Post by bikeboy on Nov 2, 2009 19:55:32 GMT 12
Bikeboy Race Report,
With the offseason being extended by wonderful mother nature it was opening night finally, with Huntly’s first night and all practices washed out, a hastily arranged practice on labour weekend was a god send, unfortunate for the team we had broken a pushrod at this practice, but we did no other damage and managed to get it back together in time.
After the track cut up on practice I was surprised to see how good the track looked when we arrived, Red and his crew had done an amazing job to get the track in amazing condition, with a grand parade first up and the saloons being the first race on the program we stayed in the middle already strapped in.
The 11 cars that fronted were local cars and regular visitors Murray Guy and the Brockelsby’s from Rotorua, and Rossco and Mike Wilson from KK’s, we drew grid 9 for the first one and it was pretty good to be that far back as the race started it became pretty clear we had set the brakes up majorly wrong with no where near enough rear brake bias, it was not letting the car set up and turn in the way I was used to, we did not make any places, and did my best to hold my line and avoid the top cars as they came though to lap me, not the way we wanted to start the season, but that’s racing at times.
In the pits between we managed to get the balance bar set up a lot better, and it showed on the track, being able to trust the car as we set up for the corners was much better, we started off Grid 4 but the Steve Williams and Greg Powell freight train was past pretty quick, and then when all hell broke loose on the back straight I was lucky to miss it all, but collected Daniel in the flying CRX as he had problems in the next corner, as the race kept going the next problem arose, with the temp getting high and the car bogging off the corners quite badly, I was told the headers were glowing as well meaning we had a very hot race car,
With a bit of help from some friends we were out with a better car in the last race, because the meeting was running late the feature was cut back to 10 laps, off grid 5 I made it to 3rd pretty quick, but I had no pace to stay with the top 2 cars of Steve and Greg, with the car still bogging off the corners and getting hot again we were lucky to stay ahead of the flying 43h car of Aaron Tonks, it was a good end to the night as we had a really bad car in race one but got it to pretty good by the end of the night.
The night started badly but we got much better as the night went on, we stayed out of trouble so it was not too bad overall, we need to work on the car so we can be closer to the front running cars of Steve, Greg and Aaron who were a big jump ahead of me this week, a big thanks to Karl and Han’s from E&H Motors in Pukekohe for getting me in on the dyno this week on short notice,
Huge thanks to Scott for the help during the night with set up and advice, I think I need to take the advice you gave me to shut up and drive more often
.
Next 2 weeks are Huntly’s fireworks meeting next Saturday night, and we hope to get into the Waikaraka Friday the 13th promotion as well, before a trip to New Plymouth for the final round of the NZ Motocross champs on Sunday the 15th, in which ill run a bike for the first time in a while at NZ champs level. If anyone is in the area come and have a look, ill be running the #411 in the 125 class.
Thanks for reading, and cheers to David (BOP Waikato) for the hurry up,
Scott
Saloon 67h
With the offseason being extended by wonderful mother nature it was opening night finally, with Huntly’s first night and all practices washed out, a hastily arranged practice on labour weekend was a god send, unfortunate for the team we had broken a pushrod at this practice, but we did no other damage and managed to get it back together in time.
After the track cut up on practice I was surprised to see how good the track looked when we arrived, Red and his crew had done an amazing job to get the track in amazing condition, with a grand parade first up and the saloons being the first race on the program we stayed in the middle already strapped in.
The 11 cars that fronted were local cars and regular visitors Murray Guy and the Brockelsby’s from Rotorua, and Rossco and Mike Wilson from KK’s, we drew grid 9 for the first one and it was pretty good to be that far back as the race started it became pretty clear we had set the brakes up majorly wrong with no where near enough rear brake bias, it was not letting the car set up and turn in the way I was used to, we did not make any places, and did my best to hold my line and avoid the top cars as they came though to lap me, not the way we wanted to start the season, but that’s racing at times.
In the pits between we managed to get the balance bar set up a lot better, and it showed on the track, being able to trust the car as we set up for the corners was much better, we started off Grid 4 but the Steve Williams and Greg Powell freight train was past pretty quick, and then when all hell broke loose on the back straight I was lucky to miss it all, but collected Daniel in the flying CRX as he had problems in the next corner, as the race kept going the next problem arose, with the temp getting high and the car bogging off the corners quite badly, I was told the headers were glowing as well meaning we had a very hot race car,
With a bit of help from some friends we were out with a better car in the last race, because the meeting was running late the feature was cut back to 10 laps, off grid 5 I made it to 3rd pretty quick, but I had no pace to stay with the top 2 cars of Steve and Greg, with the car still bogging off the corners and getting hot again we were lucky to stay ahead of the flying 43h car of Aaron Tonks, it was a good end to the night as we had a really bad car in race one but got it to pretty good by the end of the night.
The night started badly but we got much better as the night went on, we stayed out of trouble so it was not too bad overall, we need to work on the car so we can be closer to the front running cars of Steve, Greg and Aaron who were a big jump ahead of me this week, a big thanks to Karl and Han’s from E&H Motors in Pukekohe for getting me in on the dyno this week on short notice,
Huge thanks to Scott for the help during the night with set up and advice, I think I need to take the advice you gave me to shut up and drive more often
. Next 2 weeks are Huntly’s fireworks meeting next Saturday night, and we hope to get into the Waikaraka Friday the 13th promotion as well, before a trip to New Plymouth for the final round of the NZ Motocross champs on Sunday the 15th, in which ill run a bike for the first time in a while at NZ champs level. If anyone is in the area come and have a look, ill be running the #411 in the 125 class.
Thanks for reading, and cheers to David (BOP Waikato) for the hurry up,
Scott
Saloon 67h
