Sketchy wins F3 race at Nats

[Billy]

Mate then again dya remember the 250 proddy days-same time
Feilds so big we had A and B grade.
Dya think that would fill the grids back up??
A grade for the 650 twins and the fast 450's and B grade for the 400's
Or is there another reason people arent trning up to give it a go?

One word Frosty.DEDICATION,Back in those days you went racing and everything you had went into it,No flash vehicles,fancy leathers and helmets only the distributor backed riders had the good stuff and the rest of us made do with whatever we could get and you tried your hardest too beat them anyway just too prove a point(with limited success in my case)1990 National points race at Manfeild I finished 4th Behind Dave Cole,Glen Williams (the real one not the ginga imposter)and Ken Roberts with a fastest lap of 1.17.2 on a standard RGV 250L.That would have netted me 6th in the formula 3 race at manfeild last year against 80+ horsepower SVs and ZXRs and its not that I was that good as a rider but you just had too go that fast or you were nowhere,To get there you worked 80-100 hour weeks,No socialising outside of prizegivings,Nothing else mattered you lived for the next race meeting and NOTHING else.A classic example for me is Kris Shirriffs,Arguably the most talented member of the family on a roadrace bike,So why doesnt he race anymore?Because he wants too do other things with his life and he understands you cant do both,The guys still seriously fast on a bike but cant do it properly so doesnt bother.To put it simply,When you go to the supermarket too buy your groceries if you only take a $100.00 you know youre only gonna get $100.00 worth of groceries.So why would you think youre gonna win a $30,000.00 Championship with a $2000.00 pile of shit.Remember you only get out of life what you put in and weve all got 2 arms and 2 legs etc and if we apply ourselves like Glen,Terry and Ozzy do the same results are achievable with DEDICATION

[codgyoleracer]

One word Frosty.DEDICATION,Back in those days you went racing and everything you had went into it,No flash vehicles,fancy leathers and helmets only the distributor backed riders had the good stuff and the rest of us made do with whatever we could get and you tried your hardest too beat them anyway just too prove a point(with limited success in my case)1990 National points race at Manfeild I finished 4th Behind Dave Cole,Glen Williams (the real one not the ginga imposter)and Ken Roberts with a fastest lap of 1.17.2 on a standard RGV 250L.That would have netted me 6th in the formula 3 race at manfeild last year against 80+ horsepower SVs and ZXRs and its not that I was that good as a rider but you just had too go that fast or you were nowhere,To get there you worked 80-100 hour weeks,No socialising outside of prizegivings,Nothing else mattered you lived for the next race meeting and NOTHING else.A classic example for me is Kris Shirriffs,Arguably the most talented member of the family on a roadrace bike,So why doesnt he race anymore?Because he wants too do other things with his life and he understands you cant do both,The guys still seriously fast on a bike but cant do it properly so doesnt bother.To put it simply,When you go to the supermarket too buy your groceries if you only take a $100.00 you know youre only gonna get $100.00 worth of groceries.So why would you think youre gonna win a $30,000.00 Championship with a $2000.00 pile of shit.Remember you only get out of life what you put in and weve all got 2 arms and 2 legs etc and if we apply ourselves like Glen,Terry and Ozzy do the same results are achievable with DEDICATION

Bring on the 28 hour day, even more time to fettle in the garage & conjur cunning plans on how to compete with the new breeds of F3 bikes coming to our sport........
Billy - whats this imposter crap ?, - I am just carrying on the name in the best possible light. :-).
P.S - How did your day go with the headphones on at manfield mate ?
Glen

[Billy]

Bring on the 28 hour day, even more time to fettle in the garage & conjur cunning plans on how to compete with the new breeds of F3 bikes coming to our sport........
Billy - whats this imposter crap ?, - I am just carrying on the name in the best possible light. :-).
P.S - How did your day go with the headphones on at manfield mate ?
Glen

It was pretty cruisey really,The Vic club had everything SOooo well organised and the rider conduct was of such a high standard there wasnt much too do really.Didnt get too yell at anybody or anything,Was a bit deflated at the end ,But you guys put on such an awesome show I wouldnt have missed it for anything

[Skunk]

Mate then again dya remember the 250 proddy days-same time
Feilds so big we had A and B grade.
Dya think that would fill the grids back up??
A grade for the 650 twins and the fast 450's and B grade for the 400's
Or is there another reason people arent trning up to give it a go?

We don't have a problem filling the F3 field during the Actrix VMCC Winter Series, but we do run F3 and Protwin together. The way I see it - personal view - is that everybody wants to win on whatever they have. This leads to various classes being created to cater for different types of bikes.

Now we have people wanting new classes so their out-dated bikes can be competitive. I'm afraid some people will have to upgrade their bikes or just race as also-rans. Bike handling has moved on. The bike you race with has to also.

It is also worth remembering that Glen Skachill is a very good rider and that the Ozzy 450R suited his riding style.

I would be interested to see what would happen if someone else does the same thing to their also-run 600 production bike and entered F3. Will they still be an also-ran or a winner?

[steveyb]

All you younger guys and newer members of this fraternity really really really need to read closely what Billy has written here.
Everything goes in cycles in this life and the arguements being raised about the class falling apart and all that because you can no longer win on your old 400s have been heard over and over again.
The laptimes run in 1989 and 1990 on bog standard 250 Proddy bikes (e.g. Wayne Picard 1:16:00 at old Manfeild, not as fast as it is now, in 1989 on NSR250) show that lap times have not moved a huge amount in the class (given that 250 bikes now run in F3).
But machines and machine development all move on and with more testing and experience Glen Sketchy would have the Ozzy bike in the 1:11's (and maybe the Moto Academy RS250 also with some better tuning).
The machines that McMurdo, Spargo, Cudby, Webb, McCutcheon and co built back in the day were things to behold and when Mike and Ernie imported the first ZXRs and FZRs everyone else who was not a front runner bitched about it cos their old shitters were now uncompetitive.
Ahhh, such is motorsport ay?
Just consider carefully where your skill, dedication and budget allow you to be then be happy with that, or do something constructive to change it.
Don't bitch here about not being able to win cos someone built a faster bike than yours.
Are you going to bitch next about banning riders that are faster than you too?
A last comment regarding what Skunk says. He is right, but recently in MX they were giving trophies to riders down to 20th place or something like that.
Do we want to do this?
Setting up a myriad of classes sets up the same situation where excellence, dedication, effort and talent are all diluted to make winning almost meaningless. Not to mention having only limited time at any given race meeting. Do we want to gravitiate to this situation?
Really, that is what trackdays are for, not race meetings.
Enjoy.

[FROSTY:Me]

hey actually I made a suggestion a few years back.
we actually have a race class thats been created for all these old bikes.
Pre89 senior/junior. so we arent creating anything new
When the class was created it was for 15 year old bikes now of course its for 20 year old bikes.
Why not rejig that class?
Call it 15 plus.
Senior/junior. junior being up to 598cc senior being 600cc plus
Rolling year model birthday being january first of each year.
Then all the older bikes have a place to play with no complaints.

[Skunk]

Then all the older bikes have a place to play with no complaints.

Yeah right. Someone will always complain. But I like the Pre 89 and Pre 82 classes as they are. What we need is to define the next 'big step' point in motorcycle performance. What year after 89 did that happen? 98 maybe?
Set up a pre 98 class within Pre 89/82.

[lostinflyz]

i do happen to remeber during the southern rounds of nationals people bitching about the size of the f3 field. is this gonna help????maybe,maybe not.

im not gonna get into another argument on all this but how many proper f3 bikes are there now?? not many!! (i can think of maybe 6) why??? what made the fields so sizeable back in the day???