Round 4 nationals 2008

After a lot of driving with a boat ride in between we were in the thriving metropolis of Feilding.
We had pit lane garages to pit in for the weekend, so we got all set up in there. Friday was a busy day, we had four sessions, I used the first one to get used to the track again and see what the tyre wear was like, and then the next three sessions were spent chasing the perfect suspension set up. By the end of the day we had the suspension fairly well to my liking.

Saturday dawned quite a nice day, The first qualifying session was up in no time. I went out with the aim of getting a few good times down in case the weather changed for the worse. I set a reasonable qualifying time and qualified in fourth place. I made some very minor changes for the second session and went out with the same idea as the session before. This time I put in some better times and felt a lot better about the way the bike was handling, I came in and had done a far better time but the pace was a lot faster and so now was qualified in fifth place. This wasn’t too bad as this is where I normally seem to qualify.

We had been told at riders briefing that the lights would be working the same as at all the other rounds (all reds on and then all off) but only one came on and then the next and so on, I was ready to go at the first red so by the end of them counting up my clutch was getting quite hot. The lights went out and my clutch was awful, it would either wheelstand or do nothing. I ended up a wee way back but picked a few riders off early on, on the first lap. Coming into the hairpin I left the inside fairly well open but my choice of line gave me good drive down the straight to Higgins, sure enough Kenneth came rocketing up the inside but I saw his speed and knew there was no way he could tighten his line up enough. I passed him back and put me head down and got past a few other riders. By lap 5 I was up to second for a little while but I was noticing that as the race went on my bike was getting slower and slower, I didn’t lose track of what I was there to do, so I kept trying hard. I slowly dropped back through the field with my lack of straight speed and finished in fifth.

We pulled my bike to bits after the race expecting to find a stuck ring but instead we found a partially seized main bearing that was losing its hardening through my motor! This quickly explained the lack of power. We changed the motor over with Kevin’s that night all ready for race two in the morning.


After tyre scrubs it was time for race two. This time I got a good start and was second into turn one behind Kirk, I had a bit of trouble getting past him, Cam Jones then got past me while I was trying to get past Kirk and we had both past him by the end of the second lap, from then on the battle was on! Me and Cam battled it out for the rest of the race, I had a few places where I knew I was strong. Cam slipstreamed back past me on the second last lap and I couldn’t get back past before the end of the race. It was an awesome race and I was pretty happy with second but I was still a wee bit gutted that I didn’t win it.

The third Race was called up so I went to the dummy grid. Just before we went out for our warm up laps, I noticed my bike was running strangely and bogging when I opened the throttle, I checked the fuel was on… which it was and by then it had got quite bad, next thing I knew it stopped! They were just letting people go out onto the track so we franticly tried to get it going again but it wouldn’t start. We took the carb out and shook it in case the float had stuck shut and changed the spark plug with another one. Finally it went, but by this time the race was well underway and the pack was almost 2/3rds of the way around the track. I went out and rode quite well, with the aim of picking off as many of the slower riders. By lap 3 I had passed Ivan who was in last place, and then got past Ashley who had fallen off at Higgins and got back on. With only a few laps to go I had Colin and Gordon in my sights, it soon became obvious that there wasn’t enough time left in the race to catch them so I finished in 16th. I came in absolutely gutted! I was unsure why my bike stopped, but it was the hardest 16th place I’ve ever earned. The timing sheet showed that I had got the second best lap time of the race which would have put me in with a good chance for a top placing.

I’d like to thank all of my sponsors, they have been so supportive to me throughout the season…
Brass Monkey Rally by the Otago Motorcycle Club
Mainland Air
Race Supplies
Arai Helmets
Elf Oils
Dunlop Tyres
Steve Ward and the rest of my team