Well, after blowing a fork seal at Wanganui and not realising until after the Taupo Spectacular (spectacularly bad!) then racing at Paeroa with what was later diagnosed as a broken collar bone (after crashing my road bike 3 days beforehand) I was praying to any God I could think of and seriously contemplating a virgin sacrifice to have a completely boring, uneventful weekend. I got my wish, but maybe if I'd managed to find that elusive virgin then my results might have been a bit better.
My trip to Toe-paw started Wednesday 500km's North/West of Darwin. A chopper to Dili and a charter flight to Darwin had me kicking back savouring beer....glorious beer, for the first time in 3 weeks. 1:00am and I was off to Sydney on the mongrel red-eye and a connecting flight to Wellywood had me back on Kiwi soil and just a bus/train trip from home arriving Thursday evening. A hug from the missus and a question in her eye had me doing a quick self inventory: "Sorry Darl, my dick's still on Darwin time so the mind is willing, but the flesh is weak." She was kind enough not to look too relieved...
A couple of urgent odd jobs were knocked off on Friday morning (no my missus wasn't one of them) before I headed off to Wellington to pick up some new gear from Martin at Motomart (remember that crash?) who did me a fantastic deal on some great gear. Then I was finally on my way to Taupo for the Kiwitrackdays event on Saturday.
After all the talk of dodgy track repairs I'd already comitted to sitting out the first session and waiting for a bit of temperature to creep into the track. One look at the repairs glistening in the sunlight didn't persuade me otherwise. A day of trickling around and getting my head 'round the long track again had me feeling a bit more comfortable. I'd also used some of Dr Bob's teachings to make a few changes to the bike and it was actually feeling like a bit more enthusastic about going 'round corners instead of the slightly reluctant dance partner it had previously been. Well done to Steve and co for the day, coning off the last corner resulted in a relatively trouble free day.
Sunday is finally here and another stunning day is emerging from the fog. I tell ya what, when Toe-paw turns it on it really is a stunning place.
Oh yeah, I was finally early to a race day too! Ok ok so daylight saving might have played a small part in that but lets not get too picky eh?
I was pitted with TonyOK, Johan, Scracha and Quasi so thanks to those good buggers I was only nervously diving for the dunny every 15min rather than the usual 5. Qualifying finally came and I managed to find a reasonably clear bit of track and get into a bit of a groove. I tried the narrow line coming onto the pits straight but the white lines were more of a concern than the repairs so I just stuck with the wide line as though the cones were still in play from the previous day. 8th was the result and while the time was nothing flash I was happy enough to take a step towards one of my goals of making top 10.
Race 1 is called and I'm happy to be on the outside of row 2 rather than in amongst it all. Travis Moan(sp) gets an ordinary start in front of me and I put a wheel in front, thinking "I'm not doing too bad here..." only for a couple of blokes to coming flying through and when Travis soon puts me back in my place my bubble is well and truly burst. Reality sets in and I've got some work to do. I'd had a chat to Choppa about a couple of lines after watching Stroudy and co at the Scrivy Spectacular and he confirmed a few things for me so I firmly stuck to riding inside the patches and changing a few lines and I managed to pass a few guys back. I could see Biggles08 a few seconds in front of me but I didn't make much impression. A comfy couple of closing laps resulted in a 9th place, and my first top 10. I won't mention the small (22) field or the fact that half of them were 600's if you don't...
Race 2 and I was keen to break into the 30's after a high 1m40s best in Race 1. A better start had me sitting a bit better off but basically battling the usual suspects. Once things had settled down I was a couple of seconds back from Biggles08 again! He's a nice bloke though and kindly ran off at the corner leading onto the main straight and I was left with daylight in front....where'd everybody go? A couple of lonely laps and I finished in 8th. I was happy enough with the placing, and consistent laptimes but without anybody to chase my best lap was actually slower than race 1, bugger.
All in all a nice uneventful day at the track. Despite all the talk about the track my bike barely gave a casual wriggle all day so apart from ignoring the repairs next time, I've obviously gotta try harder.
Thanks must go to the guys at Motomart: Martin uses what he sells and knows what he's talking about, and Tony and the workshop crew did a great job on my forks in a very short space of time.
Special mention has to go to Scracha: from hero to zero, twice, what a fuggin' legend.
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Originally Posted by Tony.OK
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