Wednesday 15 August 2012

2012 Round Six: Darley Moor Sunday

Sunday morning came far too quickly. It was cold and before long, the leathers were slid into to finish the mending of dads bike. Even with the previous nights preparation, the shimming still took a while and with both of us aiming to get out for the practice, we were really pushed to get out. Everything came together with minutes spare and we both got a bit of practice. For me this was great as for the first time all weekend there was just clear track and I could learn like I should have the preceding morning.


Aside from fuel and the usual consumables and checks, there wasn't much done before the first of Sundays races. I had yet another close battle with Gary Biddle (58) and dropped my lap times and despite a jumping 2nd gear out of Park Corner, I still managed to keep it going. I had a great race, however, it appeared that dad (43) was in for yet more poor luck with a conrod failure that destroyed everything but the cylinder head.

Unfortunately, the condition of the barrel was beyond track side repair and potentially beyond repair at all so dad was going to be missing the last race. I felt great after my last race and after speaking to Mike Bonnet (98) about my gear jumping, he advised I push the lever as it might be jumping down. However, the oil leak I had been chasing all weekend was still not solved so this would need looking into.


As the final race approached, everyone knew it was going to be a damp race. As I mentioned in  an earlier post, I had replaced my front tyre with a Duro and had got some real confidence in it again. I opted for a Sava MC31 Soft on the rear as it would heat up quicker and I kept the front with Duro. I had been told confidence was the only thing needed for the wet race and I pushed a bit on the warm up lap but didn't feel the bike slip or slide at all.

I had a usual manic start but by lap two I was lapping sub 1m30s which gave me a great chance to get up to a good place in group four. On the last three laps, I ended lapping 1m24s. To put this into perspective, this was faster than my fastest lap of the weekends first race. I very nearly passed Steve Conneely (99) but settled for 7th in group four which felt great for my first wet race.

This weekend went much better for me than the previous meeting and even for dad, there was the silver lining that he had ridden really well and deserved better than he had achieved. A massive thanks goes out to him for his advice and help and to those at Replay Scooters and JB Tuning who gave us some great racing and plenty of laughs.

Photos: Lee Hollick Photography 

Race Scooter: All events occurred 12th August 2012

2 comments:

  1. The condition of the barrel was beyond track side repair and potentially beyond repair at all so dad was going to be missing the last race, Hope so you enjoyed it. Thanks ffor sharing such a nice blog. Very inoformative.
    Regard's,
    Ben Almeer,

    Click on my link

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you like the blog Ben. There should be a few more updates coming over the next few weeks and throughout 2013.

      Elliot

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