After much calamity in my person life, I'm back. I should really post up my first race report from back in my home state of Tasmania. I went back ostensibly to see my old man, but actually so I could race
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Here's what I wrote up elsewhere about it:
What a weekend.
Did a trackday yesterday to get my head around Baskerville here in Slowbart. It's a great circuit but got a few interesting bumps, and huge elevation changes and some nasty camber to catch you out. Plus a blind crest corner to make you fill your pants... which looks like this when you get it right:
Ended up in novice because of the club rules and as it turned out, it was faster than intermediate anyway.
Got in 3 sessions, not really any clear laps so I couldn't string together anything. Best lap was down to either a high 1:14 or low 1:15 but that was on quick review of footage. Good times on an LC here? Well, some PCRA people did high 1:10s-1:11s in 2011 at a meeting down here, and the ultimate LC lap seemed to be 1:06. (2km laps here).
Today was race day. There was a 2 hour enduro on in the arvo but I slipped into the sprint races. No classes, just historics or a club series & all under 500cc. Elected to do both which meant I was looking at practise, 2xquali and 6 races all in just over 3 hours. Oh, and today started off at 22ish, was 30 by 9 and 37 in the shade by 11 at the track?
Got some help from my dad (who took these pics), my brother and his kids. They said my race bike sounded tough, which is an awesome compliment from a 7 and a 5 year old.
Thanks to some delays and muffed up sessions, lost practise and I elected to cut quali short to give myself a rest between sessions. Lined up for first race (club series 600 and under, and under 500cc whatever goes - so, motards and 400s etc) against some interesting opposition:
I got past him actually. And, I had an epic start to race 1: up the inside and made up 4 positions. Lost 2 of those back and settled into a battle with an rvf400.
Got him over the start finish line before starting the last lap. Of all the turns at Baskerville, the roller later up/down double apex turn is my favourite. It's full noise in 3rd and picking up 5th then 6th over start-finish line.
Such a fun corner. On a small bike you can't drag a knee the whole way around, but you do for the first half. By the end of the day, I had it sliding around and holding it up with my knee. Felt so good, it's such a forgiving race bike.
First race done, finished mid pack in under 500s.
Next up, historics. 7 bikes out, I qualified 7th against a couple of small bikes and a bunch of big ones, including a 1990 gixxer 1100. Tried hard, made up a spot, and got myself down to a freaking 1:10.3 which was a great time on the little LC. Had a good dice with a veteran who started racing bikes when my dad started racing cars, and it was good to see someone who knew their way around and place.
The straight at Basky is pretty short and has a bump that lets the bike bikes wheel stand. On the LC it's a case of tuck and watch the head shakes.
Races were then combined, and so I had 2 more. Overall ran consistent 1:10-1:11s till the final race when the wind picked up (60km/h side wind!) dropped me back to 1:13s. Since that was my goal for the weekend, it was nice to smash that goal out of the park and get close to what an LC should do around Baskerville.
This is the first turn. Really steep uphill and nice camber, but huge bumps on turnin point and at the apex. Had issues scraping chambers through there, would need to lift the bike to help. Couldn't really stiffen it, it was already a filling rattler around the rest of the circuit.
All in all, a great weekend. Justified bringing the bike down and my dad was hugely stoked with watching me race the LC. Given the 4 wheeled guys he gets to deal with on a regular basis that's pretty cool.
Oh, and as a bonus, apparently I know how to do a proper race tuck on what is probably a little too small a bike for me:
