VMCC Round Two
-Kyle Hammond
The day started off quickly, with just 10 or so minutes after rider’s briefing until Street stock/125GP
qualifying started. As per usual the starting rituals of the 125’s began as soon as possible to try get some
heat into their small engine’s so warming up doesn’t take as long before the important stuff like
qualifying and the race’s. However unfortunately for me, the battery on my bike was not fully charged.
The 125 I ride doesn’t have a flywheel or stator instead it run’s a total loss system? Not too worry, Steve
setup the battery charger to try get some power into her, the past owner of the bike mentioned that it
should run just fine in the current state it is, even if the battery hasn’t been charged in a month.
However taking no precautions Steve set it up anyway. This meant that when qualifying came around I
had to warm up the bike from scratch, no worries.
Qualifying came around extremely quickly, straight after the scrub in session finished the first call came
around. We fired her up as people we just leaving and unfortunately it took forever to warm up to a
sensible level, too start putting load on it. Once it finally reached 40*C I took off down the pit lane to try
get in as many laps as possible before the session was over. As I went out there I felt extremely
comfortable because the tire’s had not been on the warmers for more than 2-3 minutes, not keen to
push it I just cruised around, getting a small feel off the bike again. I qualified in 4th place with a time of
1:26.551, I was quite happy with this because I was just .5 seconds off my team mate’s who had being
riding around with confidence.
During the time between qualifying and the first race, I relaxed because I could see my tire’s happily
getting some heat in them and the battery charging nicely, no worries for the first race I thought. Huge
thanks’ to Steve for making sure everything was setup and ready, compared to before when he had only
just 10 minutes to get 3 bike’s running and with warm tire’s, seriously awesome work for what he
managed in those precious 10 minutes.
The first race came around quickly once again but this time the bike started easily after realizing the kill
switch was turned off, My bad!. Warmed the bike up on the dummy grid comfortably and rode around
on the warm up lap. For some reason I felt really in tune and confident with the bike and actually said to
my-self, “Here we go!” If only I was that confident about my start’s. Well anyhow I lined up for the start
and the lights went off, got an extremely crap start as per usual, one of many thing’s to work on I say!.
The other guys ahead of me were braking for turn one by the time I had got off the line, I was expecting
to be eaten by street stock bike’s but luckily spilt starts had been organised properly (Thanks AJ), as this
would of caused a extremely dangerous situation. Any who time to play the good old catch up game, I
was amazed to find that by the time I got around to splash I was already on the back of William Juggins,
who had raced here many time’s on 125’s before. I passed him coming into the hairpin and started
pushing a wee bit further than I had before on this bike and felt extremely comfortable. Working my
way up slowly to Luke on the other Moto Academy 125, 4 laps’s in and I was right behind him coming in
to turn one, with the first street stock bike in our way. I saw Luke go around the outside of him through
turn one, I dived up the inside a little quickly seeing this as a possible chance to get past Luke and
possibly gain a small lead due to him being held up by the street stock bike. However I was a little bit
trigger happy with the throttle and what occurred was the back end stepped out a lot! Kept’ it pinned
and did a nice little low-side, luckily it didn’t flick me off, as these bike’s do so if you get them out of line
lot’s! Pretty much no damage (except a small scratch) done too anything including the leather’s, in fact
there was more damage done too Sam’s bike last round when it fall off the stand randomly. I was even
happier to see that in the last lap I managed a 1:20.658. I learn’t a lot about the handling of the 125’s
from this and the Moto-Academy mentor’s informed me to the mechanics of why I crashed. Excellent!
I heard over the loud speaker that the second race would be 10 lap’s long. Having mixed thoughts about
this I thought that I would just take it easy, and aim to be smooth. As usual I had a very crap start. I think
I was better off walking to the first corner. I caught up too William Juggins and followed him around for
a couple of laps, then thought to myself I could go way faster than this, buggered off from him gaining a
massive lead and hoping to catch up to Sam and Luke, however between lap 5 and after the temp gauge
was noticeably moving up and down between 65-75 (Possibly a bung temp gauge?) and I finally called it
a day by coming in on the 8th lap, got Steve to remove the tape on my radiator but by the time I went to
go out again it was too late. Was happy to somewhat still be quickish, wrapped in a time of 1:22.760.
Two None finishes, oh well missed out on possibly two 2nd place’s oh well that’s racing sometime’s isn’t
it.
Huge thanks too
Moto Academy - Steve Bagshaw and Mike for all there help/Mentoring the night before (awesome work!)
Alpinestars
Arai
Fuchs Silkolene Lubricants (Check out the stand in the moto academy pits next round there are some really cool products not just oil too!)
SBS Brake pads (They stop good!)
RK Racing Chain's
NGK Spark Plugs
Tyrewarmers.co.nz
AFAM Sprockets
GJH Fibreglass
Evolution Panel and Paint
City Honda Palmerston North
The Marshall's for all there awesome work out there!
and of course!
The Victoria Motorcycle Club of Wellington!, extremely well ran meeting
Over and Out
-Kyle #13
Reply With Quote
Sucks about the 2 DF's but as you said... That can be racing. All the best for the next round 
Karma ... Justice catches up eventually !! 
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