Round 5 nationals Pukekohe 2008
The first session on the Friday, was spent familiarizing myself with the track. I had sorted out in my head where my strengths and weaknesses would be and where I needed my strengths to be to do well. It was a bit of a shock to me how bumpy some parts of the track were, as they were worse than I remembered.
I was having a lot of suspension trouble for the rest of the Friday, I was changing front end ride heights, and clickers everywhere to try and get the bike a bit more settled through the high speed bumpy turns. By the end of the Friday I was 90% happy with the bike, but our last session was cancelled due to time constraints. We put a new piston in that night all ready for qualifying the next day.
In the first qualifying session, my det counter started clocking up lots of dets, I came in and we changed the main jet to richen it up a bit. I went back out and set a good time which qualified me in second. The second qualifying I felt that my bike was really slow and as it turned out it was running really rich, while the det counter was still picking up a lot of dets (saying it was too lean). After all this I was qualified in fifth position, this seemed about normal for me so that was OK. After the qualifying we took the head off to have a look at what was happening with the jetting. We lifted the head to find that it was running really rich, and no major signs of detonation. After seeing this it was obvious that the det counter wasn’t showing what was really happening, Kevin taped over it so I couldn’t see it and we jetted it a little leaner for the race.
My start for race one was absolutely awesome! I was in second from the second row of the grid, behind Kirk, Jason Easton passed me through turn one (jennian homes) and we went down the back straight, and the race was red flagged.
We lined back up on the grid for the restart, this time I got an absolutely awful start. By the time I was going down the back straight I was in approximately 12th place, I worked hard to make up the places before the front group got away. By the end of the lap I was up to 6th place behind James, throughout the rest of the race the two of us picked off the other riders until we were up into 1st and 2nd place. We had a good battle for the lead, I was still having trouble with my bike being jetted a little rich, this was allowing James to pass me down the back straight. My plan was to pass him over the hill on the last lap which I attempted but didn’t have enough bike power to win the drag to the line. I was happy with second, especially because Cam had finished behind me in 3rd place.
We went a little leaner again for Sunday’s first race, which was delayed due to the two tragic fatalities in the 600 race. I got away to a respectable start and by the third lap I was in the lead. Cam Jones came ripping past me down the straight to put an end to that! I was having trouble with Cam as he would hold me up in the corners and then pass me back again down the straight every lap. On the fourth lap Avalon joined in the games, passing me down the front straight. I had practiced my passing move into turn two and got myself back to 2nd place. Avalon kept passing down the start finish straight and I kept getting back past in turn two. On the seventh lap Avalon went a lot faster into turn two in an attempt to stop me passing, her line got quite bad quite quickly and she ended up high siding right in front of me exiting the corner onto the back straight. I went to great lengths to avoid the collision, which left me with next to no drive down the straight. Sure enough Adam came past just before the hairpin. I chased him for the rest of the race to finish in third.
We lined up on the grid for the New Zealand TT race, the last race of the national series. I got away to a good start, and was 4th at the end of the first lap. By the end of the third lap I was leading the race, Cam passed me down the straight but I out braked him into the hairpin, and was leading again. As we came over the hill we saw the red flag and slowed down and came into pit lane. The race was one lap short of being called a race so we had a four lap re start (I would’ve been very happy if it’d been called a race) This time I had moved up to 2nd behind Cam by the end of the first lap. Adam then passed me and out braked Cam at the hairpin to take the lead, but it was still a very close race. On the second last lap James passed me, this was by far the closest race of the whole series. On the last lap the positions were much the same until the hairpin… Cam was leading down the straight so we all had a go at out braking him, by the time we reached the apex we had 7 bikes all dicing for the lead. I still don’t know how no one fell off because at the exit of the hairpin we were taking up the whole width of the track. In all the carnage I ended up behind Jason Easton, I got much better drive over the hill to try and beat him to the line but I missed out by 0.087 of a second. Cam finished behind me, having gone from 1st to 7th in one corner!!!
We didn’t know the real TT results yet as the re start was an aggregate race, I figured I was too far back to get on the podium so came into pit lane. Because the first race was a little more spread out than the first it turned out that overall for the TT I finished second, I got called up to the dummy grid for the podium. It was a proud miment standing there to have second in the TT race and second in the championship!
Overall the season was pretty awesome!, he had a bit of bad luck but still did far better than my goal of a top five placing. I was happy with almost everything I had done throughout the season, and my riding. Finishing second left a VERY clear goal for next year… WIN!!!!
I’d like to thank all my sponsors thathave been so good to me, without their support there is absolutely no way I could’ve done so well!
• Brass Monkey Rally by The Otago Motorcylce Club – The most supportive club ever! See you all at the brass monkey rally on queens birthday weekend.
• Mainland Air – For the time off work to compete in the nationals and the financial support.
• Arai helmets – The best helmet I’ve ever had (so good that I took their word for it and didn’t even need to try it out!)
• Race Supplies – For all the fantastic parts on my bike, and of course for all of Kevins help throughout the nationals, thanks Kev!!!!! Couldn’t have done it without you!
• Dunlop Tyres – I found more grip in these tyres than I ever thought I’d have.
• Elf oils – The best oil, my bike stayed running through some amazing faults thanks to this great oil.
• Steve Ward – For all the work on my bike and the help with suspension and everything, right throughout the season. Steve’s spent hours of his time on me and my bike
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by scracha
Bookmarks