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Newcastle Kawasaki 1 Phoenix 0ThursdayI left Anglesey at about 9am as I had a couple of errands to do before setting off to Knockhill; pick up a bit for Jude’s van and pop to Demon Tweeks to pick up some essential bike bits – oil filters etc. By the time I had finished those jobs and got to the Chester services it was about 13:00. Pete and Jude were a little way behind on the road, so I opted to travel up to the Lancaster services and meet them there. Drove at about 50 miles an hour, so I did not get there too quick and gave them time to catch up a bit. Pete’s got the 2.5 litre transporter, but he was towing a caravan. I don’t think my vans been driven so slowly before and it paid off in fuel economy!! The sun was out so it
was a really pleasant, if not a little long, drive. We arrived at Knockhill at about 7pm and
after I had got over the irritation of having to drive 3 times over the
Kirkcaldy bridge due to not paying attention to the road signs and the sat nav…..
I regained a little composure enough to say hi to Mum and Dad whom I had not
seen for about 4 weeks as they had been travelling in
I rashly claimed that I would run round the track in the morning…. Twice no less. We managed to be really organised and get the fuel for the bike in the evening whilst out on a recce to find out where we could get food for Friday night. We found an ASDAs, which did us proud for food over the whole weekend. FridayDid not go for a run…..
The pit lane had no garages so we had 2 car park sized spaces, which was plenty. Moores had their large tent and we allowed them to encroach a bit on our space for that. We were quite lucky as we were at the end so had space to put the seats outside our tent.
With the garage sorted the rest of the stuff was loaded back into the van for transportation the 200 yards (!) to the garage. Initially we had thought that Newcastle Kawasaki (who are our main class rivals) would not be at this race – I think they entered late. But they did arrive and we knew that would make it more interesting…... We were only 7 seconds behind them at Snetterton and we really wanted to even things out and beat them at this one!! The track day was organised by the circuit, there was a very quick sign in and the briefing was a casual affair in the pit lane – which I almost missed as I was getting the bike scrutineered….. no problems this time – we quickly explained that the numbers were not on the bike as we were asked to change to 77 as 17 clashed with one of the junior teams and we did not want to put them on until we were sure we knew which side to put them on!! During the day I was chatting to Mark (Linscott) about the track as, apparently, he’d been there before – I believe that he has at one time held the lap record (after which he binned it) – so I was thinking he would be able to give some advice. ‘Although’ said he, ‘It was a long time ago that I was here and the first corner turned left then’ to which I said ‘really?!’ As soon as I said it I held my head in my hands in horror whilst the guys justifiable laughed…… I was out first to make sure the bike did not break…. It was the first time the team had been to the track so my first session was a lot tentative. The first corner was a bit ‘ooh dear’ and the chicane out the back I clocked as being a very easy place to fall off!! The right hander before seemed to lull you into taking it a bit fast if you were not careful. There were at least 2 guys in the kitty litter at that point during that session. I did not stay out very long as the oil light came on – this bike appears to take a lot more oil in a change than the 99 one. Andy went out next and when he came in we corrected the gearing (2 up at the back). He was also able to give us a really good track tip; that’s not taking the chicane like 2 corners, but going as straight as you can over the large left hand kerb to apex the right. That made a massive difference – although I am pretty sure you would not want to do that in a wet race. Also the gearing made the bike go like a rocket. Short shifting was necessary to keep the front wheel down as you left the hairpin and went up the hill to the start finish straight – there were 2 rises on the straight, and the finish line is on the brow of a hill. Its really awkward to see the pit board at this track as you are trying to concentrate on keeping the front wheel down, judging your braking point and watching out for people coming out of the pit, all at the same time. Apparently there is a knack to the track and that’s getting the 1st and 3rd corners right and you can really see that. If you get them wrong you can lose so much time. One of the Uprite guys, who’s local, also advised me to take the track slow to go fast – smooth is definitely the order of the day. Uprite had a bad day as the R1 (which they borrowed from Moores) blew up. They had been going really well up till that point. John Capes, John Moore and Pete Saw arrived towards the end of the test session and as usual we set them straight to work!! We were only doing the track session from 1pm till 4pm, I think I would have preferred more test time, but the evening session was 5 till 8pm and that just makes the evenings preparation for the race a bit of a rush afterwards. At least one of them was working:
John had modified the refuelling rig after the last race (Snetterton) where it was a bit of a trial. This, unfortunately, did not work very well – this time we were hampered by the breather in the fuel cap. The theory behind the mod was that the rig would make a better seal to the tank, but the breather stopped this and we had a bit of fuel spillage whilst discovering a solution. In the end John was able to refuel to an acceptable standard by watching intently the lower half of the rig and stopping the flow on the first sign of a bubble. This worked really well. Whilst they were sorting that out (because it took a long time!!), I went with Dad to get the keys for the self catering cottage that the 2 Johns and Pete Saw were staying in. That was a really nice place and I would definitely recommend it: E. bowleysfarm@hotmail.co.uk The people were really friendly and the cottage was great, perfect for cooking our evening meal! Friday night, once the refuelling rig had been sorted, we finally managed to get everyone back to the cottage. Jude, Pete (S) and I went to Asdas to get provisions for the race day. Originally Pete (G) was going to cook a chilli for race day, but we decided that that was a bit awkward as we had no slow cooker and Mum was marshalling and could not help out with food. So the chilli was to be cooked for Friday night and it would be sandwiches or toasties for race day instead. When we got back from shopping the chilli was cooked and the table laid – that was really nice. We all sat round the table eating and chatting and some of us less responsible types were drinking!! This is how we left them (from the left – Pete Saw, John Moore, John Capes) – I believe sensible drinking followed.
SaturdayAs there were so few entries to both the juniors and the national, the 2 races would be run together, with the Juniors having a flag after 2 hours and us continuing on. That was going to make it much more interesting for everyone as there would be more people on the track to overtake or be overtaken by. Qualification was in the morning, I went out in the free practice session then set out to qualify first. My best time was 1:02.787, Pete was next with a 1:01.067 and Andy with a 59.622. We qualified 10th just behind Newcastle and just in front of Purple – all the superstocks together! Rather embarrassingly something had flown off the bike whilst I was on it during the session – the gear change heel plate. That was recovered and John re-attached it and diligently checked and re-loctited all the fixings in the foot rests.
The race order was Pete, Andy and then me. We planned to bring Andy in a bit early in the first session so that he did not get tied up with the end of the junior race. Even though the juniors were asked to make sure that they continued on after the chequer flag had been put out, we thought it would be better to have the possible disruption of them slowing down on my out laps and it would also mean that the pit lane was less busy when we did the change. For a change I was not going to be holding the bike for the start!! Andy volunteered. So with nothing to do but watch, Jude and I went over to the other side of the track to see Pete’s start. I know Pete does not like starting, it’s not my favourite bit either so I think it’s good that we are sharing the pain! Actually I was very almost going to offer to do it for Pete when we were talking about it on the Friday night….. In the end I am not sure whether the start or the last session was the most stressful……
Pete’s first lap, it’s not a great picture but you can see the hill that is the start finish straight and our pit board was a little way off to the right… off the picture:
Pete change to Andy:
Pete’s second session was much more consistent and after really good work by both him and Andy, by halfway though Andy’s last session we were in front. At this time Pete and I had bumped into the Newcastle team manager. He told us that they were having problems as a lump of red oxide had dropped into the refuelling rig, subsequently the bike was unable to rev over 12,000RPM which was obviously affecting their times. He also mentioned that they had messed up on their fuel stops anyway: they had decided to run for 70 minutes with the intention of reducing the number of fuel stops to 5 unfortunately there is not quite enough time to do that. So we knew that they would have to do a splash and dash right at the end of the last session. Armed with this information we headed back to the pits.
I had a terrible session, for the first load of laps I could not get my head sorted. I was just thinking about not wanting to lose this now and that sort of put me off. I had problems getting my times down. I was helped by Newcastle overtaking me as that put a bit of focus to my riding, I just kept thinking “its OK they have to do a splash and dash”; I knew they would lose time with that so I just kept going. We had previously arranged that the pit board would only show the difference in our times out when Newcastle had finally pitted and that took ages. The first I knew of that was the pit board saying p1 +6, we were P1 and 6 seconds in front. I found a whole load of focus and dropped my times by about 2secs (why I could not do that before I don’t know). All I was thinking about was staying ahead and not losing it. Every couple of laps I could see the time going down and when he was within 2seconds I remember making a mistake and thinking ‘he must be right behind me now’. It was on the entrance of the first corner that he overtook me, I brake a little earlier and to be fair I was not helped by a bike that split us up. I think we were 3 bikes abreast coming across the start finish line I was trying soo hard not to give up the position, but Newcastle took the corner first with the other bike splitting us. I tried to hang onto his tail as much as possible. At that point I thought I’d lost for everyone, but all I could think to keep myself going was ‘something might happen….he might fall…. he might make a mistake’. After a while I got a slightly confusing pit board (not really confusing only unexpected). P1 +6. In my mind I knew what it meant, we were P1 and 6 seconds ahead, But it did not really register correctly as I could see that they were still in front – I even remember thinking ‘I know position 1 is 6 seconds in front I can see him!!’. So when I saw the chequered flag – I thought we’d lost that 1st class place. I have to admit to throttling off way before the flag and the slow down lap was a depressing affair, I felt that I knew how Shaun felt at the end of the last race – although I did wave to the marshals!! It’s a great job that they do for us all. I turned into the pit lane, made a complete mess of a U turn (but I didn’t care at that point!!) and parked up where the rest of the team were. I did not want to get off the bike or remove my helmet, as I was a bit unhappy as I thought we were second. Some one came up and said – ‘you know we won don’t you…?’, to which I said ‘No? What do you mean…’. Apparently Newcastle had speeded in the pit lane on their last change and had been handed a 10 second penalty…… So although they crossed the line 5.5 seconds in front of us we won by 4.5 seconds….. How close was that! Explains the pit board signals….. Pete justifiable told me off for throttling off before the chequered flag; ‘how would you feel if we’d lost it on that?’ he said…. (he had a nightmare that night that I had slowed down even earlier… !). I really did not know how to feel, bit difficult for it to sink in when you’ve thought you’d lost it for a whole warm down lap and you really don’t want to get excited just in case someone says ‘only joking’. Newcastle Kawasaki came and congratulated us and I went and shook hands with their last rider who must have felt pretty bad. It sounds like he saw me pass the start finish straight as he was getting on the bike which must have been like a red rag to a bull. Pete reckons he was going as fast down the pit lane as I was on the track!! It’s the first time the team have come first in a class race and picking up the trophies felt really good!
Well the race was quite eventful to say the least, Things learnt this weekend:
Stats: Qualified 10th out of 11 (first 2 hours includes the juniors)
We used 1 front tyre SC2, 1 rear Supercorsa (road) 1 set of EBC HH brakes pads Total laps 344 Thanks:Great team effort; thank you everyone, also thank you for travelling so far to help with the race, it is so much appreciated. John, John and Pete for excellent pits stops – quick note, John, you know how nervous you were about doing a wheel change….. that was me before the last session…. Jude and Dad for great work on the pit wall, I now understand everything you could possible write on a pit board! Mum for stepping in and marshalling for us, every time I lined up for that right hander I could see you. Mum and Dad for
travelling from
Andy and Pete for really good and consistent rides. Jude, John and Pete for helping me during the very nervous 10 minutes before I got on the bike for that last session – Pete… its your turn next…. |
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In the morning there
was nothing to do on track which was lucky, as we had lots to do on the
bike. After off loading everything into
the paddock area I started work on putting oil in the bike (obviously not
enough…see later), getting the race tank on and changing the front sprocket for
a 14 as it was still in Snetterton mode which was very wrong for this track! Pete and Dad started setting up the
party-tent-garage. 
Jude and I had a
really good view of the start, I have no photos as I attempted to video it on
my camera – will not bother again its not good enough resolution.
It was a very good
session for Pete although his times were not his normal consistent self – Knockhill is a very tricky track on which
to overtake, if you don’t time it right you can be caught behind someone for
about half the lap. It’s quite
noticeable that Pete’s times were much more consistent in his second session. At the end of his first session he had
clocked a 59:9. Andy was next and he got
down to 58:7. 
I was out last with
no juniors so it was quite a quiet ride!! We had made a decision to change the wheel at the half way point (after
my session), but on inspection we decided against it – partly because we knew
how close we were to Newcastle Kawasaki. We had been told that the track was quite abrasive, which it did not
appear to be. The left hand side of the
tyre does not wear very well as you are seldom on it, at the end of the race
the right side is quite smooth whereas the left hand side is not.
How nervous was I
before that last session. I knew all I
had to do was stay upright and in front of
Newcastle and we would have the class win– large weight on shoulders. I asked for
Andy to be left on the bike for a little longer to extend the gap, as I knew it
would drop when I got on the bike. We finally
brought him in and I was up on the bike and not particularly away smoothly….. I had asked for the bike to be tipped to the
right when I got on, which they did, but unfortunately the ignition key switch
was not on and as I moved my right hand to turn it on they tipped it and I
nearly dropped it… with a minor shout from me (!) they realised and stopped
pushing!! With the ignition on, bike
started, off I went cursing myself. 
