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2007 Snetterton 7th-9th April Ifs and Buts Saturday 7th April We arrived at the track on Saturday night at about 7:30pm as the final instructions indicated that we would not be allowed into the pits till then – although it looked like everyone else had been let in a little earlier as quite a few people were already set up. We were in garage 1 sharing with Moores – after joking with Tony about getting the wall side of the garage (the best place to be!!) we quickly claimed the wall side before any of the Moores lot arrived! So with our towels on the metaphorical deckchairs we started un-packing both vans. The guys in the garage next door (2) were entering the junior race, there were to be 2 teams in there so it was going to be quite busy (4 bikes). But the good thing was that they would be clearing out on the Sunday night, so at that point Moores and us would be able to have a garage each. It can be quite tight in the garage if 2 teams are working, especially on the day of the race. Shaun and Pete Saw arrived during the evening, Shaun was not feeling too good as he was suffering from a bit of flu (worrying!!). He had already asked me in the week if there was anyone listed as our reserve rider…. The first of the
The
Sunday 8th April
Pete (Gibson) opted to be pit crew for the morning with Pete Saw, he was still recovering from a bit of a head cold, so for the rest of the morning Shaun practised on the bike. Initially he was not really very happy with the suspension, but after a number of modifications by the end of the morning he was a bit happier. Of the 3 of us Shaun is more sensitive to the bike set up i.e. lever positions / suspension etc. I have to admit that I notice no real change on the bike whatever they do to it. Dave from
John and Lin turned up during the morning and as usual we set them straight to work! Setting up the wheels with the race set of drys, spare set of drys and the wets (there was no way it was going to rain but we thought we would not tempt fate!!). We put the spare wheels on the bike to scrub in the tyres and I am quite glad that we did, I went out and thought that the brakes were odd – it was juddering a bit. But I assumed it must be just the pads on the different discs (naïve) as Shaun did not notice anything when he went out after me. When the pads were changed after the practise day had finished I had a quick look at them and they were grooved. On closer inspection we found that the discs on one set of wheels were smaller. These wheels had come from an 05 bike – the discs were ever-so slightly smaller (about 10mm dia). So we took the dry tyres off those wheels, took the wets off the other spare set and swapped them over – sorry John!! – having experienced a disc bolt sheering when we tried to remove a disc last year there was no way I was going to let the discs be changed!! We had to get the bike and us scruntineered before 12, so at a convenient moment Jude and I took it the bike along – I was already scrutineered. The bike went though fine – we had to just change the position of the numbers (typically we had put them on the wrong side!!) and tape down the wheel weights. Pete had to do a quick strip in the scrutineer bay (nice new building at Snetterton now) as he was not wearing his leathers and the technical guys wanted them on – exhibitionist!! With Shaun scrutineered as well we signed in for race day. For the new club we were given nice shiny new fluorescent arm bands for the riders – ready for a 24hour?? – and each member of the team had a wrist band – 4 for mechanics, 3 for riders and 2 for time keepers, 1 for manager. As they were the type of band you put on semi-permanently Pete was a bit concerned that with only 2 time keepers bands it was a lot for 2 people to do – you need to rotate the time keepers really. At lunch time there was a riders / managers briefing in Tyrells only a handful of people turned up, but that made it quite informal with the opportunity to ask Dave (Mabbott) questions. We found out that there were only 14 teams registered to race (23 for the junior), which is disappointing although I have to admit I am just happy to race. Lets hope more get involved with Knockhill. For the afternoon we had a 45 minute session that we used to practise fuel stops. That went OK except we started having issues with the refueller – the last bit of fuel would spurt out all over the tank. We were able to do a bit of fuel calculations to decide how long we each could go out. After the practise was the junior race, it started at 4pm with the Le Mans start and we watched them line up – hopefully as nervous as I usually am!! I was really looking forward to watching the race, but did not find the time. There is always something going on in our garage! The grid for the junior was much fuller than ours – I hope some will move over to the national in the future. For dinner that night we dined on kebabs and chips!! Good healthy food…. The fish and chip shop in Attleborough did us proud, although there were far too many chips! Martin turned up in good time to have dinner with us so we were all present (except for Simon who would be helping out on the day). It was a very pleasant evening, we sat around outside as it slowly cooled off and some of us drank beer and wine! Monday Race day I had to make sure I was up bright and early to meet Bruce and his boys Stuart and Duncan. Bruce was to be our marshall and the boys would marshall for 2 other teams. They arrived at about 7:15am as I had indicated to them that if they arrived any earlier no one would be up!! We sorted them out with drinks and Bruce went about getting them all signed in – although the first job was to find the other teams they were helping out, I think that proved to be difficult! Everyone gathered at our canteen area (!) at about 8am – Martin turned up at about 9…… Pete set about preparing our lunch (bolognaise) to be put in the slow cooker. The order of the race was for me to start as it was my turn, Shaun was next then Pete. As we did not know how many laps Shaun could do and we were unsure of fuel economy on this bike, Pete and I were to do longer to make up for Shaun doing less – he always uses more fuel. I was to do 1hour 10 minutes and Pete 1 hour 5. Practise started at 9am so Pete went out as he had had less time the day before, he did not manage to make many laps as the brakes seized up – when we had changed the pads for new ones we had not released the fluid so the calipers were being forced on…… lesson learnt and at least it was not in the race. After that was sorted we were OK! The next sessions were the qualifying ones. We had to go in order so I went first. They noise tested the bikes on the way in. My best time for qualifying was 1:23.543. Pete went out next. In his session the pace car test was carried out. During which one of the riders appeared to miss all the white flags and piled into the back of the Moores bike – Mike was riding – incredibly Mike stayed on (the other guy did not) and rode the bike back to the pits. I could see as he rode down pit lane that the rear tyre was flat, but on closer inspection there was a massive flat spot on the wheel – it was scrap. The guy must have hit the rear wheel at some speed. Luckily we were able to offer Moores a wheel as we had 1 more rear that we needed! Pete qualified with a 1:21.533 and Shaun with a 1:17.146. We qualified 6th out of 13….. we seemed to have lost one of the teams that was supposed to race. They worked out the grid on fastest team lap rather than aggregate – I think that was a mistake in this race as, although that’s how we started, that’s not how the points are going to be awarded. 13 is a really low entry number. The start procedure was as per previous years with the track being opened at about 11:30am till 11:45am. The warm up laps went OK, as usual the fast boys went of like rats up a drain pipe, I managed to overtake Moores on the first warm up lap so should have figured then that some thing was wrong for them….. We lined up on the opposite side of the track, I’d made sure that the bike was not in gear and asked Shaun not to put it in gear, as I noticed it will not start even with the clutch in. With a minute to go I had to ask the guy next to me if it was the raising or lowering of the flag that meant we could run!! Down the flag went and off we trotted to the bikes. I got on OK, but must have snicked it into gear as I did as it would not start – I had a few seconds of confusion before I realised, took it out of gear started it up, in gear and off. As I left I could see the last of the group who got away OK just pealing into riches. I was cursing a little. But I was not last away; I think there was a team behind me! After a few laps I overtook Moores (Jim) he was pushing the bike (that’s not the only way I am able to overtake before we get any sniggers!!). It looks like they had a similar brake issue to us – they were locked on, not sure if it was the fluid level or not. I really enjoyed my first session was doing 1.22 consistently and a couple of 1.21s. When the fuel light came on I was very disappointed – I did not know when it had come on so I indicated to the pits by pointing at the tank and then came in on the next lap. I had done about an hour and we only put in 15 litres (18 litre tank) so I did have a bit of time to spare and could have stayed out a bit longer, but to be honest as I was concentrating on riding I did not really notice when the light came on. I thought it would be a bit lonely out there with only 13 teams but it was not that bad and there were less people to mess up my line….. which sometimes happens when the fast guys overtake. Rider change Shelley to Pete
With about an hour and a half to go we realised we were 2nd in class…. and first in class appeared to be going slower than we knew Shaun could ride. Due to the shortening of our sessions, because we were coming in effectively early due to the fuel light coming on, we knew at the end we were going to have to do a splash and dash. Shaun did not think that he would be able to complete his second session if he felt as bad as he did after his first, so he warned us to be ready when he went out with 1hr15mins to go. But off he went and we were ready with the pit board to tell him the time between him and the 1st in class. We knew Shaun would only really be able to do 45mins ish, during this time he was consistently doing 2secs a lap faster than Newcastle Kawasaki. He finally overtook and put a couple of seconds between us and them. Unfortunately we knew we would lose this advantage as we had to make a final fuel stop. Both Pete and I knew that Shaun was the only one of us that could catch up, so we opted to give him the opportunity to stay on the bike. When the fuel light came on, in came Shaun – Pete was ready and so were the refuelers. After Shaun finally got off the bike with half the pit crew screaming at him to ‘get off the bike’ – he was trying to have a conversation with Pete!! – Pete told him ‘you have time to stay on the bike you are 2 seconds faster a lap do you want to stay on?’, ‘yes’ was the reply. So with the bike refuelled off he went again with about 25minutes to go. Honestly it was an extremely exciting 25 minutes. Moores had a tv in their garage and I was glued to it. We had double excitement in the garage as Moores were trying to work their way up the leader board as well, they started the last hour in 6th (behind us and Newcastle) but finally over took both of us for 4th. Shaun was still mostly lapping 2 seconds a lap quicker although the gap was tantalisingly slow to reduce as Newcastle kept putting in some good laps. We kept Shaun updated on the pit board – a couple of times his lap times went down due to traffic I guessed (apparently he’d been grass tracking on one occasion!). With about 5 mins to go we realised we were not going to make it…. :-(. We all headed to the pit wall to cheer Shaun in.
Pete admitted that he ‘over revved’ the bike on more than 1 occasion, also that he was singing to himself during the race…. Sugar babes apparently! I can forgive the over revving but Sugarbabes…..Hmmm. I think and hope that everyone enjoyed the new bike - both Pete and Shaun rode 2 seconds faster than last year – I was not faster but my average was much much better than last year. There were a load of areas where we could have made up that 7 seconds. We lost time at the start (about 10secs) and at every refuel due to the refueller not operating correctly. I think it just reminded us that even though it’s a 6 hour race – every second does count. At the end of the race there was a garland ceremony, which was a nice change. We got hats and got to stand on the podium in our respective finishing positions. That was a nice touch I thought. At 7pm the ‘proper’ trophy ceremony took place, garages 1 and 2 (us and Moores) really cleaned up on the trophys!! We got our second place one and for their fantastic efforts we also got the best pit crew award (Moores got best prepared bike), also Bruce got a special award for the marshals – I am not surprise as he supplied 3!!. As Pete said ‘we know we have the best pit crew, it just nice when the organisers realise it too’!! If I‘d got the start right If the refueller had worked OK But it didn’t so we ended up second – that’s endurance racing for you! Stats: Qualified 6th out of 13 For this race the
We used 1 front tyre SC2, 2 rears SC2 – and probably will not do that again as the rears did not last very well at all. I think we will revert back to SC3’s. 1 set of EBC HH brakes pads No oil!! Thanks: Thanks Martin for your highlights and low lights: Highlights: “the Bolognese and Jude's bacon cobs” Low lights:“there was a serious lack of cake which needs to be rectified by Pembrey” John, Lin, Pete and Martin for great work on the refueling despite it being a bit of a challenge!! Jude and Simon for making sure there is always some one on the pit wall Jude again for bacon butties!! Bruce for supporting the club and supplying 3 marshals – excellent effort. Pete for making the bolognaise Pete and Shaun for riding really well and bringing the bike home in one piece!! Tom we miss you get well soon. |
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As the 
Pete was out after me then Shaun, and so on. We all had really good rides, the only issues
being the refuelling rig which was hampering the pit crew some what (Johns
going to fix that for the next race). After 3 hours we changed wheels for fresh rear rubber – that was a
really good change well done all involved. It went really 
The race went really well and even though we did not make it
to first place it was really exciting Shaun rode really well putting in some
great laps to put us from about a lap behind at the start of the last hour to
within 7 seconds of taking 1st place in class. Our 2 best laps of the day were on lap 247
(1:16.402) and 230 (1:16.425). We
completed 261 laps.