The week prior to this meeting had seen heavy rain and thunderstorms throughout the country and on Friday morning the weather was pretty miserable. I had still to get avgas for the bike so I drove out to the local airfield to get some. When chatting to the flight controller, I was rather surprised when he told me that the weather was to clear that afternoon and then remain good for the weekend. Sure enough, that afternoon, while getting loaded up, out came the sun.
After a beautiful Friday evening, Saturday dawned bright and dry. I got up about 7:30 and wandered up to sign on, then came back and got my leathers on for scrutineering. Having got that done it was back to do the final setting up, i.e. checking tyre pressures, fuel, getting the generator out and the tyre warmers on.
There was no delay in getting the meeting started and soon practice was under way. My practice session was second last so there was a bit of a wait before getting out. When I did get out it was to find the bike cutting out quite badly. It would pull alright for a couple of gears then the motor would go dead only to pick up again a couple of seconds later.
After a couple of laps of this it was obvious that it was not going to clear, so I pulled in. David and Graham Hogg had arrived by this time and between the three of us we started checking things over. The jetting looked alright and the plugs and suppressor caps also checked out alright. I put the battery on charge and this became the prime suspect as I had left it with a full charge after the last meeting, and had not charged it since. Previously I had been discharging it after the meeting then leaving it flat and charging it the night before. The only thing being, normally when the battery runs out the bike stops dead and will not start again until a fresh battery is put on. For the bike to be behaving the way it was, the battery must have a weak cell.
Second practice seemed to confirm this when the bike ran faultlessly for two laps then started cutting out again. As soon as this started, I pulled in again lest I did some damage to the motor.
I put the battery back on charge again, and decided to try the spare battery for the first race after lunch. It had been charged only a week ago so I was hopeful it would do the job while the other one was charging.
I had a new rear slick waiting for me with the tyre man and my intention had been to get it fitted for the first race. I now decided to wait till later to get it fitted, as I had been feeling a touch rusty the two clean laps I had done. I reckoned in light of this, it would take me the first race to get into the 'grove' again.
When the race is due, I normally wait until the race prior to mine is halfway through before taking of the tyre warmers and heading up to the holding area. This should leave only a few moments waiting thus the tyres should not cool down too much.
I had foolishly not tried to start the bike with the spare battery earlier, to my horror the bike refused to start. There was not enough time to swap the batteries over so I resigned myself to missing the race, when someone told me there was a 10 minute delay due to a crash. Breathing a sigh of relief, I got the battery changed and then cleared the unburnt fuel from the cylinders before firing it up again.
On the warm up lap the bike ran away fine and soon we were off. I got a good start behind Mark on the TZ750 Garfield on Brian Winter's Trident. Mark and I soon got by Garfield. I tucked in behind Mark for a couple of laps, but found myself being put off as his bike cannot carry the corner speed mine can.
I was able to pass him between the Esses and then cleared off for the win.
After my race, the 400s were out, and there was another delay due to a crash. By this time things were running well behind, and only the open sidecars and the big bikes got a second race before time ran out.
I was able to get my new tyre fitted ready for tomorrow though which would save some hassle in the morning. All I had to do was scrub it in during practice.
Later on in the marquee there was a presentation of trophies for the 125 riders, sponsored by Ian Robertson. The presentation was made by Gary Dunlop, son of Joey, who was across with a contingent of Irish to see the racing at East Fortune.
Sunday morning dawned cool and dry, which was a relief after the heat of Saturday. I was able to have a leisurely start as my practice was second last.
When I did get out I felt very relaxed and comfortable on the bike, so much so that I stayed out a little longer than I had intended, doing about four laps. That certainly got the tyre well scrubbed in.
There was not much to do before the first race apart from wait. I had my battery well charged this time, so there should be no need to worry about that.
Soon enough, we were away and I got away behind Mark again, though this time I was able to pass him quickly before the hairpin. I got my head down and started to look at places where I could improve, particularly my braking points. Some corners I am good, but on others I could be leaving things somewhat later.
Things started to go wrong again however on lap 5 or 6. The bike started juddering violently, and I had no option other than to pull in. As I came in I could see David Hogg looking at me and gesturing to ask what the matter was. All I could do was shrug my shoulders dejectedly. When I stopped however all became clear. The rear sprocket bolts had come loose again and this time they had made a right mess of the swingarm. One of them was hitting the arm really badly and would have to be taken out before the bike went any further, so David held the bike while I ran down and got the pliers.
With the wheel off, things did not look good. The metal looked to be right through as the gouge was about 3-4 mm deep. The metal itself was only 3mm thick. I got my micrometer out and was able to get one end into the box section allowing me to measure the amount of metal left. To my delight, I found there was still 2-2.5 mm. I would appear that the metal had been pushed back rather than worn away. This gave me the confidence that the 'arm would be safe for the rest of the day.
Having ascertained that the swingarm was useable, we turned our attention to the rear wheel and sprocket. I had spaced the sprocket out with washers, which I suspected were allowing the sprocket to flex a lot. With this in mind I decided to cut down one of my spare sprockets to use instead of the washers. We also decided to use some longer bolts. I tried to drill the bolts so that they could be lockwired, but without a vice to hold them this proved difficult and after several broken drill bits I abandoned that idea.
So with everything back together again, I was ready for the second race. This one I really wanted to finish as the first set of races after lunch on Sunday are the main ones of the weekend and the only ones with prize money.
Once again there was a long wait and the race before mine was a round of the FSRA sidecars, meaning it was a 12 lap race.
From the start I was in my usual place behind Mark though once again I was soon past him and off. I was feeling really confident and found myself able to get better braking points and also better corner speed, particularly through Pate's, to the extent that I was running out of revs on the back straight.
I was still thinking about the swingarm though and worried that it could still fail, I decided to glance back at it as I came out of the Snake round about the fifth lap. When I did this though my visor came up and the wind nearly tore my specs off. They did end up at the bottom of my nose though, which made life a bit interesting through the Esses as I couldn't see where I was going!
Luckily I had a mega lead, so I was able to brake really early for the hairpin, lift my visor and sort out my specs. Phew!
Oh and I had not seen anything untoward with the swingarm which was a relief.
My relief was short lived however. As I crossed the line for the last lap I could hear the dreaded chink chink chink noise coming from the back of the bike again. I decided to chance it and keep going to see if I could nurse it round the last lap.
From the Esses it was getting really noisy, and I was not so sure it would make it. However make it did and I managed to cross the line for the win. This time though the swingarm was done for. It was worn right through and it was obvious that more drastic measures would have to be taken to stop the bolts coming out. So that was the end of my racing for the weekend. There was only one more race to go however, so it was not so bad.
Sitting out the last race, I had the pleasure of watching Mark and Gus having a good battle for the win with Mark coming out on top after a dramatic last corner battle of nerves on the brakes.