RACE DAY
The day dawned nice and sunny and stayed that way for the whole day, yay!
I bought both my sons along as pit crew this time, though they constantly skived off all day
POST CLASSIC - 1989 Kawasaki ZXR750 H1
The bike had blown both fork seals at the last round, so the forks had their 1st change since I bought the bike!
Qualifying time: 2:07.205
I qualified on pole, Sean Donnelly qualified in 2nd only 1.2 secs behind.
I noticed the front end pattering on the entrance to turns. Sean Harris pointed me in the right direction with rebound settings and future oil velocities, so thanks Sean!
Race 1. 4 laps - Fastest lap 2:06.051
The 1st lap was all out war! A group of 3 of us were contesting every other corner for one and a half laps before I managed to push out a small lead to finish 2.1 seconds ahead at the flag.
What had not helped was bashing my knee on a ripple strip and loosing my much needed knee scraper on lap one
Race 2. 4 laps - Fastest lap 2:06.599
It was another 1st lap slug fest right from the 1st corner!
With the top 4 riders riding lapping within .4 of second of each other means an all out race long scrap!
On lap 2 while chasing down Paul Bingam my old friend the non engaging clutch problem that makes down shifting very difficult from round 3 returned!
I still managed to harass Paul passing him a few times only to have him blast past on the straight!
I missed another down shift and Paul gapped me, then Sean started to attack! I concentrated on trying to close the gap ahead to Paul as I had only one more lap to launch an attack, but alas, he had 60 meters on me and was looking good to win it.
Paul thought I was still right behind him and he pushed to hard into the infield hairpin and lost the front end!
I inherited the lead from Paul, but having to take avoidance measures had Sean on the attack again!!!
We contested to the bitter end the long hand sweeper back out onto the old circuit, I got good drive out that corner and went to try and change down coming into the sweeper with no joy! I committed to as much corner speed as I dared around the sweeper and prayed I could get enough drive to beat Sean to the line. As it turns out I did, the winning margin just 0:0.30 seconds!!!
Sean and I shook hands on the warm down lap, it had been a really top scrap and we had major grin factor going on
FORMULA ONE: Kawasaki 2006 ZX10R
I'd been having major straight line stability problems in testing using Dunlops, so I managed to get my hands on a rear michilin power race tyre the Aussies have been using. I noticed the stability was much better, the whole bike felt very different. I raised the ride height as the Michelin was a whopping 2.7 cm's smaller diameter than the dunlop.
Bike mods thus far are Ohlins rear shock and stiffer fork springs with braided brake lines and Vesrah pads. The motor and exhaust is thus far stock though a factory race ECU is now installed.
Qualifying time: 1:1.58:398
I was trying to get my head around what I could do with the new tyre and managed to have a mondo big slide out the sweeper in the process, woah!
I managed to qualify in 4th for a front start row position.
There were 33 qualifiers in this class!
Race 1. 4 laps - Fastest lap 1:58.483
I was third into the 1st corner. I held that position and started to reel in the Jay when coming into coke I discovered had no gear lever! I had fitted rear sets, but a pressed fitting spacer had pushed out and the gear shift lever was dragging along the track connected to the bike by only its connecting rod!
So with a few moving on board repairs consisting of grabbing and flipping the lever over, then pushing it back onto the spline and giving it a healthy kick to finish the the job. I'd been passed by quite a few people dropping down to 14th place. With the gear lever now I on I got my head down and manged to pass 5 riders in 1.5 laps to take 9th place.
I had a spare for the foot peg bracket, so was sweet for the next race.
Race 2. 7 laps - Fastest lap 1:58.357
I was 4th into the 1st corner. I was finding it hard to get the rear tyre to hook up so started to drop back from the leading trio. A could hear another bike behind me, I don't look back as a rule, but guessed it was Bruce. I lost the back end a few times but managed to hold him off then I did not hear him on the lat lap, so I'm guessing he had a "moment" as he finished 2 seconds back at the end. I noticed Bruces tyres looked tortured at the slip road gathering point!
I finished 4th but did have a fair idea where I needed to go with bike setup to get the rear tyre to hook up. Setting up superbikes is no 5 minute job!
The next race is Taupo in 3 weeks time, I'm looking forward to racing there for the 1st time
See attached photos for the bike in it's race colors.
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Originally Posted by sugilite
.......... & so fill us in on the current standings for the championship plz 
Karma ... Justice catches up eventually !! 
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