Well after talking it up in another thread, I think I put the mockers on myself and had to eat some humble pie.
Luke and I set up in the pits on Xmas Day and were all set to go....or so I thought.
Quite early on race day I tried to fire up the bike. Found I had a flat battery. No worries, put it on charge and also spoke to a guy from Holeshot Suzuki who kindly went and got a new one from the shop - cheers guy.
Practice/Qualifying 1
Bump started the bike to save the battery and headed out. First thing I noticed was how slippery the track was. A lot of cement/oil in the corners - in fact almost every corner. Had a few slides on the white lines. Did 3 laps under yellow flags then after the green flag was shown, there was a crash in front of me on each of the next two laps, so I didn't get a single fast lap in.Placed 16th.
Practice Qualifying 2
Headed out and found the bike kept intermittently cutting to one cylinder. Not a good look as I didn't want to get rear ended exiting a corner. I needed to qualify well in this session but things were turning to custard.
When I came in I was rather pissed off to say the least. I was definitely not prepared to race it as it was.
Here I have to say a huge thank you to Luke and Alan who checked over the bike. (And Kyle for his help) When going to check the front plug, the HT lead just came away from the plug cap. After cutting back the lead outer a little, the plug cap was screwed back on. (Although we didn't use it in the end, big thanks to Glen W for lending me a spare.)
Luke tested it up the road briefly and it seemed ok.
Race 1
I knew I had it all to do starting 25th on the grid but was confident of a good start. This panned out and I launched past the two rows in front of me. A crash at T1 saw a traffic jam and I found a gap up the inside. This was just the opportunity I needed so put my head down and charged after the next bike ahead. I had gotten up to 13th. I caught the next bike and then a motard which I tried to pass a few times to no avail. We came over the railway lines to the esses and managed to get up the inside and take the line under the bridge. The bike then started misfiring, but no where near as bad as before. I was worried that the motard would catch me again but was able to hang on for 11th.
Race 2
On the warm up lap my gear lever felt a little 'floaty', but I couldn't see anything wrong so thought I had imagined it.
I again got a great start and jumped past the two rows in front. Things were looking good and I was chasing Mark Anderson and could see Neil Chappel just ahead also.
Then I started missing gears and the gear lever felt like it was all over the place.
I carried on and lost a few places. I then tried too hard and with missing gears I had the rear locked into corners and feeling like it was a bit sideways - on one lap I ran into the slip road off the start straight.
I rejoined but it was too dodgy so I pulled off again.
One of the rear set bolts had fallen out and it was flopping about.
Going by my best lap time I reckon I should have been dicing for 5,6,7th place. But shit happens. Call the waaahaambulance. At least I should be able to get a half decent grid position at Paeroa.
Big thanks again to Luke and Alan for all the help in the pits. My wife, my dad, sponsors, and the Welly Crew for supporting me.
One thing I was impressed with was the safety fencing. While I'm thankful I didn't get to test them out, the plastic sided barriers and air fences were awesome.
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Originally Posted by James Deuce
@ Manfeild lol.
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