These fantasitic weekends away racing just continue to be fargin awesum.
Traded in the Hilux ute on Thursday afternoon and spent Thursday night putting a ply floor and front wheel choc in the new Hiace - for all of you that ever saw my 5m alumimium plank and have had a joke at my expense concerning it F@#k you its gone
Got to Garage #27 and set up in and amoungst BJ, Jamie, Marcus, Aria and Travis spent most of that time getting some wets on the spare rims and changing them over onto the Yamakazi.
I wasnt too worried about the weather and had made a connection in my head that wets are made for maximin grip in pissing down rain all gud spank it hard stay off the white lines.
I had decided to cross enter F1 just for the track time (double the time for an extra $20 bucks) and my goal was not to get lapped.
F1 Qualifying
It was raining and some how i thought this was a practice rather the a qualifying round, i decided to go hard and thought that everyone was just taking it a bit easy, came in feeling really confident found out that this was infact the qualifying round and that i had qualified 6th! hahaaaaaaa
F2 Qualifying
It was still raining/very wet qualified 5th HHHHHHaaahaaaaaa obviously the whole F2 field was playing a joke on me.
F1 Race 1 Track Condition: Cry me a river
Set up second row of the grid...bang...we off, i would just like to say at this stage if there is anyone out there who can help me with my starts...come and help me im shit...T1 was an education in getting monstered and i dont think i was quite ready for the banging of fairings the touching of knees and elbows nothing like anything ive experienced in Clubmans. True to the Ginger by the time i got round T1 i wasnt happy and thought maybe i could snatch a few places back before T2, someone must have cut me off i jumped on the rear brake locked and it was up to the bike where i ended up, fortunitely on the grass and upright unfortunitely i gave it too much throttle and wiped out, picked myself up and fell over the bike trying to get it upright i had 3 thoughts going through my head thought #1: just walk away, thought #2: there are 100 people watching from the stands, thought #3: pick the f@#ken bike up and salvage some pride ya dickhead.
Managed to pick up the yamakazi and get back on the track that took about 40 seconds so im half a lap down on the first lap sniff...pushed it as hard as i could and passed a couple of guys before the finish.
After looking at the lap times i saw that i was in the 50,s and 51,s which would have placed me up round 8th or 9th woulda, coulda, shoulda its all good i never got lapped.
F2 Race 1 Track Condition: Still Wet but dry line forming
This was the important one, my goal for the series coming out of clubmans was to finish my F2 races in mid pack.
Jamie R by this stage had pulled out of racing for the day due to mechanical problems and was changing tyres at breakneck speed and generally rallying the troops, literally finger in my face he told me to chill, be patient and pick my moments to pass. The track was still wet at this stage and again im on the second row behind Scetchy racer....bang...we off 13000 revs front wheel lifting, planted it, and got round T1 ok went as hard as i could cant remember much of the race but came 8th!
Came into the pits and saw that my rear wet had taken a beating on the rapidly drying track, the weather was still undecided so i decided to stick with the front wet but put a raceteck K2 on the rear.
F1 Race 2 Track condition: Drying Out
Noticed on the dummy grid that quite a few riders had opted off the wets for full slicks or normal race tyres.
Bang...we off, T1 nightmare from racer hell bikes everywhere behind, infront at the side no where to go cept forward.
There was no wet track to slow and equalise the field, went as hard as i could but the bike felt a wee bit strange under braking down the end of the back and start/finish straights prolly due to the tyre combo.
Finished 19th out of 26 riders.
F2 Race 2 Track Condition: Dry
By now i had chucked my wet front away and had decided to run a full set of Metzeler Racetechs.
Back out on the grid...bang...we off, this was a good race even tho i got swamped again at T1, had some real dicing fun with three other riders headed by Bruce Williams, managed to pick off two of them and got beside Bruce coming down the back striaght on the last lap, this was kewl side by side flat out waiting for each other to brake Hahaaa we both broke at the same time then the bastard lets go of his brake shots out in front but almost misses the corner anyway i couldnt press past and we went over the finish 0.03 secs between us! anyway came in 14th out of 22 riders.
Looking at the points after the round i am running 22nd in F1 and after rubbing my eyes saw that im placed 8th in F2.
I know its only round 1 but its a good result.
Thanks to everyone that came up and patted my back or give me shit its all good. Congrats BJ and Travis on your Round 1 series wins.
Thanks Jamie for your advice and thanks Jamie and Marcus for your help in the pits see you in a month and dont miss that next installment of my Blog "Confessions of a 40 year old racer" to be posted soon.
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Originally Posted by scuzeme
good luck for the next round.
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