Rounds 5&6
Snetterton is only about 120 miles away, so why does the journey take so long? Elvedon Forest, that’s why, the A11 (M) becomes single carriageway, one in each direction as the ARB ‘Stats ’forms say.
Arrived on the Friday evening, far too late for ‘technical inspection’ so set up ‘camp’ and relaxed.
Saturday morning at Scrute bay at 07:30 all OK, signed on and got practice pass. Called for practice, no problems, running 19/48 gearing with a 165 main jet.
Sat. Race 1: Started 29 on a 33 bike grid, good tussle with, I think, 4 others finished 26th.
Race 2: Started 26th on grid tussle with same group, ended up 22nd.
In the evening had a chat with a ‘retired’ GP 125 rider who now races ‘Zeds’, received some wisdom re the ‘Esses’ the theory was the same as mine, but I now knew how to put it into practice.
Sunday Race 1: Started 22nd, went into ‘Esses’ as advised, approach felt far too fast, but all went well and I knocked two seconds off my lap time. Came in 23rd, I think others had also sought advice!
Race 2: Started 23rd of 34 bike grid. Loads of cement dust down from Riches, through Sear almost to the Esses as sidecar had decided to do an oil change during the previous race. I decided to enter Sear at normal speed but delay opening the throttle on the exit to enable me to cross the dust without too much lean. Light out and straight into a fight with two, others, knees/ wheels touching, nothing between us really, managed to get in front and hold position nearly to end of race. ‘Last lap’ flag was out I could hear and feel the other bikes behind me, slowed for waived Yellow at sear and saw a bike down and very still rider on the concrete (racers will know all about the concrete at Sear), saw the green flag and opened throttle, still holding position, through the Esses, the Bomb hole and Corams, still in front of the group, then it all went a bit wrong, we I was leading into Russells (a Right/Left) braking hard from Corams, I saw bikes trying a last bend overtake, then the front runners came up behind to lap us, we now had at least 5 bikes all going for the same line through Russells, 5 into 1 wont go, I went wide on both sections to give the leaders a foot or so to pass, I saw dust come up from someone going across the grass and touched a couple of bikes, everyone stayed on for the last blast to the flag but I lost out in position and was pipped into 23rd., oh well that’s racing, and the leaders didn’t suffer so a good result really.
One last point, three of us were racing each other at close quarters, riding as hard as we could, this caused us to lap 2 seconds slower than each was capable of, if we had just resigned to our positions and not ‘raced’ we would not have been lapped within 500 yds of the flag.
The faller at Sear was a mate who was camped next to me. He had been knocked out but was fine and passed fit enough to go home, He had his helmet with him, it was a write off with a huge dent in it, I use a similar helmet and it was nice of him to ‘road test’ the type for me.
Cadwell next…..
