Very cool forum! (sugilite)

**steved** · 7th September 2006, 09:24

Love it. Great stories.

**sugilite:Me** · 17th September 2006, 11:26

Suzuki GSXR1100K 1988
I had decided I liked this racing lark and wanted something that was reliable.
Buying the GSXR was a no brainer. I ordered it site unseen and I duly received the 1st one to arrive in NZ. I was so excited to ride away from Wellington Motorcycles knowing I was the only one at that time in the country to be on one. (well for a day or two anyways)

My road riding partner James was a onto it fellow and told me to make sure I come up to his place as soon as I had picked it up. I duly did so and he whipped out a camera before I had a chance to crash it, like I said, he was onto it! (see photo attachment)

After my usual running in ride to the top of the North Island and back it was time to order the race fairings and turn it into a racebike. I switched it backwards and fowrds from race bike to road bike often back in those days.
For the next year I raced it at the respective Vic and Manawatu Orian club winter series. I'm quite sure I took out both championships as I won every race, I have a trophy from the Manawatu Orion club for 1st place, I don't think the Vic club were big on trophies in those days

I do not remember that much about the races as I felt I did not have that much competition, so did not rate my race wins as anything special. I remember Eddie Kattenberg and Russel Josiah developing 750 super bikes for the impending World supers that came to NZ. I beat them both all the time on my production 1100, I was not impressed with the 750's so did not begin to even think about building one myself.

Eddie Kattenberg was one for mind games and intimidation. He used to threaten me with lines like "don't even think of holeshotting this race, if you do I'll punt you off the track" (I still holshotted) or the ever popular "did you see the oil in turn 2?" One of the rounds they ran reverse direction, he came up to me and goes "This is a whole new track reverse direction and you don't know it. I'm gonna kick your arse" Race one I beat him by 30 meters, race 2 100 meters, race 3 by 1/3 of a lap so as you can guess, I took absolutely no notice of him. See the 1st post in this thread, I grew up in a culture of you took out your buddy where ever you could and he would return the favour, so to this day being leant on, shown a wheel or being barged into does not phase me, just business as usual.

About 1/3 of the way through the series, a fatefull event occured. I worked for a comapany called GCS (Government Computing Services, now EDS) as a Network Controller running a mainframe computer network. It was in a concrete bunkar type setup with no windows and heavy security. This fatefull day I received a note on my desk next to my bike mag. It read something like "I see you are into bikes, me too, give me a call on extension blah blah signed Richard Leong.
I thought sweet, I'll lend him a bike mag and charge him a ZX10R in 2006 in return!

Little did poor Richard know what he had just got himself into! I rang him and mentioned I was into racing bikes. He told me he would like to come and watch the next race. I said yeah sure. I don't think I mentioned I was winning them at the time as it was not a big deal to me due to the lack of competition. I think Richard got a surprise, I do know he got his hands dirty changing my tyres right away lol. Richard had been an aircraft engineer specializing in the aeronautics side of things before getting into computers. I remember it only used to take him seemingly 5 seconds or less to diagnose and fix any electrical fault! We hit it off and became firm friends and a enthusiastic team right away. With out Richard, my racing career would probabyly have stalled after the winter series. His help was invaluable and we had a lot of laughs which helped keep my stress level down!

A year had passed since buying the 1100K. They had received a reputation in the press as the worst handling of any GSXR made. I with James help had managed to fix the handling quirks and it was primo.

Richard and I decided we would play in the big boys sandpit and enter the nationals. So I borrowed a shit load of money and off we went! By this time the FZR1000 exup and GSXR1100L had been released and the big boys had those. The biggest advantage they had was 5 1/2 inch rims and 180 tyres, I only had a 4.5 inch rim and which were designed for 160 tyres dammit! Worse still, the exups were faster in a straight line.

Pukekohe was 1st up and my hate/hate relationship with that track started with me dropping it on a damp patch in the hairpin on the warm up lap of the 1st race, a great start to the season, sitting on the side of the track with a broken master cylinder, Fuck!
Paul Gee leant me a master cylinder for race 2. I cannot remember where I finished, something like 7th I think.

Next up was Manfield, I think I got top 5 finishes.

Then it was off down south, Ruapuna was 1st up. (the racing photo in this post was taken at the dipper) I got a bad stomach bug and my day went kinda like this, get out of van for race, spew, get on bike race it, get off again, spew lie down in the back and repeat the process. I think I got a 6th and a 7th.

Next up was Timaru.
Practice went really well so I was looking forward to the race. About 3 laps in I got taken out and the resulting high side was a doosie! I was thrown so high up I can remember looking down at the up turned face of the flag marshall, I came down with a thud and of into the grass. The bike had smashed the engine cover and spewed oil over the rear tyre. Later spectators were coming up to me and saying "Man, when your body hit the track it bounced up off it again" Great, I was well on the way to discovering safe sex, I had the fucked and rubber componants down pat and just had to find the way to combine both for pleasure, actually I'm still trying to work that one out!
I ran round like a blue assed fly looking for a spare engine cover so I could front the 2nd race of the day, I finally was leant one by a visiting pom that had stayed over after the world super round, Suzuki had given him a bike. The cover as it turns out was for a 750 and was just a little off, so we araldited the gap that was left with 10 minute araldite, 10 minutes before the race! I had got as much of the oil of the rear tyre as I could using brake clean, though I did not realize the hot tyre had soaked up the hot oil.
I pushed the bike to the dummy grid and the marshalls told me "We know about the araldite, we will check your bike on the start line" Me too I thought!!! On the warm up lap I was flying down the back straight putting my hand down by the motor checking for oil, there was none, so sweet!
I got a conservitive start and into the 1st left hander, holy hell the back snapped straight out and then did the same for the next left hander, and the next, and the...well you get the idea.
It was a 16 lap race. by lap 6 I'd spun up the tyre enough to wear the oil off (yes even with fresh memories of the high side!) trouble was, I was tail end charlie, as I was coming onto the back straght, the next guy in front was exiting it. I thought to myself, shall I go for it, or just take it easy and nurse the sore body?
I took the go for it option! I got my head down and seemingly in a few laps caught the rider in front, then I started slashing my way through traffic, passing big names like Bernard along the way. On the last lap I'd got up to 3rd and was right on 2nd and 1st places tail at the finish line, oh for one more lap! I'd smashed the lap record and got my 1st podium in a national race. Richard thought I'd just gone crazy, I said I had not and when we later checked my laptimes, they were the same as my practise times. So sweet, it had been a calculated charge through the pack and not a throw the brain away ride.
The reality of the situation was, not changing to a new tyre had cost me my 1st race win at nationals level. Thats what you get being a green inexperienced rookie.

The last race meeting for the nationals that year was at Invercagill.
Yep, another race track I'd neer seen! I got another two 3rd placings with the 2nd race being a real hammer and tongs fight between Brian Bernard, Robinson and myself. You could have thrown a blanket over the 3 of us at anytime through the race and at the finish line, we were that close! I can remember the flag marshalls clapping us around the track on the cool down lap.
The race officials impounded my bike after the last race. I had heard of grumblings from other riders assuming a rookie on a out of date bike must be cheating to be getting those sorts of results.

Personally I was rapt they had impounded it as Richard and I were running a straight ship all the way. They only had the bike 10 minutes and came out the shed laughing, they could tell I'd never even had the motor apart (the inside of motors scared the bejesus out of me!) and everything else was straight as, so vindication, yay!

I sold the bike shortly after that meeting. You would think with those results that I'd have distributer backed teams bashing my door down?????

Best Crash: No doubt, the Timaru high side.

Funniest Moment: 3 incidents involving the same

Hilarious shit, but I've seen the KB PC brigade in action, and besides, it is a different World out there now days, so I best not say any more about that other than I'm quite sure he still has angry sleepless nights over that bloody black bike.

**sugilite:Me** · 17th September 2006, 11:29

The racing photo was at the dipper at Ruapuna Christchurch

**cowpoos** · 17th September 2006, 11:44

and is that where the story stops or is there another sequil?

**k14** · 17th September 2006, 12:34

Man thats awesome reading. Can see how you were doing so well on the ol 750. Look forward to seeing your results on the new zxr.

**2much** · 17th September 2006, 13:10

Originally Posted by sugilite

Funniest Moment: 3 incidents involving the same

Hilarious shit, but I've seen the KB PC brigade in action, and besides, it is a different World out there now days, so I best not say any more about that other than I'm quite sure he still has angry sleepless nights over that bloody black bike.

Don't let the tree huggers spoil our fun.... otherwise they've won. Fuck them, just post it anyway (or pm it to those interested

).

Great stuff btw.

**sugilite:Me** · 17th September 2006, 15:01

Originally Posted by cowpoos

and is that where the story stops or is there another sequil?

Hell yeah, I'll get onto it when I get a chance, get your violins and tissues out, things are going to take a turn for the worse

Originally Posted by 2much

Don't let the tree huggers spoil our fun.... otherwise they've won. Fuck them, just post it anyway (or pm it to those interested

).

There was a thread started by madboy on runners, here are my thoughts on them in that thread..
http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...&postcount=167

Though in my next post in this thread, I will relate a dream I had and it seemed so real, one would think it actually happened

**cowpoos** · 17th September 2006, 15:49

Originally Posted by sugilite

Hell yeah, I'll get onto it when I get a chance, get your violins and tissues out, things are going to take a turn for the worse

fuck are you serious!!!! fuckin hell!!!! I guess I'm fucked then....I can't play no bloody violin or tissue...........

**gijoe1313** · 17th September 2006, 21:26

Legend mate, absolutely legend. Another great read about the inner workings (or demons?) devoted to the need for speed in a "safe" environment and the back story to them. Keep it coming!

**chanceyy** · 17th September 2006, 22:01

the stories

got muh

and muh

while awaiting the next installment worthy of a

**skelstar** · 17th September 2006, 22:13

A great read as usual Sugi. Cheers bud.

**babyB** · 20th September 2006, 14:24

way cool Sugi... dont stop there wanna read more

**90s** · 20th September 2006, 16:29

Wow - looks like we are in for a treat as all those crashes and bikes by the time you were 18. How mqany bikes will there be (guesses anyone?)

Keep posting the mamoth chunks - great reads with a nice turn of phrase:

"Thought if I didn't crash I was not trying hard enough! As it turns out, I seldom let myself down in this respect" - I LOVE it when a plan comes together!