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2006 Pembrey 2nd July Wow it was hot!! 30degC was mentioned at some point and I can certainly believe it. Pembrey is a funny old place, we tend to expect rain when we go there but this time – I almost would have liked the rain!! Most of us arrived on the Friday evening. Pete and Jude set up camp near to the paddock so that the race day food was not too far from our ‘garage’ and we settled ourselves and the mobile home on the hard standing area (near the toilets!). After emptying the van the men set about putting up the party tent, the ladies (Jude Mum and I) feigning jobs to do in the mobile home….. actually we were talking and eating mums really most excellent chocolate and nut cookies….. I maintain that any more that 3 people putting up the tent is too many…..!! Saturday Jude went off for the day Mountain biking, she found a couple of tracks to ride and it sounded like she had a good and tiring day – much better than sitting around watching us having fun! As normal, because the bike is prepared by Dad and I, I was out first to test it. We had changed the gearing back to what we rode on last year (14, 49)… but after checking my notes from last year, I noticed that Shaun had suggested we put an extra tooth on the back. We tried the original setting, but decided that the change was sensible. As usual I tried to wear my Daytona boots with no avail, I just can not change gear with them as they don’t allow much ankle movement – safe…. but….. The bike felt like it was wallowing in those first sessions, Pete noticed this and after much deliberation we upped the compression damping, both the hard and soft settings. We did have to get a bit advice on this as neither of us are suspension experts. With the suspension stiffened and the rear sprocket changed the bike felt better. In one of my sessions, someone overtook me going into the old hair pin and over shot it a bit so I just slipped underneath him… I carried on waiting for his next overtaking manoeuvre! That came at the Esses….. unfortunately as he tipped into the right hander he lost the front (I think) and down he went! Luckily for me he had already safely passed me ….. and I carried on – until the inevitable red flag! John Capes (Pit Manager) and his Step Dad (Lin) arrived at lunch time, as did John Rosie. Shaun arrived at 3:30pm so we were almost a full complement. For this race we thought we were going to be a bit short, so Shaun had contacted his uncle Philip who lived nearby and he had a list of 4 people including himself, who could help us or the other teams out – very useful. It was extremely hot and I found it really difficult to find somewhere cool to sit with leathers on! We had the party tent fully open as there was (thankfully) a nice breeze blowing. Despite the fatigue inducing heat the test day went really well, we made the pit crew work a bit by getting them to change the wheels over to the race ones – I was starting the race and did not want brand new tyres! I did about 5 or so laps on them and came in and then they had to change the wheels back for the morning practise!! Tony from Moores Racing had said that I could have a go on their new R6, so towards the end of the day I wandered over to see if he still felt generous! He did and I took it for a spin. Other than feeling a little uncomfortable with the idea of riding a bike that was not mine and that someone else needed to race it the next day…. Arghh…. it was really good! It felt much tinier, tighter and lighter than my R6 and the brakes felt better for some reason - possibly it was the pads as the brakes are pretty much the same. In the time I had, I did not quite get used to it, and found I was braking too early, or using the power very well, but I liked it…..! Whilst I was having fun the others were getting the bike prepared for scrutineering, there was not too much to do – changing the oil was the biggest job! When I say others I mean the pit crew without the pit manager as he had gone off to watch the footie (England V Portugal). Access to the paddock area was allowed after 5pm, so once the bike was finished, we packed up as much as we could in the van and the guys lifted up the party tent and transported it the 500 yards or so to our allocated garage spot. We listened to the footie on the radio whilst unpacking the van – the bit where Rooney got sent off. There were some nasty flies about that impeded our work by biting us – nasty blighters, I think they took a fancy to Dad, by the end of the weekend he thought he had killed about 30….. With the garage set up, we got the bike to scrutineering. Fred discovered that the right hand foot peg could be undone, which was a bit of an oversight and proves the need for them to do these checks! With this fixed, the bike and our kit was fully scrutineered, and we were signed on and ready to go by 6:30pm – a record for us I think. The end of the footie match came (England lost for those that don’t remember…!!) and the bar on the circuit emptied of its now very quiet and disappointed clientele. John was a bit subdued and we opted not to talk to him about the footie too much!! As I picked up the programmes from Julia I mentioned to Alan the photographer that it would be really good to get on the front cover of one of the programmes – Trouty was this weeks picture (he signed my programme!!). We agreed that if we won the class we might get a chance at being on the cover – I then discovered that (according to the programme) we were the only team in the Super production class….. which made me chuckle! As it happened we were one of 4 teams, which was much better and less embarrassing – can you imagine picking up a first in class trophy if you are the only team in it? That evening we were booked into The Butchers arms for dinner, this pub was very close to the B and B that I had booked John, Lin and Tom into. The food was good filling pub grub although the pub was a bit noisy – there was a very friendly young lad who wanted to introduce us all to his blow up blue Dolphin…. We only stayed for another drink then us campers left for the circuit – Tom was not happy as we had a lot of beer and wine at the track and he was not pleased about missing out on all that!! To be honest when we got back to the camp site I don’t think much of the alcohol was drunk, I was straight to bed – which did not feel right as it was still light! Sunday Shauns family turned up, Philip was going to be the marshal and Shauns cousin Louise and her boyfriend were to help us in the pits. Tom was to be our volunteer to help Moores out who were a little short of pit crew. It was to be another very hot day. Practise started at 9 as usual and Shaun took the first session as he had not practised the day before. Then he took the first qualifying session, followed by me (I had the pace car session) and Pete. I had not felt that comfortable on the bike in my session – problems with my contact lenses – so after I had changed one of them I waited in the garage to see if Pete would come in early in his session, he did. I hopped on the bike and headed out to finish the session. After about 3 laps on the exit of the hair pin the bike pretty much died – I coasted into the track exit in between the 2 left handers and the bike cut out…… I had run out of fuel… oops. After the incident 2 years ago where I flicked the kill switch of the R1 half way through a session and had to wait out the rest of the session on the outside of the track I did get quite a bit of mickey take. I started pushing the bike back and some guy offered to push it the rest of the way – ordinarily I would have said no, but it was so hot I took his offer so I could cool down a bit! Whilst we went to the riders briefing, the pit crew changed the tyres for the race ones and I was starting to get a bit nervous about the start.
It’s a long wait from the moment you first get the bike on the track to the actual start of the race as the pit lane is opened at 11:30 and you have 30 minutes to stand and contemplate the start, whilst your tyres cool down….. With about 10 or less minutes to go we started the 2 warm up laps which were completed very quickly by the guys at the front of the field. With those completed it’s a matter of minutes to the start. From the opposite side of the track you get the 3, then 2, then 1 minute markers then the flag is up and down and you are racing (as much as you can in leathers when its too hot!) across the track to the bike. Luckily I had managed to get Shaun to put the bike in gear with about 2 minutes to go, but to be fair it did not help!! I had a really poo start as I seemed to have trouble finding the start switch…. Hmm. Finally away (at least I was not the last!) and the first manoeuvre was to avoid the first accident of the race as at the start 2 bikes had collided, one was the Moores R1 – although it did not take them long to get back up and overtake me! The start is quite an adrenalin rush. I really enjoyed that first session, my times were OK for me and I had a most enjoyable time catching someone up and then overtaking him towards about 40 minutes. It makes the session go really quickly when you have something to concentrate on. I guess I must have pulled away from him for a bit, but towards the end of the session I started to tire and my lap times dropped so he passed me. When the 5 minute lap time came up I was so relieved. I actually started to feel sick and could not wait to get off the bike. I passed the bike to Pete, muttered that everything was Ok and went and sat down – trying to make the sick feeling go away. The session had been hard work, trying to keep cool was a bit of a struggle, whilst circulating – my body was mostly fine it was my face that was really suffering. A couple of times I opened my visor a crack to get the wind on my face, but that just made me think that my lenses might blow out!! When I came in Pete went out under the pace car, and I went to hydrate myself, dry off my leathers and try to cool down! Louise was a life saver as she had loads of bottles of water in a cool box! Pete had about 10 laps under the pace car then was able to get going and put in some really nice and consistent times. The hand over to Then it was back to me, again. I enjoyed my second session, but could not pick up the pace very well. I went out with the intention of doing a pace that I could cope with for an hour. It was still really hot and although I think I re-hydrated myself pretty well in between sessions, it still took a lot out of me. I know I managed my water intake better this year because after last years race I felt pretty bad on the Monday – I felt like I had been out drinking the whole weekend (dehydration), but this time I was fine (a bit tired) and actually felt like I contributed to work unlike the Zombie that I was last year!!
At the end we were 15th overall, but second in class, which is our best class finish yet and as an added bonus it actually means that at the moment Shaun, Pete and myself are leading the class!! We felt that we had a good day with everything running really well, unfortunately for 2 of our class mates it did not go so well. In the first hour Hazel had an accident at Honda Curve, breaking a few bones and the bike (Get well soon Hazel). In the second hour the black cat guys had an incident on the Esses, unfortunately the bike was stranded on the outside of the track and their only hope was that the pace car would get out allowing them to push the bike back across. As it happened the pace car did not come out again until the 5th hour (that was twice in one race that Pete got the pace car at the beginning of his session!) and by that time they decided it was not really worth getting back out on track. Unfortunately our second place did not get us a trophy. As I mentioned – we were the only team in the programme listed as Superproduction and they only buy the other trophies if there are more that 4 or 5 entered teams. That was a shame really, but I did get a bit of a shock when I was watching the trophy presentation as when they went through the special awards and called out ‘Phoenix Endurance’ for the Best Prepared Bike – totally unexpected. We think we got it because as Pete says ‘it’s easy to make a new bike look good’, and I guess the R6 (for its years) does look good – that’s cos Dad spends so long polishing that lovely frame!! Makes all the hard work worthwhile! Stats:
Set of tyres: 1 set of SC2 front, SC3 rear |
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Saturday morning was bright and warm. We signed on and got the bike ready for the first practise session. Not many people were signed up for the test day and it was to be an open pit lane, (you come and go when you want) which is always useful for testing. Pembrey has been updated over the last few months to change the access to the pits from the track. Instead of entering the pits on the exit of Honda curve (before the start finish straight) you now get off the track just after the kink (woodland). At first we were a bit concerned about this as it seemed a little dodgy having the exit on one (if not the) fastest part of the track. But it did seem to work, you just had to be a bit careful as you accelerated from the old Hairpin to see what the guys in front are doing. 
We had qualified 18th out of 23 – this is about the lowest turn out of teams I have every known. It’s really disappointing. Even worse when you realise that 2 of those teams did not make it to the start (practise accidents??), so there were only 21 teams racing. When the pit lane was opened I headed out to take up my position. Black cat racing were just behind us (they are one of our class opposition!!) and Moores Moto were just in front – Mike was starting for them. Tony reminded me to take my bike not theirs (Moores R6), and it did cross my mind to trip Mike up and get to his bike first!
Shaun went smoothly, although Pete practically staggered to a seat as he was really suffering with a hot foot where he had rested the ball of his foot on the exhaust, he was given an ice pack from the cool box to cool it down…! Shauns session went really well, good consistent times again.
At the beginning of Shauns last session, rain threatened. The weather forecast had been for thundery showers at the end of the day but nothing came of it, the clouds did look threatening for a time. Before Shaun started on his last session, we had had a chat and I mentioned that we were only 7 laps behind the 1st placed Superproduction class team (Hypa) and that our 2nd place was not under threat so….. if it looked like there was a chance we could make up the difference we would send him a message over the pit board. But for the last hour Hypa racing kept their 7 lap lead over us finishing one place above us overall. It did add a bit of excitement for the end though. 
Only 17, out of the 21 bikes that started the race, got to the finish line. Better luck next time guys.