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Russ done the 4 hour at Wakefield on Sunday and done OK to,
his team finishing 26th out of 35 bikes to cross the line.With 5 teams suffering the dreaded DNF's bring the total grid size to 40 at the start.
Well done Russ to you guys , considering who you were up against I think the results are great.
Damn I wish I could have been there :(
Russ post up some pics when you get a chance ;):D
congrats matey!!!
(pics or it never happened [:P])
well done russ.
Just out of the points...LOL
Good one Russ
well done russ
sweet good one russ
Ah, well, thanks Dave. I wasn't gonna brag, coz we were aiming to go a little better... just got slowed down 1 or 2 laps more by the weather/pace car/pit stops than the teams ahead of us...
OK, well, I don't usually post too much race stuff up here, coz the only race bike I got that runs is very tupperwear... Anyways, was a good weekend, cept for a bit of weather! I'm disappointed with my lap times, but in me defense... the track was cold, and rain overnight washed all the rubber off... the wind was strong, really blowing the plastic fantastic around, and I was being careful to bring it back to the pits upright... as the ONE thing worse than having a slow member of a team in an endurance race, is the slow one CRASHING!!! and loosing more time..
Hopefully, I might have a propper 'fighter racebike up and running soon... coz no one wants to buy it, I'll have to finish it off!
Race Report
Well, the weekend started off well. The first long drive in me recently acquired Falc-hoon had me arriving at the track feeling more refreshed and ready-to-go than than a similar trip in my long suffering HiLux would have...
Although, the drive was mostly with the wipers on. Rain was steady at times, and very heavy at others. So, arriving at the track, I wasn't in a real hurry to get un-packed, and out on track. Although, I am not scared of racing in the rain, and was ready to do some wet Saturday practice if the track didn't dry out.
After spending 1/2 hour de-flooding our garage (why would you build the garages at the low point of the land???), unloading my gear and some team-mates gear, I was ready for my 1st practice session. Looking out onto the track, it looked bone dry, so I was pumped to start putting in some hot laps. That feeling lasted until Turn 2... The 2 or 3 meter stretch of standing water right across the width of the track had me on the anchors!!! I soon found out that T2, 8 and 10 had rivers. This limited the amount of "push" one could apply... However, things were learned by participating in Saturday Practice. I was feeling kinda OK on the bike, and a 1:18 on a track that wet had me confident of good times on Sunday, the bike was running schweet, and that slicks on water don't grip. And I mean, don't grip. Not a loss of traction, not "ease off and hold it a little more upright". I mean, no throttle, no brakes, bolt upright and it still slides at both ends... Good to know for the future, and good to know if the rain comes Sunday...
Sunday dawns clear and dry, and despite a few ales the night before I was up @ 6 and ready for action (after a quick trip to the local purveyor of danishes and croissants Qualifying Sun morning and the track was 95% dry, and the water was in places where you could modify your line and get round it. A 1:16 was disappointing, given I must have been able to save 3 or 4 seconds through the now dry T2...
Qualifying also brought out a fault in one of the three GSXR's in our team, and the bike was retired for the meeting, with the "rain bike" (a spare, rough, bruised 10 year old CBR6 hunge) called into more permanent action.
The race started well, and the first hour went pretty much to plan. That included my 1st stint. Just over 1/2 hour on circuit, and consistent low 15's and high 14's. I had wanted to be doing 12's, and I've done consistent 12 before, but the set-up of the forks isn't there, and the track wasn't there.... And, well, the race is 4 hours long...
I got off the bike exhausted... My quads felt like bricks, I was sweating and my head was overworked...
It does take some concentration to do consistent laps when there is such a spread of bike and rider speed. Blokes like Glen Allerton lapping 10-15 seconds/lap quicker than me, and blokes like me lapping 5 ish seconds quicker than the real newcomers, who every year use the relaxed nature of the 4 hour to move from trackdays to race days.
So, with my body crying enough, and 2 3/4 hours to go, the Honda returned to the pits with a fuel leak. Russ the mechanic called into action... I spent about 1/2 hour on it, and couldn't find the problem. It was decided that something was leaking only when the tank was full. So the Honda did slightly shorter stints from then on.
When the Honda returned to the track, and kept it's fluids inside for a full stint, the weather was looking ominous. And, then it came. Rain. The wind had been strong all weekend, really proper strong. In some cases affecting braking markers and line selection, now it was slippery as well. As riders started to succumb to the conditions the pace car was called, which gave us time to throw wets onto Colin's SSTK Gixxer 6. Colin is the quickest on the team in the wet stuff, so he and his bike were the wet ones.
Colin went out and only did a handful of laps before the sun and wind had dried the track almost completely! So, he was back in and I was out on slicks. I did 2 or 3 laps before it started raining again! So, we swapped again... These messy pit stops did cost us time, but it was really un-avoidable. Some teams got lucky, and had the weather come during their regular pit window, we didn't...
When Colin came back in again, I went back out, again... This time I got just over 1/2 hour It took many laps to get a feeling with the bike and the track. Although it was 99% dry, you had to be careful, and I wasn't prepared to find out the hard way how damp certain corners were... Eventually I took a HTFU pill and decided to get on with it. Into the 17's my dash told me... This is gay I told myself, so I tried harder... This didn't result in me going faster, so I relaxed and tried to let it flow, and tack onto the back of other riders. This approach yielded a better result, back into the 14's on the slightly dodgey track. I was making up my time through the fast corners, and leaving the risks in the toolbox for the two slowest corners. I made a full stint and when called in got off the bike fresh as a daisy I felt like I could have gone on for another 1/2 hour. I was happy with my consistency, physical shape after 60 laps and my still-upright bike! With about 1/2 hour to go the rain came properly. Colin went out and completed the remaining laps, comfortable with the conditions and making passes left, right and center - he was showing perfect rain style.
So, we finished. We were pretty happy with our efforts. 26th outright (in a field of 40) wasn't perfect, but only 2 laps off a top 20. If we'd had a little more luck with the timing of the rain we could have made an extra lap or two just out of strategy...
Personally I'm ready to go out and do a sprint round now, and may even enter the upcoming FX meeting just to stay in shape. I want to see what lap time I can pull out of the bag on a track with similar speed bikes, when I am comfortable using all the track - not worried about an A grade pro making a pass...whether there is room or not!
My thanks to Scott, Colin, Garry & Jennine for all there help and piss taking And, as usual, thanks to APW Motorcycles for making my old slow one look pretty
That was an awesome read.
Good job Russ.