NG Road Racing Thruxton 8th October.
Saturday:
After sitting around by myself for a good few hours the day before to make sure me and Ben had a garage and then sinking a few beers i was more than ready to get on the ZXR and go for a spin. And having ridden Thruxton before i was quietly confident going into the race.
My warm up went OK but it felt like the bike didn't want to pull below 10K but wasn't causing too much of an issue, which was a little confusing as it had been fine at Pembrey. I came in and as they went to noise test me my bike shut off and wouldn't start again so i managed to dodge that bullet as i was running my micron system without the baffle in. For the race i was 14th on the grid even though i was 7th in the championship! didn't quite understand why but i was more than happy to battle my way through the pack. Ben was starting 16th so i was hoping to follow him as well to pull me up to the front. I bang the revs up to 10K, lights go out and i let the clutch out to its usual biting point and she almost stall on the line. I managed to catch it and slip the clutch to get me going but i dropped to last in the F400 class. I went up into the complex pissed off and out broke 4 people and then a few corners later went round the outside of 2 people into Noble. After a blast down the back straight i came into the last chicane, dropped the bike into 3rd gear and went to accelerate out the last corner. The bike did nothing, it wouldn't rev at all below 10K and just felt like it was stuck. I spent the whole race pissed off that it was playing up. I managed to get myself up to 6th place but it was an incredibly lonely and frustrating.
I came back in and ripped the tank and ram air system off to find i had made a slight error when cleaning my carbs a few rounds before.... i managed to leave a couple of rags in the air box that i used to clean up some fuel!! not only did i feel like an idiot but i went out on a warm up lap of another race to see if that was the problem only for the bike to still be pissing about. Now i had a bit of fuel coming out of the side of my ram air system, something it hadn't done before but i didn't have time to piss about with the carbs before my race so it would have to do.
Starting from 6th on the grid i took the revs up quite a bit higher so i wouldn't stall off the line again, i got a good start and jumped up to 5th but got lent on a little so had to shut off. Going up into the complex i road around the outside of some bloke on a steam powered tractor (Desmo duo/Air cooler Ducati Monster) i braked later than him but got in all sorts of shapes with the back end in the air and it snaking from side to side. He managed to drop across the front of me so i followed him through the first part of the complex, got better drive out to which he then parked himself in the middle of the corner as i was swinging back to get a good run out and i had to take slight avoiding action (Would have been my fault anyway) i still managed to out drive him but by that time i had lost about 4 seconds on the 400 pack in front of me!
I spent a good 4 laps by myself but then started to slowly reel in Simon Wilkins on his FZR, by that time 2 guys ahead of us had pulled out so the fight was for 3rd until Simon Gates on his ZXR came flying past me. I had managed to hold him behind for a lap after he tried diving up the inside but i was really struggling to get the bike moving out the slower corner on the track so as he got past i instantly lost 3 seconds out the last corner as i was having to slip the clutch.
The following lap i put in my fastest lap of a 1.30.6, looking at the footage i didn't miss a beat all lap, i had it bouncing all over the place coming out of church and had to stand up on the pegs to get it into a straight like, it was class! proper hard riding. I got close to Simon on the FZR into the complex, bouncing around on 1 wheel for most of the braking area (Something i need to fix, my forks are a little buggered) and then got solid drive coming out and went round the outside of him and another bike into and through Noble. One of the steam powered Ducati's was right on the apex of the next corner going fairly slowly and i couldn't go anywhere but up the inside but i was coming at a completely different angle so if i had gone for it i'd have most probably taken us both off at 90/100 mph, something i didn't quite fancy doing. I had to slow down quite a bit but saw there was a patch of tarmac on the infield, quite possible part of the run way so i jumped across the grass and little and onto that to make sure i got past haha. Simon managed to slipstream me down the back straight and got into front into the last corner. I followed him really closely through the chicane and managed to get OK drive out, enough to keep within distance coming onto the last lap. My entry speed was quite a bit better so i nailed the throttle a little earlier and stood the bike up and managed to drive around the outside of him before the braking area for the complex. I broke super late into the complex and had my knee down with the brake still on which scared me!, i kept the rest of the lap nice and tidy, got a good exit through church to see 2 back markers up ahead and i was going to catch them right at the wrong point. I got a long side 1 just before the braking area, went round the outside of him and then dived up the inside of the 125. There's me thinking "Ah job done just go through the last corner nice and easy" as i shift into 2nd my bike as it loves doing drops itself into false neutral and i have to run on at the last corner. I came across the line really pissed off as i thought they'd drop me back a position but fortunately they didn't and i managed to take 4th place and secure 6th in the championship.
All in all it was an OK weekend, i definitely had the pace for low 1.29's and the podium i think but its my fault for not properly checking the bike between races. I managed to improve my lap time from 2014 by 7 seconds so i was happy with that. Big shout out goes to my Brother Ben Harrison (Chowderv4) on here as he won the race by 10 seconds and got performance of the meeting after finishing 4th in the pre injection 700/1300 on his 400!
Now i have a garage the winter will be spent taking the engine out to fix a few bits/new forks/ new fairing (Cheers Ben Palmer) and just generally going over everything and getting new seals. My plan for next year is to win every newcomers race and secure that championship and hopefully challenge for wins in the f400 class.
Here's a few as usual cracking pictures from Kerry Rawson Photography and Hairy Beat Pix and some race footage (Unfortunately my gopro ran out of memory on the last lap!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5YQ55cxNQw