My half arsed F400 nc30

[28hodge]

As I had no experience in the wet I thought I’d best get an idea of what grip level I can expect on the warm up lap, so practice a race start to see if it’s going to spin up, which it doesn’t, even when I go over the white line of the grid marker.

I try to stay with the pack and brake quite hard into the main braking zones just to see what happens and how much you can press on and squeeze the front brake lever. It feels quite good and seems like there is still plenty of grip available. I am still being a lot gentler with everything than I would be in the dry.

I raced lots of wet motocross as a kid and up into my Mid twenties, motocross in the wet is evil and to be honest not that enjoyable, not for me anyway, there is just so little grip. I was expecting the same contrast between dry track racing and wet track racing. But at the minute it feels like the difference is nowhere near as great.

We come back round to the re grid and I get myself settled ready to go, my visor is clear so a thumbs up for the pinlock system!

Race start, lights on, lights off and I get a belting start, I leap past the entire row in front of me!

I am on the far right hand side of the grid so I am on the racing line but also on the outside for turn 1, if anyone skittles themselves into turn 1 up the inside I am going to get collected!!

It’s tight in the first corner and I get stuck on the outside, everyone is being cautious, it is really wet and it’s still raining, much more rain and we are going to have standing water which isn’t going to be fun!! I just try to be smooth getting onto and releasing the brakes as well as being as smooth as I can be rolling on the power hoping my 13year old rear wet has some grip left in it!

I seem to be doing ok and I am still going forward after my good start, I get past a bike that’s smoking but he gets me back braking into Hizzy’s. I am a bit worried as to why he’s smoking as if he is dropping oil onto the wet track I’ll be sat on my arse before I know what’s going on!

He seems slow in a straight line so I make a big effort out of Hizzy’s and go round the right hand side of him over clay hill, this puts me further over onto the right hand side than I want to be heading into the left hander of druids, I brake as much as I dare, but I feel I am still going too quick when I have to release the brakes to tip in, there is no way I am carrying brake whilst leant over in the wet and under the trees at druids.

Hoping for the best I go in tight sweep wider than normal in the middle of the corner which opens up the second apex nicely and I roll on as hard as I dare to get my head down and away from the smoking bike down the next straight, nobody comes underneath me into lodge the final corner and I don’t see the smoking bike again.

I cross the line after lap 1 in 16th, on the track walk Yeurman had warned that turn 1 Old Hall holds water on the inside and to keep an eye out for it, I go a little wide at the start of lap 2 just in case but it looks fine on the inside so the normal racing line is still the right one for now!

As I exit turn one I can see a bike just in front with Dan Ingham and another just disappearing down cascades, I am normally nowhere near Dan, he’s a lot quicker than me in the dry, so either he is struggling in the wet or I am going well.

I push on a little more on lap 2 still a bit unsure where the limits are as I have no experience to draw on. I get no slides or moments, so push on and pass number 110 Tim Looker, round the outside at island bend. Yeurman told me it was really grippy round this bend in the wet as the tarmac is really tight so the water does not sit in the gaps and you have a lot of tyre in contact with the road. So I go in quicker and get round the outside of him so I am level and on his inside when we get on the brakes into the right of Shell oils and slip up the inside of him.

I concentrate on being as smooth as I can but get passed by a quick ZXR heading up the hill out of brittens, I got out of Britten’s well and was head down flat out when it comes past on my right and is past before we even get to the braking markers, that’s what mid 70’bhp looks like against low 60’s I guess!

I am trying to be really gentle with the brakes in the initial phase of the braking, just and so squeezing them on to get the weight to transfer to the front and then once its got the weight onto the front tyre squeezing harder to get stopped, again I am really trying to release the brake nice and gradually so as not to suddenly come off the brake and have the weight suddenly ping off the front tyre.

Again I am really cautious that once I get on the power exiting a turn I don’t have to roll it again mid corner, dumping all the weight transfer back onto the front tyre and overloading it, I try to avoid doing this anyway in the dry, but give it extra thought now that its wet. General rule regardless of condition is, once you roll on you don’t want to be rolling off again till the next braking zone.

I make a bit of a hash of druids as I got a bit tight to the white line and kerbs on the second apex, so have to roll a little (try as I might it still happens!) and sit up to avoid running over the kerbs as they will be slippery as ice and this is not a part of the track I want to have a slide!!

The ZXR has gotten away a little as we cross the line but we seem to both be gaining on Dan, it’s still raining but Old Hall is still clear of water, the lap goes well, there are yellows out at Hizzies and I see a bike and rider walking away with the marshals, and I am definitely catching Dan who now has the ZXR right on the back of him with me a little over a second back.

Old hall is getting wetter each lap and I decide I am going to go in wide after this lap, I think I am doing well and the last thing I want to do during the rest day on Sunday is repair the bike so its useable for Monday!

Again I just concentrate on being smooth and consistent with no sudden inputs of brakes steering or throttle! I am just not quite close enough to latch onto Dan, and stay about a second off him, Lap 5 is similar I go wide into Old Hall as the water is building up and then a good smooth lap I go a little quicker than I have done but so does Dan and I feel he is just starting to edge away from me again.

Lap 6 and I try to get that back I just try to push the braking zones a little deeper and get on the gas a little earlier, which goes well, although I do get passed by a rocket down the straight going into Island bend, Andrew Gill comes past he’s normally at the front and I am not sure what he’s been up to early on as his lap times are the same as mine for the first 3 laps then from lap 4 onwards he drops them by 3secs!! If I had known this when he passed me I wouldn’t have decided to try and stick with him and get a tow up to Dan!

I follow Andrew into and round island bend and shell oils, he is just inching away but he’s dragging me along, into Britten’s and I try to match him, brake in a straight line going in off the brake flick it into the left, sit it up straight and just a brief nip of the brake to scrub some more speed and get some weight into the front tyre before flicking into the right, off the brake into the right and the front just ever so slightly patters, then slides!!

[28hodge]

I’m not going quick but the bars go light in my hands instantly, my outside leg instinctively comes off the outside peg to counteract the slide and I guess this is enough as the front regains grip and the bike sits up and I can get the bike through the final sweeping left out of the Britten’s complex.

It worried me no doubt but it was still fun, its lost me some time, not loads but maybe another 0.500sec to Dan and I guess we are near the end of the race, so I decide to settle where I am as, realistically, I’m not going to get to Dan without taking big risks, he’s not in the sub 64 class so although I’m eligible for points in both the f400 and the sub 64 class (which is run as a class within a class) I am mainly interested in my sub 64 result.

As it turns out this lap is my fastest which makes sense as I was pushing for half of it following Andy Gill.

Sure enough the last lap flag is out so I take lap 7 easy, least I thought I did, turns out it was my second fastest lap, I have gotten quicker all race long which is always encouraging and I have stayed on which I am pleased about. I am also pleased that my home made race loom has survived the soaking it’s just had, as have the open carbs, I had always worried that a really wet race would see water/spray managing to make its way from the front tyre to the carb intakes.

I am soaked though, it’s been raining all race long I get back into the garages and get the bike up onto its stands, Gary and Dan return to the pits so it looks like I have beaten them as I definitely wasn’t lapped.

The belly pan on my bike is full, my boots are also full, my leathers are soaked, there is actually water dripping off my sleeves, and gloves which is all unpleasant, getting outta my wet gear is all a bit of a mission.!

I dry myself and the bike off, whilst having a chat to Gary and Dan about their races, Dan didn’t enjoy it, he had a bad crash at Donnington last year exiting the old hairpin, in mixed wet/damp conditions that saw him get run over, so his confidence in the wet has taken a knock, Gary said he went backwards and had to have a fairly stern word with himself as he was riding shit and he was better than that. He then went forward and enjoyed the second half of the race.

When the results come out I am 15th, with a best lap of 1.18.755, every lap is quicker than the previous bar the last one as I did back off a little as I had nothing to gain.

15th in the full F400 gets me 1 point, which I am happy with it is the first time I have managed to get into the points in the F400 class. In Sub64 it gives me 6th, all in all a good race for me, and my 13year old rear tyre!!

The rear looks pretty good and has gone really tacky with use, so it seems storing it correctly has helped it, I’ll maybe look at getting some better/newer wets in the near future and keep these for trackday use.

The rain is still coming down and getting worse, there was standing water starting to form in our race, particularly on the inside of turn 1 and also on the top of clay hill, which is a fast section for standing water to be sat at.

There are 2 classes after us to complete the first block of racing, these two races are run. The first race on the programme is the MRO Powerbikes, these are the 1000’s, they are asked to do to warm up laps and then provide their view on the track and its condition. Following these comments the course car and clerk of the course go out and they decide to halt the meeting due to standing water and re assess it in another hours time.

Some of the lads that are in MRO Powerbikes are in the pit next to ours and they said that bolt upright they were getting wheelspin when getting on the power so trying to race around in the conditions would have been a crash fest!

The rain keeps coming and when re assessed it’s still deemed unsafe to race on, they add a further delay of one hour before a re assessment. We are 3rd last race and we have Sunday off before racing again on Monday, so I will be heading home after the races. Given the time and the delay I’m tempted to set off home as I doubt that we will get another race today even if racing resumes.

However the rain eases and there is good weather on the way so I stick around for another hour but they have to announce that rather than impact all Mondays programme trying to run the races they can’t get through on Saturday they are going to abandon the meeting after one block of racing and run Monday as per the timetable, which is the right call in my view.

With that I square all my stuff away in the pit, and then jump in the van with my soaked gear and head home for tea, think I had toad in the hole! Lovely!

[28hodge]

Sunday I spent the day re charging my transponder ready for Monday, I hung all my gear out on the porch in the sun to try and get it to dry out and watched Superbikes.

I decided that I would travel back down Sunday night and stay in my van, that way I’d not be rushing on BH Monday morn and no chance of getting stuck in traffic etc etc. Anyway I arrived back at Oulton at 7ish and put the kettle on, I’d left my gloves there on Saturday so these were still a bit damp so I borrowed Dan’s hot air blower and dried them out a bit, I could always put them on top of the tyre warmers tomo morn to dry them off.

I had a look at the bike and noticed the belly pan was still full of water, I was going to empty it on Saturday after the race but then figured given the conditions it was only going to be full again after a lap of race 2 so didn’t bother.

So I took the fairings off and dried that out, then thought I’d best have a look under the seat to see if there was any remaining dampness. Turns out the battery was sat in 3 inches of water!!! Whoops, so I scooped this out and dried it up, then checked that the battery was ok by turning the bike over, all was good, but I’d have to try and make the under tray a bit more water tight. Let’s face it, they are never finished are they!

I changed the wheels and put the supercorsa’s back in hoping that the weather forecast was right and we were going to get a nice dry day on Monday. Jobs done I had a few more brews figured out my grid position for the following days first race, drunk some more brews had a chat to Dan then went to bed, with a brew!

I should maybe explain that I always drink tea out of pint mugs and always have done (I am not trying to be Guy Martin, I was drinking out of pint mugs before his tea drinking came to fame) so I was in bed and asleep at a decent time, only to wake up at 2.30ish busting for a piss!

This would be fine at home, you’d stumble to the bog and then stumble back, not quite so simple in the van, I’m parked up outside garage 21, the bogs are just past garage 1, so basically I am the full pitlane away from the bogs, all I have on is my boxershorts, my Pink Boxershorts!!

I can’t be arsed getting dressed so just put my trainers on and head out up pitlane, its pitch black and deathly silent, get to the bogs ok lights are on in there which hurt my eyes coming from the blackness outside. All done I head out of the toilets and back onto the back of the pits.

And I cannot see a damn thing, coming from the light in the bogs back into the pitch black I am blind, I daren’t just crack on as there are trailing leads from the garages back to vans all over the place and I don’t want to trip over them make a shed load of noise and wake up half the paddock! So I stand there waiting for my eyes to re-adjust in nothing but my pink boxershorts!! Great!!

It’s deathly silent but then I can hear footsteps heading my way but over to my right, I am guessing it was roving security but deciding that I don’t want to have explain why I am in my boxers stood still in the paddock, I set off down the fire access lane behind the garages lifting my feet high so as to avoid snagging a cable, I must have looked a right t*@t. Other than this though, an uneventful night.

[28hodge]

Morning dawns bright a clear and it looks like it’s going to be a nice day, I never bother with morning warm up, my races are near the end of the schedule so it’ll be hours before I am on the bike again so don’t see the benefit of it, a few F400 head out so I have a watch then go to get some breakfast, I have started taking a kettle and table with me this year and just a bit of a pit set up and it makes the entire weekend a lot easier.

My girlfriend plus 2 mates with their wife/Girlfriend are coming down for the day so I round up some tickets for them, then kill time drinking tea and watching some racing in the sun.

I warmed my bike up early and got ready then cycled down to the main entrance with the tickets to meet my mates etc, they were running a little late, but we just about had time to get them in before I needed to be in the garage and ready for the first calls etc.

Then the minitwins had a red flag so we had loadsa time as it turned out before the first calls came out, the girls headed off to cascades to watch, and the lads stayed with me to help get the warmers off stands etc. It’s such a minor help but makes a massive difference.

I was well up the grid due to my good result in the wet, only problem with this was the fact there were some lads that were a lot quicker than me in the dry behind me. I was on row 5 in 15th on the right up against the pit wall.

My initial jump from the lights is good but I get boxed in a bit in turn one and end up getting stuffed up onto the inside kerbs, loose a few places, and momentum heading towards cascades so keep shipping places on the run to the top of cascades. I Then ride a poor first lap even for me, everyone else seems to be in the groove, whereas I seem to be taking a bit to settle in, this continues for the first 3 laps and then we get red flagged due to a crash at Hizzy’s. In truth I am relieved as I was loosing time on those in front heading backwards and just riding poorly.

We get held at the entrance to Britten’s for 5 mins then allowed back to the grid for a re-start, they are still collecting the injured rider and placing dust on some fluid at Hizzy’s as we ride throught the shortcut and go straight rather than taking the chicane.

The fluid seems to be well off line, but I’ll take a better look on the warm up lap.

We sit on the line for another 5 mins or so, then get sent off on the warm up lap. The cement dust at Hissy’s is way off line and won’t be an issue. The red flag has hopefully been a bit of a blessing as I will hopefully be a bit more settled now for the restart.

Red lights on and are held quite a while before they go off, I again get a good jump, we were re gridded in the same positions so I am again down the inside, keen to not get squeezed again I get drifting left straight from the line and try to drop in behind Dan Ingham, I know he is quicker than me and if I can get him to drag me round on the first lap where I am normally at my worst it should do me some good! That plan lasts about 5 seconds. Dan goes into turn 1 and out brakes 5-6 bikes and is gone! His first lap was a 2.04, mines a 2.14, so I think my plan was floored by being massively over ambitious!!

I get boxed in a bit not as badly as the first race start, but still go backwards a bit quicker than I’d like, this is in part due to going well in the wet whereas others didn’t who are a lot quicker than me in the dry, After lap 1 I have settled in but looking at the lap charts I lost time on those that I ended up battling with on that first lap. I cross the line a little over a second behind Dan Hardy, I try to aim at him like I did at Silverstone in the final race, but he is just stretching away from me especially in the braking into Hizzy’s where he gains a good chunk of time on me and gets past number 124. I make a total arse of druids, I get the line wrong going in and spend too long off the throttle trying to get back to the second apex so that I don’t run out of room on the exit, I end up on the kerbs on the exit which is something I have not done before, this loses me momentum down into the final corner Lodge.

As we cross the line Dan has gone he’s over 3 seconds in front of me, with Nr124 Andy House 2 seconds in front. I get round the first corner well and head into cascades holding the throttle open for as long as I dare, it’s a blind downhill entrance, and hard to judge, but I get it as well as I have done, round cascade well and on the gas as you sweep back into the kerbs on the exit, flat out in fourth nick into 5th as you’re just pulling the bike completely upright and then 6th!

But I miss 6th gear, smack into the rev limiter and have to give the gear stick another tap to get me into 6th and back on the gas, the loss of drive hurts my momentum and number 33 Carl Johnstone gets alongside me on the inside into Island bend and I am struggling to defend it, I try to stay on his outside round island bend so I have the inside into shell oils to try and outbrake him but he’s gained too much and drops it across my nose and I have to sit up and go a little deep mid corner, Carl is quicker than me and is again someone I never really see so I try to stick with him but again he just inches away from me the entire lap, nowhere does he make massive time on me other than into Hizzy’s. Here it is noticeable that he puts a few yards into me.

This is shown again on the next lap, where Tim Looker 110 gets past me on the brakes into Hizzy’s, I do make it a bit easier for him as I manage to miss another gear coming out of brittens so lose a bit of momentum, but still I need to get better on the brakes, I have always braked with one finger, this is how I have always braked on my MX bike anymore and you tend to over load the front, especially in the sand that I tended to race on.

Anyway I tag onto Tim, I’m not sure if he has raced with Bemsee before, if he has I have never seen him. Either way I want to pass him back as I feel I gave the place away with the missed gear and shoddy braking.

I brake going into the final corner Lodge with two fingers and it feels a little odd, I feel like I am consciously braking rather than it being a natural movement, I doubt I brake any harder but decide I am going to have to start gradually squeezing the lever harder in order to get stopped in the same time as others are, My corner entry speed is good and no different to those around me but I seem to take a longer distance to brake down to that speed than others, this has to be down to me being less aggressive on the brakes.

I have gotten out of Druids really well and get alongside Tim but brake earlier as I am tighter into lodge than he is as I am on his inside, he goes wide though so must have braked late to keep me behind, I manage to get a good run through lodge and deers leap and we cross the line almost level, I am on his right and out brake him into the first corner and get him back, I hold onto it but predictably he gets me again going into Hizzy’s, I used two fingers to brake with but I am going to have to make myself squeeze the brake a damn sight harder.

The next lap I concentrate on braking and more importantly aim to brake where Tim does going into Hizzy’s, I lose a little bit over the lap but then drag myself back on the following lap and I am a lot quicker round island bend where I manage to swing right round the outside of him and we are level on the brakes, but I am on a tighter line into shell oils than I’d like, I brake when tim does and go past him but go deep and he ducks back underneath me then runs very wide on the exit, hes leant over on the gas and right on the white line, fair play to him, I’d have backed off in fear of losing the rear and splatting myself. In fact I back off in fear of Tim splatting himself and collecting me!

I brake where Tim does into shell oils and lose very little to him and ans we cross the line to start the last lap I am 0.5secs back from him but have caught over 0.5 in the previous lap, I think I can get him, and very nearly do into lakeside this time I try to get down the inside of him heaing into island band and im right alongside but he just toughs it out on the outside of me and blocks me into shell oils.

I figure my next best place t pass is out of druids into lodge the last corner, im better here and carry more speed round druids, but to do this I need to stay on him into and through Hizzie’s. I brake really late where Tim does and squeeze a lot harder than I have done before and get the speed scrubbed off quite easily, slowly I’m learning how much I can squeeze that brake.

I’m with him still and gearing myself up to go into druids really hot so I can get alongside him exiting druids heading for the braking zone into Lodge.

It all goes to total shit though when exiting the final right of the Hizzies complex and just getting head down arse up heading for clay hill, the sodding red flags come out!!!

[28hodge]

Lovely, opening lap chasing the smoking bike



Chasing dan and a zxr into hizzy's







Battling with tim looker exiting deers leap and heading over the finish line into turn one.



Island bend I think



Unpacked after a long weekend

[bean]

Awesome write up Kurt,, clearly had a better weekend than me lol

[28hodge]

How badly broken is it??

Just home from donnington, sunburnt but had 3 mega races and battles and it's all on film, will get it uploaded this week.

You back for cadwell?

[28hodge]

Race 2

The Start went ok, I don’t get to boxed in heading into turn one, but then on the exit Mark Thompson and another were rubbing and bumping each other, it all looked like it was about to go shit shaped pretty quickly so I pulled it tight out of the first corner, to try and avoid being collected by skittling bikes, This puts me on a tight line into the top of cascades which loses me a lot of time and places. I am in behind a good group of 4-5 but they are just stretching away from me. Nigel Franklin, Roy Dewhurst, Mark Thompson & Tim Looker are all just getting away from me. Lap 2 and I get out braked into hizzy's by Grant Walder nr25, annoying as I still seem to be getting done here a lot.

Hard braking areas again are my main weakness and need to be worked on. Problem is I know its a weakness and I have tried to work on it a lot especially in the first race on Monday when Tim Looker past me into here, I tried to match his braking point down into here and stay with him but couldn't make anytime on him. Started braking with two fingers again rather than one as I had sub consciously reverted back to braking with one finger.

I am faster than Grant in same areas where I was faster than Tim in the previous race. From the exit of turn 1 into Brittens, but it’s hard to put a pass on him in these sections, I need to be a lot quicker than him in these areas to get a pass made and I’m not, I’m only a bit faster than him in these areas, any pass would be risky to both of us.

I get him on lap 5, I’ve been all over him for the last lap and a half, but couldn't quite push myself that little bit more somewhere to get past. Then get a really good run out of shell oils, think about the inside on the right running into Brittens but I’m not quite alongside so I have to back outta it. Brake lots later into Brittens and carry more speed into it using the line learnt from cavalli on the Friday track walk. This allows me to turn back tighter on the right to straighten out the exit onto hilltop.

On the gas harder and faster than Grant pull on him and get down his right hand side I’m 3/4 of the way past and approaching the braking zone. I make myself hold off braking till he does, which is late. I really grab the lever and squeeze with 2 fingers whilst rattling down the gears. I slide past with the back end waving ever so slightly, and tip into the right of hizzy’s, I'm made up that I have gotten someone into an area of the track I am piss poor, and have had most of the passes made on me.

My happiness lasts 3 corners, as we exit the hizzy's complex and head towards clayhill the sodding red flags are out AGAIN, I smack the tank 3 or 4 times with my left hand, hard enough for it to hurt my hand!! It can’t be helped but I am annoyed.

We cruise back round to the line under waved yellows and reds, on the last corner 3 bikes are in the tyre wall, the only bonus is that they are defo 2 sub64 bikes in there which wont be allowed to re start and so will give me a couple of places in the re run.

We re-grid, and knock the bikes off, and then people start to boil up as the bikes are at full temp after 4 hard laps and then sitting stationary on the grid with no air. Its also a hot afternoon.

Then there is talk of not re running the race and calling the result, sod that!! Its meant to be a 10 lap race we have only done 4, the front couple of rows seem to be in favour of calling the result, the rest of us say we want to carry on and eventually sense prevails and we are told it will re run with 1 warm up and 5 race laps.

I’m shit with this, the tyres are cold from standing on the grid, I desperately try to get some warmth into them on the warm up lap, but just don’t have the confidence to push on the opening lap of the race, I lose 4.5seconds to Grant and Tim and this sums my race up really, I spend the next 5 laps chasing them down and just get to them as we pass the chequers I’m 1second behind Grant, having successively taken over a second a lap off them in the last 3 laps but once again my first lap has hindered me, my last 4 laps laps are each quicker than the last. It’s a same the race was shortened to 5 laps as I felt I was in a great rhythm and there was potential to get my lap times down some more. Not to mention get past Grant.

Grant is a sub64 bike so it was a race for position in the sunclass so its disappointing and annoying that I didn’t get back to him quicker, as it is I finished 6th sub 64 and 18th F400 with a best lap of 2.03.990 0.500secs slower than I had gone in Race 1.

Overall I am happy with the weekend though as I have improved over last year and had some decent scraps. I also seem to have made a little progress on my main weakness and started improving my hard braking. I also really enjoyed the wet race on Saturday and glad that I have finally gotten rid of my duck of racing in the wet.

I have managed to take 4.232 seconds off my best time from last year, which I'm happy with.

[bean]

How badly broken is it??

Just home from donnington, sunburnt but had 3 mega races and battles and it's all on film, will get it uploaded this week.

You back for cadwell?

Erm well here's the thing, it'd popped the small waterline between the block and stat,, the only hose I hadn't replaced lol,,



It steam cleaned the top of the engine lol, which explained all the water and "smoking" comments from the marshals,, however I can't find a oil leak anywhere and having done an oil change etc it seems fine, so I'm not sure about comments from my garage about it sounding "like a bag of spanners"..

Erm not sure about cadwell mate but I'll be at brands gp for sure..
Loving the write ups keep them coming..

[28hodge]

Looks like a result then good job they pulled you out of the restart for the last race though if the hose was pissing water out then it would have grenade'd itself!!

Hoping I'll make brands gp and that'll be it for me this year as I'm on holiday for our final round at snett, which is a shame, although my van develops a new noise each time I use it at the minute so brands gp may be a bit of an ask for it!!

Think the reports will start to shrink a little, got a Chinese gopro copy for £67 off eBay it's mega I'll post the footage on here in a bit. But think my waffling will be a bit redundant compared to the vids!

Hopefully see you at either cadwell or brands tho mate!