Saturday 11th August 2001
New Bridgestone tyres were necessary after Elvington and we'd put the 6 speed gear-box back into the bike, but quickly found that it was jumping out of gear, and occasionally dropping two gears at once. Straight away we decided to swap back to the reliable 5 speed box. The wind was stopping the bike revving hard in top gear along the straight, and the track was much shorter than Elvington. After swapping the bottom end of the engine we started enjoying riding around the new track.
By the end of the day we were happy with the set-up, the weather wasn't great and we felt sure that at some point it would rain! Several other 'groups' from various car clubs shared the campsite. There was one group of people with loud stereos, and disco lights in the back of their Mk3 Escorts who made a lot of noise but didn't do much. (What do they say about empty vessels). We also spoke to Kit car enthusiast and even the people supplying power for the event were camped by us.
Sunday 12th August 2001
A wet race from beginning to end. There was a spell when a dry line started to appear, but I'm sure that only the people out on the track for a short period of time saw it. It was unbelievable how well our bike was going, the new tyres were certainly paying dividends, no one fell of the bike all weekend and we were all enjoying riding the bike even though there was standing water on some of the bends. Much fun was to be had, riding smooth and trying to concentrate harder than normal get the best out of our bike. As the weather deteriorated we just kept going. Four of us rode the bike. I started the race, Lea was on second, Steve did the third stint and Ian had a go fourth.
One or two people in other teams had been having problems jetting their bikes, the weather had changed so much between Saturday morning and now with the torrential rain their bikes were running far two rich. Our bike was running better and better, however that was about to change. There was a big accident 4 hours into the race and a prolonged delay in getting the race started again, our bike wouldn't re-start from cold. We were now wet through and were unsure as to whether the electrics were water logged or whether the jetting was now way out. We called it a day! It's the first time this year that the bike has let us down. The surprising thing about this race was how the wet conditions did not stop us really enjoying racing. It's a pity that we couldn't get the bike going again and maybe if the red flags hadn't been out for so long we might have been able to keep going, but that's racing!
Class 2 looked quite competitive again and several bikes were going well. I'll post the results in the near future.
