scracha VMCC rd 1 (F3 & post classics)
OK, I'll get the excuses in first. Bar the Cliffhanger, I haven't sat my arse on a bike for months and it wasn't my bike.
Arrived at Taupo a bit late. Spent scrubin scrutineering Boostin's ZXR400 orangetang. Nice looking bike.
F3 Qualifying: Umm...two nervous piss stops and I was off. Wobbled around trying to remember the track and how to ride again. Pathetic 2 minute laptime. Taupo isn't my favourite track but that was just abysmal. Seemed to be a hell of a lot of bikes out there. Thank gawd they were letting more on the grid as I qualified 38th!!! Brakes on the ZXR felt $hite but no time to fix before next qualifying.
Post Classic Junior Qualifying: Wee bit better, started remembering how to lean it over a little. Qualified 28th with a 1.55.
Frenchy adjusted gear lever downwards so I could actually reach it without standing up. Bled brakes and moved span adjuster to max.
F3 Race 1: Yeeha. Back row of grid. Reasonable start. Fired up the inside. Oh My Gawd...How many bikes. Very quickly realised that nobody in F3 will give an inch of a gap. Pootled round. Front end felt awful under braking. Lap 3 I lightly touched the rear brake on the back straight. Locked the bike up good style. Decided as it wasn't mine the safest option was to use the run off. Was a good boy (and I was nowhere anyway) and let the next 10 or so bikes past before rejoining. Finished 30th. Fun, but a Baptism of fire compared to Clubmans :-)
Post Classic Race 1: Lowered tyres to 20something PSI. A gobsmackingly T'riffic launch.... Steevie boy took his favorite route round the outside and luckily enough a traffic jam happened on the inside. 24th to 6th by the 3rd corner. A nice clean race. I was having fun. 1.52's. I've never been that fast around Taupo on my own bike. Good consistency, I never made any real mistakes, front end went bye bye on the fast T4 but I caught it. Scrawped my right hip and almost got elbow down leaning over on the fast turn 8. I nearly lobbed a semi right there. Very impressive stuff by the GSX400 (twin) rider. Got reeled in on the brakes a bike or two a lap as just no feedback from the front and lever coming back to the bars by 3rd lap. Braking about 200m on the back straight instead of the 125(ish)m I do on the CBR. Finished 9th. Came back to pits with a $hit eating grin....made the whole meeting worth it.
F3 Race 2: Good launch from the back of the grid. Up to about 20th. Think it was this race someone near the front lobbed it into turn 1. Don't think anyone landed on him. Had bled brakes again during lunch but it made @$ck all difference. The pads were like Rizlas and the brown fluid in 20 year old hoses wasn't helping. Didn't know what the twiddly bits on the fork tops did (my bike doesn't have them) and since it wasnie my beastie I decided to leave them alone. Ran onto the gravelly stuff and got back on the track without losing much momentum (2 spots lost). Is changing line twice in a corner to deliberately block someone allowed? F3 is crazy LOL. Worked on getting on the gas earlier. Was a good plan until I did it too early and ran wide on T9 before the back straight. Grass tracked at about 100K and lost 4 places. Bottled it a bit to be honest...back to the 1.54's. Too many mistakes... Finished 29th.
Post Classic Race 2: Ominous that 3 bikes went down in the warmup lap. I mean, FFS. Good start but ran too deep into outside of first corner. Tried staying with Tom but he was stupidly fast. Back to 1.54's but mostly due to traffic and veryconscious of not crashing someone else's bike on the last race. False neutral on T7 (scaaaaaaaary) and that let 3 bikes past. Enjoying myself with a good 3 way (ooer) ding dong in the final couple of laps and heading for about 15th until some dickhead pretty much parked his bike in front of mine as I was braking/tipping into T6. With nowhere to go except into his bike or stand it up on the brakes I chose the latter (had it been my own bike I'd have just taken my chances and smacked into him/her) and did my now familiar motoX through the gravel/grass. Think I finished 19th. Very pissed off until I simmered down in the pits.
Overall a very happy bunny. Kept the bike rubber side down. Back on a bike again. Broke my Taupo lap record and proved to myself I can at least boogie in the mid pack of F3. In lots of pain today just cos I haven't ridden for so long. You forget how heavy clutches are when you're not ridingNeed to do yoga or summit as 6ft 4 blokes were never meant to race 400's. Continuously held up on the fast T4 and T8's.....but to be fair I was a total bus all the slow turns. I need to show a bit more balls in the "argy bargy". Slipstreaming, block passing and generally being a bit of a c@nt seem to be de rigour in these classes. Now if I could just learn how to throw a bike into slow corners and get my knee down as a third wheel
Thanks to Rob Taylor for bringing the bike down from Auckland.
Thanks to John(?) and TeamBWR47 for taking the bike back to Auckland.
Thanks to Paul "RoadRacingOldFart" and the Team Shower Buddy crew for still helping me out in the pits even though I wasn't flying the Honda colours.
Biggest thanks to Paul "Boostin" for loaning me his bike. Top fellah.
Roll on round 2, the wonderful Manfield and hopefully my fixed CBR400.
Originally Posted by Kickha
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.LOL...See you at Manfield
SPONSORS OF Paul Dobbs ON THE FLYING DUCATI'S 749R & 999
Just for purposes of clarification, that probably isn't the same as getting down on arse is it? Tossed salad anyone?
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