Our 2017 Season Opener - A Weekend To Forget?
With our team van breaking down the week before the opening round at Brands Hatch, followed by the towbar electrics on the replacement rental van intermittently breaking down, then the race radiator springing a leak and finally the race engine imploding during the Sunday "championship points" race - our opening weekend to the 2017 season was most certainly challenging!
But on the bright side, we were lapping faster than we had ever done before - so we were doing something right!
With our team van breaking down the week before the opening round at Brands Hatch, followed by the towbar electrics on the replacement rental van intermittently breaking down, then the race radiator springing a leak and finally the race engine imploding during the Sunday "championship points" race - our opening weekend to the 2017 season was most certainly challenging!
But on the bright side, we were lapping faster than we had ever done before - so we were doing something right!
 |  A nice warm welcome... |
Our "weekend" started on the Thursday morning with the collection of the rental van, which was loaded up with all the necessary gear and then driven 220 miles from our Northwich base to arrive in a surprisingly empty paddock. We managed to setup on the outer edge of the paddock which has a mains hookup - meaning we could go through the whole weekend without listening to a generator! It also meant that we could do things like charge mobile phones, iPads and laptops overnight (it's these little things that makes paddock life a little bit easier).
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The Friday test day was an MSV rather than NG test day and was not particularly well advertised - which could help to explain why the paddock was looking quite empty. We were awake bright and early to sign on (but not as early as the lawnmower man!) and then got noise tested at 08:00 when it opened. Our new titanium Arata exhaust registered 105dB at the noise test, so was just within the ACU noise limit. But a pass is a pass! :-)
The lawnmower out early, keeping Brands tidy!
At our 2016 season opener at Brands Hatch, we lapped in the 56's on the test day, 55's in qualifying and then set a Personal Best lap of 54.24 in one of the races - so we had some reference points to aim for.
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In the first session of the day, we bedded in the new EBC brake pads and blew away some winter cobwebs. The second session was very short due to a red flag caused by a bike breaking down on the circuit. In the third session we managed to get in the swing of things and put in a 55.08 lap - which bode well for the (forecast as dry but windy) weekend ahead.
Cool and Cold at the same time!
With some post-test checks completed, we headed off to scruitineering and FAILED for the first time in years! The reason for the failure was due to an undocumented new rule that NG had put in place due to an issue that a rider with the No Limits club had - the end result was that transponders were no longer allowed to be mounted on the fork legs, so we had to relocate the transponder to the side of the frame instead. Changes to the onboard camera rules also meant that we could not use our forward-facing camera - so "bum-cam" would be in operation for this meeting.
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Our new helmet stand "Stan" had his first visit to a race track this weekend too - and was well received by kids and parents alike, with many photos being taken and admiring glances given! Stan even got a cheeky little cuddle from Lucy too... :-)
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Onto the race weekend itself... Overnight on Friday there were heavy winds and rain - so heavy that we could hear awnings being blown along the paddock and the owners chasing after them! By the morning, the paddock had filled up with people and there was a lot of surface water. We prepared both wet and dry tyres and decided last-minute to run the wets (correct decision) for the morning practice session. All races for the weekend would be dry though.
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For the Saturday qualifying race we were placed at the very back of the Supertwins grid. After working our way through a lot of traffic we managed to get all the way up to 2nd position by the end of the race! This result determined the starting grid order for the Saturday "championship points" race so was great news. The bad news was that we discovered a small leak in the race radiator on the return to the paddock, so needed to fit our smaller spare radiator in order to continue our weekend.
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In the Saturday "championship points" race, we finished in 5th place. In the first couple of laps we got boxed in and then beaten back to almost last place in class. So we pushed really hard and set new Personal Best lap after new Personal Best lap - setting a 53.94 (0.30 under our old Personal Best lap) on the last lap of the race.
After the Saturday racing was over, we made our customary visit to the Kentagon paddock bar then ventured across to the Mercure hotel that is based at the entrance to the circuit - where Big Dave and Steph were staying overnight - to check out the "Racing Bar" before returning to our luxury caravan accommodation for the night. On the Sunday morning, we looked over the onboard race footage from Saturday to look for any improvements...
The Sunday qualifying race showed us making further improvements in lap times, taking another 0.11 of a second off our Personal Best lap (now a 53.83 - 0.41 quicker than our 2016 time!). Unfortunately, everyone else improved too... From our 26th position grid spot we managed to drop a few places on the opening lap but then clawed them back again throughout the race, eventually finishing in 6th position in class at the chequered flag.
With a long gap until the Sunday "championship points" race, we decided to pack away everything that we could (in advance of our 220 mile return journey) before our 4pm race. We had a strong start and were holding position by putting in consistent 54-second laps. But then, coming into the final laps of the race, our engine decided that it had enough and broke with a spectacular thud - the initial assumption is that the crank has snapped - so we pulled off the track and headed back home...
It has been a difficult start to the year but there are many positives that we can take away from the meeting - we are currently riding well and are continuing to go faster year after year! But with our season budget already stretched thin, the broken radiator and broken engine have proved to be too much too soon in the 2017 season - so we have reassessed our plan for the season and have modified our calendar of events appropriately, which has resulted in us deciding to miss some of the upcoming NG rounds.
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With a engine swap to perform and the race radiator to be repaired in less than two weeks before the opening round of the Darley Moor club championships, time is against us! But, as usual, we will do everything we can to be there - wish us luck, we'll need it!!
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