1, or the SV in F3 ?
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Originally Posted by PrincessBandit
Well done mate.
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