Test day Saturday. Felt OK. Sun finally came out and on went the Dunlop slicks. OMFG
Sooooo much grip. Handling all to $hit as profile of the tyres so different from the Dunlop GPR A12's I'm used to. Much more acceleration, must be the less weight and I basically spent the rest of the day and race day braking far too early. Drunk far too much untll Billy kicked me out his garage at 1am and back to my freezing tent.
Racing....well I canned F2 as I was loaded with man flu and didn't feel up to it.
Pre89 qualifying: Followed Webster's ZXR750 for about 3 laps and got a decent tow on the final one. Felt pretty good speedwise. Pulled in as feeling exhausted as unable to breathe in through my nose. 7th on grid. 2nd pre89 junior
Race 1: Held on final light for ages. Everyone crept. Terrible start, wheelied, wheelied again, hooked 2nd, it jumped out, hooked 2nd again, jumped out again, FFS. First couple of laps battling the traffic that had passed moi. Ant Montgomery (bloody fast and well presented VFR450) flipped me the bird as he passed me. This upset Frankencane so the old beast bounced off the rev limiter a few times thus allowing me to reciprocate a lap later....good times. Pushed on past George Gaisford's KR250. Ernie Cudby's FZR6/4 was within sight but unable to close gap the whole race. 1.20.4 best lap and 2nd in Pre89 Junior.
Popped over to Ant's garage to do a victory dance. Neil Chappel arrived with 45 tooth sprocket that Paul Martindale had machined and loaned me to try. Frenchy very kindly swapped my slick onto the better rim.
Race 2. Fooking hell going from 42 to 45 teeth was making it wheelie badly. Major difference in gearing meant I was hooking 6th and took a few laps to figure out I was gonna have to drop down 4 gears instead of 3 on some of the corners. Better start but Ant and George were going hell for leather having just came in from an F3 race. Reeled em in again and got George by sliding it up the inside of Splash. Spent next 2 laps "breaking" them. Lapped traffic taking bizzarre lines meant they caught up with me a few laps later so I had it all to do again. Again 1.20.4 best lap but wasn't pushing as hard due to light rain. 2nd in Pre89 junior again.
Bike feeling "wooly" after a few laps and getting worse as race continued. Coolant OK. Suspect either fuel pump issue or more likely simply running lean. Handling fooked by the slicks (so much grip but making everything shake when pushing) so it'd be a tough choice between what to fix first were it not for the face I'm totally skint. No PB's today then but the bike was certainly capable of it, even with the above issues. Need to get head around being able to brake about 0.25s later on every corner.
Lot of racing for a measly $150, free camping.....keep up the good work PMCC.
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Originally Posted by Toast
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