Round 9 - Elvington - 22nd July

After a long wait, Scott found some time to help me out with my Swingarm and we spent a long evening taking the old one out (with the snapped lugs and old chain) and replaced it with one with shiny blocks of aluminium welded to the underneath for the paddock bobbins. Scott had to drill them out and put a thread into each block, so it wasn't as straight forward as we originally thought. They look ace. Kinda like something you might see on a works race bike with bespoke machined parts. Along with a new chain, I also treated the bike to 3l of syntec 4+ fully synthetic putoline oil. It's kept the engine in fine fettle so far so I didn't want to risk using anything else. So Scott has come up trumps for me again and I'm massively grateful. I really couldn't have done this year without him.

The day before my Elvington race, the Auto66 quarterly newsletter dropped through the door. It was full of rubbish as usual but it did have the points for the championship so far. As it turns out, I did score points for the race at Cadwell when my battery failed. I had forgotten that the race had been merged with another race so I actually came 9th and got 7 points. That was enough to push me into the lead of the Senior cup by 5 points. I was surprised to say the least. It made me think that I should have done the teesside race as I'd have picked up easy points there (given that nobody bothers to race there) and I could have been over 20 points clear!

Nic and I set off later than anticipated for Elvington and we arrived in York around 10:15pm. We hadn't had anything to eat so we dashed towards the centre of York looking for a takeaway. 15 minutes later and we were heading towards the track, being the proud owners of a Large Pizza Hut deep Pan Meat Feast. The gates to the circuit hadn't been chained up yet so we let ourselves in, grabbed a good spot for the next day and devoured our new acquisition. Bloody gorgeous.

The following morning we took everything at a relaxed pace. I got out of bed at about 9am, got the bike through scrutineering, signed on and then went back to bed to lie down for a bit. It's much better than having to rush around and I'm sure it allows you to concentrate on the racer more.

I had a new rear tyre so I was anxious to scrum it in. I had also decided to go up one tooth on the rear sprocket so I wanted to see how that felt. I had a couple of little slides but the tyre seemed to bed in nicely and the new gearing was definitely a good move as it seemed to have more grunt out of the corners and would top out nicely along the long straight. I was ready for the first race

As I lined up with the rest of the 600's for the first race, I noticed that Steve Degnan (the bloke who fractured his back at Teesside) was the flag man for the day. It was great to see him again and he was beaming with joy as he dropped the flag..and away we went. I got a good start and was 3rd going into the first corner. As we rounded the double-right-hander I got great drive onto the back straight and managed to drag passed into 2nd place. From there it was a case of trying to catch Richard Wilson (The leader in the 600 class). After 2 laps he had stretched a little bit more of a lead on me but the following lap I managed to close it all back up. Into the hairpin for the final time and I was late and hard on the brakes which brought me right up to his back wheel. I got a good drive out and set myself up for a last ditch block move at the final corner. Unfortunately I didnt quite have the pace to get ahead and as he closed the door on me, I needed to get hard on the brakes and sit the bike up in order to miss his rear wheel. I finished 2nd but I was happy that I had challenged him all the way to the flag.

For the Senior Cup qualification race, I had decided that I needed to try to get ahead of the big 1000's and stay there as long as possible. From the line I thought I might get into the lead but the thousands soon got into their stride and I was back in 3rd place. Through the chicane and I was hard on the gas to try and close in on the leaders. I left my braking late and then trailed it to the apex of the corner. Just as I was about to let the brake off, down I went!

It was a pitifully slow crash and I held on to the bike for the whole time and pulled the clutch in. I stood up and yanked the bike upright. As I did, I pulled on the throttle and with the clutch pulled in, it revved to the max and screamed for mercy as it bounced off the rev limiter. I jumped back on and off I went. I'd been down for about 20 seconds. The race was 4 laps and each lap takes 1 minute - it didn't look good.

I contemplated pulling in but I could see one rider was only about 10 seconds ahead of me so I decided to go for it. I picked him off with ease and went after another back marker. It took me 3 laps to catch him and a couple of corners to set him up. This time, my last corner block move worked a treat and I beat him by 0.3 seconds over the line. I had come 5th out of 7. With such small grid sizes, It hardly seems worth qualifying but racing is racing and I was having fun. Unfortunately, the bike wasn't! It was overheating. It had reached 100 on the starting line and didnt cool down at all during my unusually slow warm up lap. Riding through the paddock back to my pit area, the bike continued to get hotter and on checking, I realised it had overflowed all of its coolant into the belly pan. Worrying! I topped her back up with a litre and a half of Buxton and preyed that she would be okay.

The damage from the crash was minimal. Having gone down on the right hand, I was sure my new titanium exhaust sleeve would be damaged but hey presto, the frame sliders and paddock bobbins had done their job. The fairing was scratched quite badly but I can live with that. Luckily the bike was still working perfectly.

We broke for lunch just at the wrong time. It was sunny but there were clouds looming in the distance. Personally I'd have kept going for an hour to see if we could miss the worst of the weather but we didnt. Then it happened. In the middle of the wettest summer on record, somewhere along the line I had to race in the wet. As the black clouds dumped their cargo of droplets on the race track, the paddock lept into a fury of activity and put their wets on. Unfortunately my fury of activity lasts twice as long as everybody elses as I'm pretty slow at changing the wheels, but I reckon I managed both in around 15 minutes, which is pretty good for me - practice makes perfect.

The trophy race for the 600's is in torrid conditions but the wets do themselves proud. I'm not too shabby in the wet, manly due to my style. I don't push it too much going into corners (which is where the real wet experts make ground on me) but I do sit the bike up early and get the power down. Thats the style I use on my road bike and it seems to work. After 6 wet laps I come 3rd. However, its only when I go to pick up my trophy that I'm told I came 2nd. One of the guys was in a different class! So that makes me well chuffed. Another piece of "silverware" for the mantle piece.

The belly pan was full of water again but this time I put it down to the fact that I had forgotten to take the rubber bungs out and it had filled with water from the track. Looking back, it was a poor assumption.

The long gap between races means the track has had chance to dry out. The sun is now beaming and steam is coming off the tarmac. However it still looks a bit damp and I know that if I start changing my tyres now, I risk missing the race. As I line up for the Senior trophy race, others are on wets too so I dont feel too bad, however its the guy on dry tyres that takes the early lead and pulls away. I'm in 4th place and after 2 laps I realise I'm making no ground on the others in front. With the grid sizes so low and my tyres starting to rip themselves up on the drying tarmac, I decide to pull into the pits. It may seem a strange thing to do but it was the sensible option and it gave me extra time to change my tyres over for the 600 points race.

With the track now 99% dry and the bike being back on the right tyres, I was fired up for the 600 race. I got another good start but once again Richard Wilson pulled ahead. Again I tried to close the gap but he was just too quick for me. Looking at the timing sheets, he's lapping at around 0.4 seconds per lap faster. If you time that on a watch it seems like nothing, but if you see how much distance you cover when your doing 150mph and then times it by 8 laps (for the points race), it actually seems like rather a lot. I was still happy with my riding though. I was breaking differently for the hairpin. leaving it 5-10m later and braking at 98% in a straight line and letting it off at the turning-in point, rather than braking at 90% and then trailing it to the apex. It felt faster and safer. I guess the fastest way is to brake another 5m later and then brakes at 99% and still trail it to the apex (but I dont want to crash again). Eight laps in second place seemed a long time and didnt make for a very interesting race but it was valuable points and pushes me slightly clearer in 2nd place in the championship, but further away from Mr Wilson in 1st.

As I brought the bike back to the pit area, it was steaming. The temperature was in the low 100's and I needed to put another 1.5litres of water in to top her up. It was going to be a risk taking it out for the final race but I really needed the points. On a road bike, you'd simply put it in the garage or limp it round to the nearest workshop. On a race bike you try and balance the act of revving a poorly bike at 13000rpm for 10 minutes, risking hundreds and hundreds of pounds damage, to get a couple of championship points - strange how priorities can change.
With the bike topped up, I left it as late as possible to start her up and go to the holding bay. The temp stayed below 100 and I set off for a slow warm up lap. The temp was still below 100 - time to race.

The flag dropped and I pulled the perfect startline wheelie - about 8inches of air under the front tyre all the way through first gear and into second. The tyre dropped to the ground, I tucked in as much as possible and aimed my 599cc missile towards the first corner. As with all missile wars, bigger is generally better and the opposition made their extra 400cc known by creeping ahead. I held on to 4th out of turn one and was immediately stuck behind a turn and squirt rider. He simply couldnt go round corners, but once out of the corner, he grabbed a handful of throttle and shot off into the distance on his thou, leaving me to play catch-up on the brakes, only to see him squirt it off into the distance after the next corner. It took me 3 laps to get passed him and I was furious that the leaders had pulled about a 20second lead. I tried hard for the next three laps to catch them but they were running a faster pace than I thought. The timesheets show that they were actually running at 1.2 seconds per lap faster so my chase was futile. I took 3rd over the line and took my bike back to the pits. Again, steam started to rise from its guts - it had survived, but only just

So a pretty good day for results but not such a great day for the bike.

The following day I took the bike up to Scotts and we stripped it down to have a look to see if the thermostat had broken. I now know that the bike doesnt run a thermostat!

We then removed the water pump to see if that was okay and Scott said it was fine - not sure how you can tell just by touching it with the hand but hey, he's an expert at this kinda thing. So then we decided to fill the water system with radflush and clean the system. We idled the bike for 5 minutes and as it started to get hot and the water started to expand, I noticed that it was leaking from the radiator. The crappy track surface of Elvington had fired another stone into my rad and holed the radiator core. The bike went back into the van and back home to have some chemical metal applied to the hole.

After leaving it overnight for the chemical metal solution to harden, I tried again. Once again, the radiator started to leak and I spotted yet another hole (I hate Elvington). So now I have attempted to repair that hole and I'll find out tonight if I've fixed it.

Lets hope I can fix it before the race next weekend. The thought of paying to enter and driving down there, only to find its not 100% makes me shudder. Fingers crossed.