Nationals RD1 writeup

**Kickaha** · 14th December 2004, 13:38

It's only a week late but I've been busy

I wasn't expecting to be racing the South Island rounds of the Nationals this year but was given the oppurtunity to ride a sidecar (after 3 years as passenger) by Colin Hooper who has a few spare outfits

,this would be the first time I tried a major meeting as a rider as I'd only done about about a dozen laps previously riding one of these

As Neil(Diesel Pig) had just had a shoulder operation he wasn't available so I asked Bucket and Bears racer Darryl Cotton to fill in on the side,he'd done 5 laps two years ago as a passenger so I figured he was fully experienced

I picked the outfit up Friday morning and headed out to the track to be met by Darryl shortly after,we went and signed in and prepped the outfit,gas,tyre pressures,oil and a quick check over

1st practice and we rolled out onto the track and off into turn 1,during the week some work had been done on the brake system by others involved with the team and as I braked into turn 1 I found that apart from the hand lever I didn't really have any,we continued to circulate slowly just using the front brake for 6 laps then pulled into the pits for a look at the outfit

Upon checking the brake mods that had been done it was obvious they weren't ever going to work as the leverage ratios weren't even close to being right,but as the front brake was fairly good we decided to finish the days practise then have a go at them that night,we did another two session slowly upping our speed and Darryl getting a bit more used to the handholds, changeover points etc then packed it up and shot off to Darryls workshop

I was meant to be picking up CSL at the airport at 8pm but lucky for me Lynda Blair had hubby Hamish on the same flight and was able to get her for me and then they turned up as we were trying to modify the brakes so we actually had decent ones,we made up a longer lever and changed the pivot points and it seemed to make a difference,Spike and Dennis turned up and I shot around to work and swapped some tyres over then it was off for drinks with the Chch KBers and out of towners

We had 2 qualifying sessions the first day and although we'd impoved the brakes they were still crap,but mange a 2.08 which we were pleased with as its not a bad time for newbies but fairly slow by sidecar standards,this was good enough for 6th on the grid,we came back in and disconnected the front brake from the foot pedal this gave the rear and sidecar brake more leverage and feel at the pedal,off we went for 2nd qualifying and now the brakes were 1/2 way decent and I could push it a bit more taking another 2 secs off for a 2.06 for our best lap although everyone else went faster and we dropped back to 8th on the grid

Also in practice as I rolled off the throttle it was changing gear by itself and going up one,this had the effect of making me run wide as all of a sudden I wasn't able to gas it up as much and get the drive through the corner,it did this just as Phil/Gus tryed going past us into the sweeper which put him out on the grass,luckily with no loss of control and he carried on at warp speed

After talking about in after qualifying we decided we'd try the start and if we were still having problems we'd flag it and pull off

Race 1
We launched off the line and into turn one in 7th place and I was working out where I could make the pass to pick up another spot when coming around the hairpin there was a bloody horrible noise coming from the depths of the motor,the gearbox had decided it'd had enough and called it quits

With two races scheduled for the next day we decided to tear it down and see if was fixable as Colin has a large stock of Kawasaki bits,Darryl headed off to his workshop and I shot off to work to do a bit more tyre changing for the Macefeild brothers and Dave Annan,we got the motor out and gearbox stripped to find a circlip on the mainshaft had broken and allowed gears to move further on the shafts than they should and taken a few teeth off at 10 pm we decided to call it a night even though we could have got the parts to the parts to fix it we decided witht he amount of time it would take to get them and rebuild the bike it wasn't worth it

One of the things I found when I had the oppurtunity to follow the fast guys,that although they went into corners quicker and they hauled out of them faster ,there wasn't a lot of difference in the speed through the corner

A big thanks to Colin for the use of his outfit,Darryl for filling in at short notice,he did a good job on the side as well, and CSL for being so patient with me as she spent a bit of time hanging around cold workshops intead of movie theatres and resturants

Unforunately after getting the gearbox stripped and reassembled the gearbox doesn't want to play the game and won't change gear properly so I flagged having it ready for Teretonga and have to pull it to bits yet again,I guess it'll give me something to do on my week off as well as fixing the brakes so they'll work as they should.