East Fortune, April 2004.
East Fortune, April 2004.
Last minute panic getting bike ready for the meet. Eventually get it finished at 7, Friday night.
Having got the kids off to bed, I then spend the rest of the evening getting the van loaded up ready for an early start.
Monique is working both Sat and Sunday from 2 till 12 midnight, so I am going to the meet myself sat morning. I then have to come home Sat night to look after the kids, then go back through again on the Sunday morning.
I leave the house at 6am, so I can get through for 7:30 giving me plenty of time to get set up, sign on and get scrutineered etc.
The weather looks very promising. Bright sunshine, warm and no wind. Just as well as my rain tyres are 11 years old!
First practice I take very gently as I have a new crank in the bike. I keep the revs below ten thousand and no full throttle. Still the bike feels quick. Everything goes well and nothing falls off. Bonus!
Second practice and I allow the revs up to 11. I also up the pace through the corners. No one comes by me, although the session is quite short, only 3 or 4 laps.
At lunchtime I get a chance to look at the program to see what I am up against. There are 14 bikes out in our class, which must be a record for the F. Era at EF. There is a good variety to. As well as my reverse cylinder TZ, Budge is out on his one, John Nicol is out on his V-twin hybrid TZ, Mark is out on is TZ750, Robin Rollo has an RC30, plus there are the usual smattering of TZ350 etc. I do notice however that not all the entries have shown up. Eleanor Forest was entered on an RS250, and someone else has entered a ZXRR750. Unfortunately, neither seemed to be in attendance.
The weather has now started to change, the wind has risen and it has clouded over and there looks to be rain on the way. Ho hum.
Luckily things stayed dry for my first race though. I got a reasonable start and did my usual up the inside at Pate's. At this point I was in fourth {I think) with Alan Cummings on his GPX600 having got the holeshot, followed by Andy Dunnet on his TRX850 and Robin Rollo on his RC30. Alan lost out down the straight, though Mark came blasting past us on the TZ750. I repassed him into railway. By the first Esses Mark came screaming by again. We had also caught a couple of the slower classics. There were rather a lot of bikes side by side at 130mph going into the corner. I left it as late as I could, passed everyone and chucked the bike into the corner. Had I been on the powervalve, I don't think I would have got it through without running wide and the backed going sideways. The TZ however just took it in its stride, and giving me the impression I could have carried another 10 mph! I was beginning to like this bike. From then on I was able to clear of without much effort and win the race. It looked like all that work had paid off.
My two biggest worries before the race had been the untested rear shock and the shock linkage itself. The rear shock is a hybrid with the top half being from the TZ and the bottom half from an R1 shock. I had discovered that the shock linkage bearings were knackered a couple of weeks before the meeting. I had ordered new ones but they had not arrived in time so Andy Burke had made me up some aluminium bushes to get me through this meet, however I was not sure if the extra stiction would cause problems. As it turned out both the shock and the bushes worked out okay.
By the second race the weather was getting worse by the minute. I had already rained, however the track was fairly dry with just a few damp patches. The wind had got right up however and had a real chill in it.
At the drop of the flag I got a blinder of a start and was second behind Andy Dunnet after Pate's. Mark Middleton had not come out this race due to brake problems and neither had Peter Burgess, due to lack of sleep problems!
I followed Andy round for half a lap while I sussed out the grip levels (I was on slicks) the passed him and made off for another easy race win.
Sunday dawned rather wet and miserable, with no sign of it clearing. As my rain tyres were 11 years old and somewhat perished, I decide to give the credit card another beating ad splash out on a new set. As the tyre man did not open up till 9am and there were a few people before me, I was a bit pushed to make first practice. However I managed to get ready in time, and having got the bike fired up headed round to the holding area. Halfway there though the engine died and wouldn't restart. This is the sort of thing that happens when the battery gives out, so I asked Budge if I could try his as he was not coming out to play again. With his battery on the bike fired up straightaway, though by this time I had missed practice. I arranged to get out with the open class as there were a couple of 250's out in that class too.
I hoped to go out at the back as the tyres needed to be scrubbed in and also I had never been out on a proper set of rain tyres. Unfortunately I got there too early (all the big bikes show up as late as possible to maximise the tyre warmer effect) and I got shunted right up to the front. When we got out I was pleasantly surprised to have only a handful of bikes come past me and I was also gob smacked by the amount of grip available from the rain tyres. So, an enjoyable practice despite it being somewhat wet.
The first race was before lunch, so I just had time to do a quick plug chop and check nothing was about to fall off the bike before going out again. The rain had abated somewhat, however there was still the odd drop or two and the track was still wet, so rain tyres it had to be.
This time I got a mega start and managed to outbrake everyone into Pate's. From then on that was it, I was left to negotiate my way through the classics and the slower Aprillia 250's. Bit boring really, however the rain tyre novelty spiced tings up a bit. By the end of the race I had still not found their limits, so I was hoping it would stay wet for the second race.
There was a bit of a delay after our race due to oil on the track, then the next race was red flagged due to a crash. As a result things started to run a bit late. The lunch break was very late, by which time it had stopped raining. By the time our race arrived there was a dry line round most of the track so on went the slicks again.
By now I seemed to have perfected my starts and was able to clear off for an easy ride.
The day was finished of with an entertaining 1000 proddie race. John MacDonald and Bruce Birnie had been knocking lumps out of each other all weekend. This time there was to be no quarter. The two of the came winging into the First Esses side by side. Unfortunately for Bruce, John had the inside and drier line. Bruce's front tyre cried enough and down he went in a spectacular tumble, landing without injury although he did have a very long face. John of course cleared off for the win.
A good start to the season. Roll on the next round!