This was the final meting of the season at East Fortune and the Melville Club had worked hard to make it a memorable one. There was to be an extra race on Sunday, The Steve Hislop Memorial Trophy, run over 14 laps. Also some classes would have one extended race of 12 laps on Sunday instead of two 8 lap races.
The entry for the Steve Hislop Memorial Race was to comprise of the top fifteen finishers from Saturdays 1000 production race and the top fifteen from the 600 race. In addition there would be ten other invited riders. Things did not look to clever on the weather front however. When I had gone to get the fuel for the bike the controller had said that the forecast was not good for the weekend, and the last time he told me the weather prospects he was spot on.
While loading the van on Friday and then on our run through it was quite windy and showery, although things did get better as we travelled east.
This meeting we were accompanied by Monique's parents who were over from Australia for a two week holiday. They had shunned the chance of a local B&B and had decided that a tent would do them just fine. With the strong winds on Friday, I was worried that the tent might not be such a good idea, especially as Stuart and Irene had little camping experience in Oz, let alone trying to survive a good Scottish gale under a tent doing its level best to take off!
Luckily the gale did not materialise, although it was still strong enough to give an uncomfortable night and do some damage to the tent. Still there were few complaints, and their faces were still cheerful come Saturday morning. I secretly believe that they were coming round to the healing properties of wind and rain and starting to realise that sand, sun and sweltering temperatures ain't all its cracked up to be!
Someone later commented to me, that not many Aussie's had a sun tan.
'Yeah' said I,
'That’s because its too bloody hot to go out most of the time!'
Saturday morning dawned to cloud and driving rain.
'Kin lovely' I thought to myself, as I trudged up to the office to sign on. For some odd reason there was only one bike at scrutineering. I could see the rider was struggling to hold it upright in the gusting wind.
Mind you, there was a slight hint of blue sky on the horizon. With this and my practice session being second last in mind, I decided not to change to wet weather tyres just quite yet. Instead, I hurried back to the caravan to get my leathers on and get back up to scrutineering before a queue built up.
By the time I was ready, the rain had eased somewhat and the sky was definitely clearing. At scrutineering, there was no one in from of me, and I was able to get done straight away. To my surprise, the scrutineer, who a good two stroke man himself, asked me if I didn't fancy going out with the big bike in the Steve Hislop Race.
'That would have been interesting' said I, 'But I never got an invite'
'Would you like to go out in it though?' he asked.
'Aye would I!'
'I'll sort it for you then.'
Grinning like and idiot, I headed back to the caravan to relay the news, although I was not sure whether or not to believe my luck!
Practice did not get off to a good start. First there was the usual shortage of marshals, then there was a substantial oil spill then a crash I think. As a result there was only one practice session per class.
By the time my practice came round the track was as good as dry with only a couple of damp patches at Railway. I was happy enough although the bike was missing a bit. I put this down to it running a bit rich and a plug chop seemed to confirm this, so I went down two sizes on my mains.
Things got worse though. When I went to fire the bike up for the first race, it wouldn't go and I missed the gate. After a bit of investigation I found that one of the plug caps was faulty. With a new one on she fired up again no problem.
There had been a shower of rain just before one of the earlier races, however it had not come to much and the track was dry again come our turn. The sky was looking very black though. The track was dry all the way round for the warm up lap, but went we go away it suddenly became apparent that it had started raining at the back of the circuit. Pate's and Railway were damp and there were a few slides. However we all got round the first lap safely.
It continued to rain at the back of the track which made things interesting. I was not heavy rain, just enough to lay down a damp film on the surface of the track. I was still able to run round at a good pace even on slicks. In fact to my surprise I started to catch some of the quicker Aprillias. That was until about lap five when someone highsided on the exit to Pate's stopping the race. A result was called and that was that for the day.
After the race I went up to the office to look at the results and was delighted to find that grid positions had been picked for the Steve Hislop race and that I was on the front row! That cheered me up no end.
Before It got too dark we took the caravan awning down as some of the poles had been rattling against the caravan all the previous night resulting a somewhat disturbed sleep for Monique and I. The kids had slept right through it all however. Following a trip to the beer tent with Stuart, I retired to bed early in preparation for the big race tomorrow.
It was still quite windy on Sunday morning, though there was no rain and the sky looked reasonably clear. I very nearly missed practice due to talking too much, however after a mad rush to get ready I only missed one lap of what turned out to be a shortened practice anyway. Once again the bike ran okay and I myself felt relaxed and confident.
Come the first race though thing started going wrong again. I was sitting in the holding area warming the bike up when all of a sudden it misfired and nearly cut out. I then felt as though it was not firing right. On the warm up lap again it was misfiring and cutting out. This forced me too come in right after the warm up and not start the race.
When I got back to the caravan, myself, David Hogg and Rab Patterson started going through things. We eventually found that the pickup coil was only giving half the resistance it should be. We swapped it for a spare and the bike fired up and appeared to run fine. I had just enough time to get ready for the Steve Hislop before it was called.
I was eager to see how my 15 year old TZ250 would compare to the latest GSX-R1000s, especially off the line. I didn't fancy getting totally swamped by them as we left the grid. We were given an additional warm up lap and I nearly over did it on the brakes going into railway on the second of these laps! I knew that on the brakes and mid corner speed was where I would have to make my time against the bigger bikes, so I thought I would have a go down the inside. I was maybe a little too enthusiastic though as came within inches of t-boning another bike!
On the second warm up lap the bike gave a little misfire coming out of the snake, but then ran fine all the way to the grid. However as I was coasting up to my position, it died altogether and would not restart. Bitterly disappointed, I was forced to pull off the track and return to the pits.
Once again we pulled it to bits and started checking. This time it was the ecu that had failed. We were only getting one weak spark for every 10-20 revolutions of the engine.
Peter Burgess came to my rescue by kindly lending me his Honda RS250 for my last two races. This was very enjoyable and I had two good races with Mark Middleton on his TZ750. I was very impressed with the engine in the Honda. I has a very good midrange power delivery compared to my own bike, so good in fact that I was finding it difficult to feed it in with the bike cranked over through the Snake. Off the start line the speed was incredible, and I was able to blast past everyone easily on the run up to Pate's despite being a bit ham fisted with the clutch.
Peter Burgess & Honda RS250
Peter's generosity made a good finish to what had be a rather frustrating weekend.