Jay Lawrence Nationals Round Four Manfeild

[JayRacer37]

Foreword by my father, Andrew Lawrence

Dear sponsors and supporters,

Our Round Four effort at Manfeild was a huge disappointment to us. There were a couple of contributing factors which I would like you to consider when reading Jay’s Race report which follow in no particular order.

1. We have spent days and days at Manfeild over the winter which we thought was essential to develop and set the bike. The other side of the coin is that it has given Jay a wealth of experience there in cold, low grip conditions. In the heat on the weekend he had to effectively ‘re learn’ the track where others whose last visit was the 2007 National meeting found the conditions familiar. I understand now what mentor Craig Shirriffs meant when I asked him about missing the Vic Club winter series last year, "I don’t see the point in practising going slow" he said in his typically blunt way.

2. We are not alone amongst teams running the 07 ZX6R in striking a meeting where a fast set up eluded us right up to and including the last race of the meeting. In the first round of the world Supersport Championship screened live on Saturday night I could not overlook the irony that the factory backed bikes where clearly stuck in a conundrum in very much the same way we were half a world away. It is a great bike without doubt, but very sensitive to adjustments of balance to suit different racing conditions.

3. I made a mistake in dedicating three out of the advertised five test runs on Friday in trying to adapt what had been a very good set up at Teretonga to the bumps and stop/go nature of Manfeild’s short track. Returning to winter Manfeild settings for test four and then the cancelling of test five by the organisers meant that we effectively went into Saturday’s two tests before the qualifying where we should have been by mid morning Friday. Getting that far behind the other top teams in preparation meant we had to choose between being conservative and sacrificing Jay’s opportunity to compete for the lead or being experimental and risking not only his opportunity to gather useful points in the championship but also his safety.

My apologies to all involved for not bringing you a better outcome.

Yours Faithfully
Andrew Lawrence (Team Leader)

[JayRacer37]

Hey guys. Sorry this is such a novel!

As Dad has said above, the weekend didn’t go at all how we had hoped it would. In fact, we were left struggling and behind at almost every turn, only finding a setup that was a real improvement for the first time going into the last race! Unfortunately, this proved not to be the best way to leave the impression we wanted at our first local/north island round!

FRIDAY:
We rocked up to the track bright and early, ready to get set for a good day, and all very happy that we were arriving with what we thought was a good base setup, after our forays down south. Well...it didn’t pan out like that! We got right down to trying things on the bike, focusing mainly on geometry, more precisely, rear ride height. We were chasing a good balance for the bike round and round. At first we thought that the right direction was to make the bike taller in the rear, but this was making it more and more unstable and flighty on turn entry, and hard and unpredictable to hold a line. We then started to go in the other direction, lowering the rear. This made a small improvement in feel for me, but no notable improvement in lap time. Nearing the end of the day we admitted that the solution we had found that had worked really well down south on their smooth racetracks just wasn’t going to work on Manfeild’s notoriously bumpy surface (recent resealing has been entirely futile, as using the track too soon after sealing has left it torn and ruined by cars... as bad, or worse than it ever was). Quickly a shock was sent off to Ohlins guru Robert Taylor, and returned to us promptly. We only had time to use this shock for one session on Friday, so were left with only a brief impression of what it would be able to do, although this was enough to send us home reasonable happy with what may be possible to improve on the bike on Saturday.

SATURDAY:
Another session spent trying to fine-tune the new shock left us with questions with the front end. Its inability to deal with bumps, particularly mid-turn, and also on the brakes during change of direction left us at a loss. We worked on this aspect of bike handling for a couple of sessions, trying the differing fork build specs, between The Grinch (bike one) and Humpty Dumpty (bike two) by swapping forks in and out. We picked an overall bike setup from our favourite parts so far in the weekend, and built this all onto one bike, the Grinch, which would be used for qualifying.

Saturday Qualifying:
I got my head down at the beginning of the session and just did all I could to put in a good time. At times I went just a bit too far and ran very wide( I’m sure that this would have looked worse still from the pits though!). At one point I was on a ‘good’ lap, coming out of the sweeper onto the front straight and going very wide, out to touching the kerb and I saw Dennis Charlett barely moving and about a metre out in the middle of the track! I got off the throttle very quickly and after some massive body language trying to move the bike I missed him by a foot or so. This shook me up a little so I took a slow lap, following Derek Hill round. Unfortunately, I forgot about Matt Sadowski who was sharing the track space with us, and ruined a lap of his by being in the way at the hairpin. Sorry Matt! Anyway, qualifying ended with a pretty abysmal 9th place, although up to 5th was all within the same second. This left me on the inside of the track on the third row for the starts on Sunday.

SUNDAY:

Scrub:
We were trying another totally different setup for scrub, but we didn’t get as many laps as we thought we would so we were almost totally blind going into the first race with the bike set like this. We kept this setup, as we believed that almost anything would be better than what we had tried on Saturday.

Race One:
My start was good, leaping off the grid but getting blocked hard up against the inside of the track in about 7th place. I passed a couple of people in the traffic of the opening lap. After this I rode as hard as I was comfortable on the bike but was losing places anyway, down to 8th within five laps. I saw one of the key places I was losing time (mid-turn over the bumps in turn two) and decided to just try going into there with the same pace as the people I was on track with. Instantly the front end was washing out on me, then I hit the second set of bumps and it was even more out of shape. By luck only I held onto it, although I was now way out wide and had lost even more time on the others ahead of me. This proved to me that what I was feeling with the bike was accurate, and that my mistrust was not completely ill-founded. I rode defensively for the rest of the race to finish just ahead of Chris Sucich, in a disappointing 8th place.

Race Two:
We made yet another big, big guess and change (thank you, Hamish!!!) on setup, and made a significant difference to the bike. Although the bike wasn’t a lot faster for lap speed, it was much, much easier to ride, more predictable and easy to put consistent laps in on. This improvement came purely because of Hamish’s unending commitment to putting the best bike possible out there, along with Dad’s help and Robert Taylor’s technical input. Without these guys in my support network I would really be screwed. Also, with the help of Anthony for this weekend and for Pukekohe, the extra set of hands was ALWAYS there when needed. For this, I thank all you guys. 

This race was red flagged at very close to half distance, and was declared a two part race, with half points for each part.

Part One:
Another great start and a more aggressive approach to turn one left me 5th for the first lap. Much to my delight I didn’t go backwards at all (other than two places in lap two after a mistake, and I stayed closer to these two riders than I had in race one) although I was pulling a bit of a freight train. On about lap nine I had a few slides and gives from the front tyre, and knew that race one’s imperfect bike balance had affected its longevity. At this point I thought I was going to just go backwards, but for another two laps I didn’t lose a place. Then the red flags came out when Kyle Key had had a big crash right behind me. Apparently he was using my wide line coming out of the sweeper and hadn’t anticipated the big hole at the end of the kerb that I didn’t seem to be too affected by, as I was using the kerb more as a ramp to jump the hole. Anyway, this left me 7th for the first part.

Part Two:
The results of the first part of Race Two were used as the grid positions for the restart. Although this boosted me a few places it also put me near the outside of the track. I got a good initial launch, but Nick Cole came from the inside on my right and Matt Sadowski came to the outside on my left, and they very nearly collided, pinching me out and making me get off the throttle. This put me about 11th in turn one, and I really thought that with the used front tyre I may not be able to maintain the pace of the bikes ahead and I would go downhill. Surprisingly (to me, anyway) this didn’t turn out to be the case, and I made a few passes in the first lap to latch on behind Dave Sadowski and Scott Moir, both guys who had ridden away from me in Race One. I was pleasantly surprised when after five laps I was still with them, even more so when on lap seven I was able to pass Dave and then one lap later, do the same to Scott. I held my lap times and Scott followed me to the end of the race, but was never able to put a pass or move on, so I finished a happy (for this weekend anyway) 6th in part two.

CONCLUSION:
Although this comes off very gloomy, it was not through the lack of efforts from those in the Museum Hotel Kawasaki pits. Hamish worked ridiculously hard all weekend, not even turning his brain off in the evenings to relax. Andrew tirelessly changed tyres and looked after the Conti’s and pit management side of things, so everything that needed to be done, was. Anthony was flawless, always in the position that people needed him when another set of hands was needed, changing wheels and shocks without complaining (like Hamish!) and providing humour, jokes and smiles for all that ventured past our sometimes gloomy pits.

To everybody who was there for Museum Hotel Racing, I apologise for my inability to give the feedback that was needed to help Hamish make the bike better, but I never managed to get comfortable enough to push on the bike, and I apologise for the lack of results here after our much more successful south island venture. By good fortune, I am still third in the points moving on to Pukekohe, my favourite of all the New Zealand tracks. We will be looking for an improvement, so bring it on!

Cheers, Jay #37

[Grub]

That's great read guys ... and explains a lot. Watching you on the track Jay, you *looked* like you were racing hard but not putting the learn on anyone as we're used to seeing - so your report makes sense of it.

Go Puke.

[sugilite:Me]

Theres never any reason to apologize for putting in a top effort, obviously by both rider and team. Bloody well done considering the obstacles. You came through rubber side up and points on the board

Now go to puke and kick some "ass" and I ain't talking bout a donkey

[FROSTY:Me]

Bad luck dude.sorry to hear the results werent what you expected

[slowpoke]

The results mightn't be your best but top marks for the write up and your obvious huge effort on the weekend. Thanks for the insight.

[suzuki21]

One needs to not piss around during practice and qualifying.
Foxing, trying to learn others lines etc, limits usefull tracktime. You need to do more laps thinking what you are doing - not everyone else.

[koba]

Great write up guys, It is great to have such an insight into what goes on to put together a top race effort and how important setup can be at such a competitive level.

Even the placings you did get were better than binning it so I think the decisions made in setup experimentaion and contol exercised on the bike were far form fruitless.

Roll on the next round aye!

[Riff Raff]

Hey Jay thanks for giving readers an understanding of what goes on back in the pits, and the obstacles trying to get a bike set up for different tracks. Having gone through this so many times with Jimmy I can understand how damned frustrating it is.

[Ivan]

Hey Jay man, Good stuff shame it all didnt go to plan, I can see what you ment about racing in the wintercompared to summer its a completly differnt track,

Catch ya at Puke cant wait to see how you get on man.

Ivan

[Devil]

Bad luck, hope it improves for Puke!

Thanks for letting us keep Jill's bike in the garage overnight!

[roogazza]

I read in WSB and GP's guys getting bulked when on hot laps in qualifying , I know we're at a different level here, but its all part of the learning curve.
Interesting comment from your mentor re racing in the winter series, also misleading when results are quite good in that series , when the opposition might not be at the strongest ? Keep at it, didn't someone say, 'you're only as good as your last result. ' ? G.

[Shaun]

I read in WSB and GP's guys getting bulked when on hot laps in qualifying , I know we're at a different level here, but its all part of the learning curve.
Interesting comment from your mentor re racing in the winter series, also misleading when results are quite good in that series , when the opposition might not be at the strongest ? Keep at it, didn't someone say, 'you're only as good as your last result. ' ? G.

I think what Craig meant was, as the track is so cold, what is the point of re setting a complete motor bike to work in those conditions, when the racing that matters to him, is in the summer! So why waste his time going slow

I fully agree with Craig on that, I never did the winter series stuff, as the tracks are way to cold to work well, as in summer

[flame]

Sorry to read you are disapointed with the day Jay. Such a precision sport is always going have ups and downs. The many huge ups you have had should be making you smile. You have NEVER disapointed a crowd nor your team of supporters!! And there is going to be SO many huge ups yet to come for a long time. So SMILE and wear it proud!!!

[Clivoris]

Great write up Jay and Dad. The difficulty of setting up such a sensitive machine completely eludes me. I can turn as many knobs and other variables as much as I like on the CBR, and it doesn't seem to make a dot of difference. Simple and slow, just how my wife likes it.
Thanks for the insight into how hard that top level stuff is and keep it up man.