4/5 October Racing Weekend

[Slim]

How was the racing at Pukekohe yesterday???

I'm not ashamed to admit that the heavy bursts of raining & the strong, gusty winds were enough to keep me indoors yesterday.

[marty]

it was about 8am, the rain coming horizontal, and the wind shaking the house that made me wimp out. at least i got to watch the 250 and motogp racing on sky.......i see the 250's only run about 6km/h average slower than the big bikes on the twisty tracks....and they highside just as spectacular!

[gpercivl]

Manfeild was wet all day with showers and occasional patches when some dry lines opened up. I managed to get down to a 1:29 but the top guys in F3 were doing 1:25's, got a 4th then a 6th then round 3 was cancelled due to hail.

Pukekohe was much better with the track dry enough to run proddy tyres. Bill Ven Dehoven and Ross King got down to 1:11's in Race 1, I managed a 4th doing 1:15's but the winds were pretty gusty and water was running across the track in 3 streams at the hair pin (Malcolm Bell on a Ducati high sided in the warm up lap in the BEARS class big time unfortunately).

In Race 2 there was a bit of oil on the track and I dropped to 1:17's finishing 5th, but Bill VDH and Ross dropped to 1:10's...they've got super-nice lines going into turns 2 & 3.

Looking forward to the next round in November

Cheers, Greg #79 (now)

[Coldkiwi]

1:10's you say? was there much of a headwind down the back straight at Puke?

can 600's get into F3?

*CK entertains dreams of granduer*

[bluninja]

CK, you can have up to 900 cc in F3 if you drop to 2 cylinders, 2 valves and air cooling

TTFN

[gpercivl]

Originally posted by Coldkiwi
1:10's you say? was there much of a headwind down the back straight at Puke?

can 600's get into F3?

*CK entertains dreams of granduer*

Yep, quite strong and gusty I managed to get 13,600rpm in 6th which calculates out to 226km/h on the 400 which is a lot slower than the 600 motor in the same frame...I used to regularly get 260+ (max 270.3 with tail wind) kph.

Top F3 times are in the order of 1:07's and top 600 prod are 1:00 flat. My best on the 600 was 1:08...if I can get 1:11's on the 400 on a dry day I'd be happy...maybe in the Nationals

[SPman]

That was you on the FZR was, gpercival? Malcom crashed because he was going like a mad barstard on the warmup lap with cold tyres.

From a Marshalls perspective at turn 3, there was enough of the usual drama to keep things interesting - particularly in post classics when ? on a Ducati Pantah blew his motor half way through turn 3,locked up and came down, then the pack, 5 secs behind came through and another bike came down on the oil! The race was stopped.Then, with we erstwhile marshalls and helpers picking up bikes and dealing to the oil, what do we hear but the roar of the field coming at us in full flight! - someone had waved the field off again!

Never seen BestFun wave a flag quite so agitatedly. Just the thought of trying to avoid those mad buggers on their GS1000's etc fare sends shivers up me spine!

Dave was going well in 125's, starting slow then picking of a bike a lap getting a couple of 3rds - the races werent long enough - a couple of laps more in the last race would have seen a 2nd perhaps? KK was also going well, circulating middle 2nd bunch in the F3's and having some good duelling practice,but ahead of Simon. Even had Mitch on KK's bike in 1 race!

Was that BabyB we saw out there as well?

Not the best weather, but at least the track seemed to dry quite quckly between squalls.

[Kwaka-Kid]

wow greg... thats a nice top speed you have achieved previously!... sounds like my bike needs a fair bit of tweaking... with that wind i hit 6th just at the end of kink and it wouldnt pull.. which is approx 200kmph, which saw me loose alot of ground to Keith on the GSXR400 (41) as his bike just kept pulling...

[gpercivl]

Yep, that was me on #79, used to be #9 but have changed for the Nationals (hopefully will do 'em all this year). I had a couple of slides putting on power at the hairpin thru the water but nothing uncontrollable, but was backing off a lot to be on the safe side.

Thanks to all the marshalls working out there, really appreciate you putting in the time to watch out for us

Cheers, Greg

[gpercivl]

Originally posted by Kwaka-Kid
wow greg... thats a nice top speed you have achieved previously!... sounds like my bike needs a fair bit of tweaking... with that wind i hit 6th just at the end of kink and it wouldnt pull.. which is approx 200kmph, which saw me loose alot of ground to Keith on the GSXR400 (41) as his bike just kept pulling...

Hi KK, you looked to be having heaps of fun out there My 400 is pretty much stock standard 1987 with 30K on the clock which my wife swapped for a cow worth about $400. Then I added the Arrow exhaust, RGV-250 forks and Ohlins rear off my old F2 bike. Then finished off with a ram air system which works well at Puke.

You can get a lot more top end out of most std production motors by putting on a good quality exhaust system then rejetting. The 400 std jets were 0.875mm which I've richened up to 1.17mm which makes those little motors go hard.

So, for a few dollars you can probably get a lot more out of the VFR...all though mine sems to be a little quicker than Lyndsey Ross's one...he's just wwaaayyyy quicker than me thru the corners!!!

[Kwaka-Kid]

wow dude.. thanks for that.. shite i thought ur system must be something trick as.. yet sounds simple... well atm i just lengthend my exhaust and did a homemade can on the end with straight thru 44mm perf pipe... cant afford the $1200 Tyga Performance exhaust system unfortunatly.. however i am soon going to cut out the paper element of air filter and replace with some twinair foam to help it breathe.. and will prolly also make some sort of home bodged ram-air system, but have heard all sorts of bad things about this with CV carbs which are not designed for it?..

[babyB]

yep i was out there. laffs ridin with me self thinkin im soo slow.  realized in R2 that the other 3 biks are bloody big ones lol i had no show . still loved the racin . and the guys on hairpin and castrol corners..aww gee ya keept me going.

[Coldkiwi]

KK is thinking about using NEW PARTS!? NO WAY! he really is a changed man!

Well, I managed to cut 1:11's last time at puke and that was with a reasonable headwind (only 230kmhr instead of 250 previously) so maybe I wouldn't be so embarrased if I did compete in F3's? Taupo would be a different storey tho because I'm starting to learn puke and the closest I've got to the Centennial track was riding past on the way home from the Cold Kiwi rally this year

 

Good on SPman and Bestfun for risking life and limb to prevent others loosing theirs! Sounds like the race officials owe you two a beer!

[Hoon]

CK keep in mind that this was on a wet windy track with 3 rivers running across the hairpin and oil on turn 3 exit.  I could only manage 1m23s, 8 secs off my dry times but I'm not very confident in the wet (especially after last weekends wipeout).  More experienced riders were probably only a couple of secs or less off their dry times!  I still can't believe Bill Ven Dehoven and Ross King improved a sec in the 2nd race considering the conditions were a lot worse!!!

[Kwaka-Kid]

yeah hoon, i held my same time of 1:21 in the 2nd.. yet i thought i was taking it easier.. it seems every race i get out there, both with pukekohe and manfield i got faster and faster, each lap faster then the one before it, but not more hten 0.8sec.. unless another race, where between races i changed by 6secs @ manfield.. from 1:45wet qualtime and best lap in 2nd race of 1:35wet   but wow @ 8 seconds, id get a friggin ass whoopin!