You'd be forgiven for thinking Paeroa was going to be a wet meeting what with sub-tropical cyclone warnings and the fact it was raining on the morning of race day but the Paeroa BOTS gods were smiling again and soon turned off the tap. Had a mint pit spot right by the LG guys, thanks to Ed for the storage.
This was my first time back on the track, let alone on a bike since breaking my collar bone at Manfield at the first tri-series round at Xmas. I'd been for a couple of surfs the week leading up to Paeroa and the shoulder felt pretty good so was hopefull it wouldn't be too much of an issue. Practice I took easy to check out the track, see how the shoulder handled it and bed in some new brake pads. I was on front row of BEARS and second row of Formula Paeroa so in a good spot for each for racing.
First time on a twin around Paeroa and the Ducati was in it's element through the corners, at the post office chicane it was great to have the V-twin torque and a simple blip of the throttle around 5000rpm drove me from the left to right hander after the post office. We worked on the setup in the morning, especially with trying to get more feedback from the front end into the corners and found a comfortable setting which we stuck with for the rest of the day. The brakes we needed to work on as first couple of races I had the lever coming into the bar but thanks to Dave and Rob in the team we soon had them back up to 100%.
Formula Paeroa story of the day was being stuck behind Lance Lowe (who has been away from racing a long time and did pretty well for first meeting back), his ZX10 smoked me down the straights and I'd make all the time back each lap from Fathers Tavern over the Hill but he positioned himself mid-track on a lot of corners and I just couldn't find a way past. First race I was 9th .1 seconds behind Lance. Race 2 I was 8th .7 seconds back.
BEARS was better although I let a couple of Aprilia's get the better of me off the line and ended up chasing one all the way to the line to just clinch 3rd in the first race. 2nd race was a bit of a better start and settled into 3rd behind Peter Tanner and Paul Dobbs (good riding guys) to the line to finish 3rd overall for the day to earn the team a Paeroa medal
Qualified 13th for King of the Streets, this race was a laugh as it was long and there were some comical crashes with plenty of guys getting too keen into the fathers tavern corner and bouncing lightly off the bails, as Adam Chambers did just that I managed to slip up the inside of him, Lance and Paul Brown in one go just before the yellow flag came out...lucky the Duke is quicker than the marshall's flag! Finshed 8th in this race.
The shoulder stood up to it well but 2 months of resting up (ok...beer drinking) has taken it's toll on race fitness and upper body strength as I started to feel the pinch in the longer 10 lap races but top 10 finishes in all premier class races and couple of 3rd places in BEARS = a happy time back in the saddle. Learned a bit more about the bike and it's handling characteristics from the day and definitely felt more comfortable and got faster across the day, the bike's got great traction and only had one real 'moment' coming onto the back straight when I got a bit keen on the gas chasing Lance.
The KTL/Anglo team were there from start of the day helping set up, fine tuning the bike, offering moral support like...."don't mess it up, Sound of Thunder is next week!" and generally being good buggers. Well done to Vicki as well (who no doubt in her report will be very modest) on her top 10 BEARS result! Obviously didn't get to see your riding but great to see you calm the nerves and get a top 10 finish, nice one!
Big thanks to KTL Motorcycles (cheers Kerry, Emma and Moose...by the old motomail shop in Western Springs), Anglo American MC Club (Kerry, Dave, Rob, Cherry and all who helped on day), Motohaus 2008 (thanks for the Ezy-Up AJ), Bike Tranz, Pirelli and Fredco Motors.
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It spent so much time off the ground.Man that bikes sounds good...Thankyou for bringing the KTL 999 home in 2 
places..It gives everybody in the team a boost and with Vicki's top 10 finishes wow what a day....So on behalf of your pit crew a big THANKYOU...Now if you had broken it.......
Originally Posted by Kickha
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