MRO Championship Round 5 - Castle Coombe 19 May 2001

Pre-Meeting

I had looked at the gearbox over the short break and decided the bearings were due for replacement. It's not that they are on the way out, but I felt that the miles the bike has done warranted some new bits.
 
I ordered a bearing puller to get the bearings out easier and was promised it would arrive before the weekend, but it arrived late and I had no chance of replacing the bearings in time, so I'll be doing that over the break between Castle Coombe and Thruxton.

As we cleared the garage of old tyres and race junk the exhaust on the transit van broke which was a major drama as we needed it for this weekend. Fortunately my father was on the ball and had it welded by a local garage which saved a few quid. Phew!

Thanks to Rock Oil for getting the oil to me in time. It was worth the wait. Can't wait to try out the strawberry smelling 2 Stroke oil in the paddock bike.

Friday 18 May 2001
 
Fortunately for me Castle Coombe is just an hour away down the M4 so we left around 6pm and arrived just after 7pm (OK, that is slightly more than an hour). For those of you who have an interest in history etc, Castle Coombe village is 'officially' the most beautiful village in the UK, however it was dark getting there and that topical fact would be completely wasted on me, unless the beers free and the girls are pretty. Then it would get my attention and to attention in that order.....probably.

During setting up my old mate, Paul Gladwin popped over to say hello. This was great as he offered to show me round the track and offer some guidance of where to brake etc. Some 1.85 miles later I was enlightened and thinking, Oh God, only 10 minutes to learn the track, lines, braking  points, peel in points etc before we got into a 20 minute qualifying session. What a drama that's going to be.

I have never even seen Castle Coombe before, not even in a magazine (well, especially not in one of those journals). All I had been told is it is fast and bumpy, so I was really looking forward to it......NOT!

Later that evening I bumped into Paul Shoesmith and his mates in the awning and we had a beer and a few laughs. Great bunch of guys and very knowledgeable too considering the short time they have been involved in racing GP bikes. They run the very successful Speed Freak track day company with Jamie Whitham.

The organisers (Dave & Bernie) had arranged a slot for scruitineering on Friday evening which is a step in the right direction as there are a lot of competitors in this series and this will help to alleviate the huge wait in the early hours and allow you to have a bit more sleep, however we could not get there fast enough to take advantage of this and had to set the alarm for a 6am rude awakening.

Saturday 19 May 2001

WoW! Beep....Beeep.....Beeep.

How early! We never got to bed until 12.30pm so I felt as though my head had only just hit the pillow. Penny got the kettle on......kettle on.....kettle on, Penny got the kettle on all day long. (You hum it and I'll sing it).

As I got brushed up, Penny took the bike to sctuitineering (Steve could not make it this weekend so we were on our own to do all the grafting). It was at this point I realsied there were very few toilets at this circuit and there were either constant queues, or there was no toilet paper. I decided to use the toilet in the restaurant which was a wise move all weekend as I only ever had to wait once.

Bike passed with flying colours and I set about changing the gearing to 15/38 on the final drive. Gearbox is standard.

I went and signed on at Race Control and had a bit of a frosty reception by Bernie which was odd as she is normally the first friendly face that early in the morning. Must have been the 'Wild Stallion' aftershave.

Saturday 19 May - Free Practice

I got to the holding area pretty early as the session starts as soon as the flag is waved and I needed as much track time as possible. We were told that although the programme has the lap record detailed at 1:12.80 by Chris Sansome, Derek Welch had been in the 1:11's before which gave us a guideline of what to aim for.

As I circulated I knew this circuit was not going to be easy to learn, and go fast quickly. The track was incredibly bumpy and my suspension was way too hard (far too much compression damping. Fighting the bumps, rather than absorbing them).

At one point I overshot the chicane at 'Bobbies' (love to know who named some of these sections) and went straight on (Mike Hertzberg followed me in). The problem with this chicane is you exit Tower Corner with such speed your line of sight tends to be in 1000m stare mode and you almost ignore the cones directing you to the right. It appears very quickly, so you have to try and find a good reference point to use as a braking marker.

My gearing was way to high and the bike was revving to 14,000rpm (I wanted to put my hand over the carbs to make them richen up like in carting) on the approach to Quarry Corner (fastest part of the circuit).

Session ended very quickly and as soon as I was in the awning I started to strip the bike as a lot of change was required to suit the bumps. I replaced my teeth as they had been chattered to bits across the bumps and sewed my tongue back on, then I searched the paddock for a cushion to strap to the seat to help absorb the shock waves of the bumps, but with no luck. Penny pointed out that maybe I have enough padding there already. 

I had set a 1:17s lap which was way off the pace of Jeremy and Derek who had posted 1:14s laps in this brief session. I had a lot of ground to make up.

Unfortunately I am still without a quick shifter which is an advantage when you need to change gear mid corner and this circuit has a few corners that this would have helped. Back to the 'old school' of gear changing.

Incidentally I have reverted back to the 3.75" front wheel as the 3.5" width makes the front way too unstable and braking into corners did not provide any positive feedback. I tried this narrower rim at the last two meetings and can confirm it allows the bike to change direction much faster and maintain a tighter line, but the trade off is stability. On the brakes the bike tends to wag it's tail and even though we had dropped the rear ride height to 495mm it continued to have this 'excited dog' affect which was a real problem as lowering the ride height to combat this weight transfer also meant my boots were starting to scrape on the floor again at big angles of lean. 

I think it would be a good choice for circuits like Brands Indy where the surface is smooth but very twisty.

I bumped into Justin from Winning Performance Suspension and we discussed what the suspension was doing and the recommended increasing the rebound and reducing the compression. So we did. 

I changed the gearing to 16/38 and hoped that this would be good for the qualifying session. As the other groups were out on circuit there were a number of heavy crashes which I can only assume was down to riders panicing about setting a fast time on a circuit they hardly knew. A recipe for disaster.

I was worried this weekend as I have just started a new job and the prospect of racing at a circuit I never knew was daunting. I do not need to get injured at the moment, or fall off and stroll into work covered in bandages or even worse, wearing a cast.

Saturday 19 May - Qualifying (20 mins)
 
Out on track, the bike was starting to feel better on the handling stakes and the gearing was better, but not perfect. The bike was between gears on a number of corners and only just getting near peak revs in the fast section towards Quarry Corner. It needed just one tooth off the rear to make it perfect.

I was being passed by a few riders that I would normally be quicker than and as I was trying to learn the circuit I found this frustrating as I did not have the confidence to commit to overtaking them back as the track was not laid out in my head well enough to develop an overtaking plan and follow it through. I ended up following them, but as I learnt the track better I found they were slowing me down, so I pitted.

I felt a little like building a brick wall without a spirit level. I had all the tools and the knowledge to do the job, but to make a good job of it I was missing the most important tool. Here it was track knowledge.

Back out on track I managed another few laps, but the chequered flag came out before I could settle into a rhythm, so I wandered back to the awning feeling a little disappointed with my performance.

My fastest lap was a 1:13.52s lap which although was a huge improvement, pole was set by Jeremy Goodhall at 1:11.54s (pretty good as he had also never been to this circuit before) with the remainder of the front row being Derek Welch, Mike Hertzberg and Shaun Brown. The weird thing was there were four riders in the 1:11's but no-one in 1:12's. The next rider was a 1:13s lap, with seven others.

I qualified 10th out of 33 riders, which was actually better that I had expected on reflection of how things were going in the session. My mate, Vince Whittle was 9th, which he was well pleased about and every time we passed in the paddock we both laughed as he was well pleased and I was just as happy to see him feeling a buzz, rather than a low and thinking of throwing the towel in from crashing. Well done mate, although I may have to stop offering advice if this becomes too regular an occurrence.

From the front of the grid to the back there is a difference in time of 9.52s, that's 11.74% (way off the pace and even BSB only allow 7% difference for this length of track). Just a few stats in case you were interested.

I stripped the bike to check for any detonation etc. I had planned to put new rings in again, but as my attention was more focused to change the gearing to 15/37 in the hope that this would be good for the race and also make some more changes to suspension.

All was fine and the bike was lovingly reassembled and looking good wearing it's new belly pan. No, not for me, it's the lower section of the fairing.

Saturday 19 May - Race (14 Laps - 1.85 miles/lap
)
There was a good spectator crowd for this meeting (even my brother Simon, his girlfriend and my dad turned up) and after reading Bike Sport News recently there is an obvious mutiny going on with the BSB meetings with people defecting from watching BSB meetings to watch MRO's for entertainment and more importantly, getting better value for money.

I only hope that having Chris Walker in GP's may help to raise the interest in this country for real race bikes, rather than converted road bikes and I have even noticed a considerable difference in the GP coverage in MCN this year.

We formed up on the grid and I was feeling a little like....Ho...Hum....Here we go again......lovely day.... Not really in race mode, until the lights went GREEN! Then it was "Get out of the way, there's a train comming!".

I was quick to get rolling, but then I just went backwards. It was my worst start of the year. Penny said I was back in 19th spot after the first lap and that was after I had taken a few people. I could even feel the flies hitting the back of my helmet it was that bad.

To my surprise, both Jeremy Goodhall and Derek Welch had fallen in the first lap (hope they were OK). This was bad for them, but very good for my Championship position as Jeremy was snapping at my heels for 2nd place in the Championship and only 2 points behind. On his current form he was likely to overtake me and demote me to third, but luck was on my side. 

Into the second chicane (Bobbies) on the 2nd lap I had the rear wheel airborne as I had slightly misjudged my braking point and nearly clipped the rear of one bike. Phew! That was as close as I want to come thanks.

I was starting to get a feel for the track and found that the faster you go the less daunting the bumps feel, or was that because my spine was so bumped by now that I was just numb with pain and could no longer feel them.

Penny said in qualifying there is a bump nesr the pit wall that I hit and the front wheel was airborne while I was cranked over. Love to get a picture of that!

I was now feeling a little more positive about the place and the bad start had made me dig deep to get my times down and try to get up to the front. I had a dice with Paul Shoesmith which was quite good, but costing time and although he fought back I was pleased to get back past and get some clear track and start putting in some fast times.

I soon reeled in a couple of other riders, including Vince Whittle. This made a good couple of laps and I found that Vince's weak point was exiting Camp Corner which leads onto the start/finish straight and up Dean Straight which is the fastest section on the circuit. I noticed on one lap that Vince always went wide here and it cost him time so I managed to get a good run up on him and made a pass into Camp Corner and got the second rider on Old Paddock Bend.

Although I was now making serious progress through the field I could still see the leaders which offered some reassurance that a podium spot may still be on the cards.

The next duel was with Lea Gourlay on the Aprilia which would be well suited to the fast sections fo Castle Coombe, but the chicanes would be it's Achilies Heel as Aprilia's are famous for their lack of bottom end grunt. As I closed in on Lea into Bobbies chicane I saw the bike bog on the exit. This was just enough of a delay to get the run on him into Tower Corner. I just prayed that he would not get past on the fast section and went through Camp Corner as fast as I could to make a gap.

I was now casing the rear of another bike which was quite a distance away, however it was getting bigger and bigger with every lap and as closed in I realised it was Paul Gladwin. I had a grin from ear to ear as I made my move into Quarry Corner my exit speed was a little compramised as I had to break really hard into the corner to get past Paul. He had a run on me into The Esses and stuck a pass back on me.

This was great stuff. I continued chasing him for another lap and as we both exited Quarry Corner together he suddenly moved off line and slowed rapidly. I later found out his sproket carrier had broken up. This was a real shame as we were having a good battle.

I was now in no man's land but I could see Chris Sansome ahead. Lap after lap the gap was closing, but every now and then a back marker would heed my progress, then I saw yellow flags being waved on the approach to The Esses so I eased up knowing there must be a highside on the exit of this chicane as it was slippery and the left side of the tyre never gets a chance to heat up (bit like Snetterton). As I exited the chicane I saw a bike sideways on and a sliding Niel Ronketti with smoke comming off his leathers. Bet that was hot. There was no way I could stop so I shot through the gap between the bike and Neil. If I had not backed off the pace slightly, and arrived at that point a fraction earlier it may have been a whole different story. Thanks to the marshals for being well on the ball.

Although I was closing at a pretty good pace on Chris I saw the last lap flag and gave it everything I had, but it was just not enough (Oh No...10p short) and I crossed the line in 4th. Damm! Just missed the podium.

Race was won by Mike Hertzberg and Shaun Brown in 2nd with Chris in 3rd spot.

I was well pleased for Chris as he has had a torrid time of it this year and appears to spend all his time fixing problems which had dampened his spirits to the extent where he was thinking of hanging up the leathers. This is the injection of hope he needed to get the racing fix back and we hope he continues as Chris and his brother Nick are great paddock friends.

I managed to post the 3rd fastest lap of the race at 1:11.48s, which was under the existing lap record of 1:12.80s by some way and just 0.35s off the 2nd fastest time. The new lap record will have been set by Mike Hertzberg at 1:10.13s which is pretty good. Again, the fast TZ's rule OK.

All in all a very enjoyable weekend. Up to speed, the circuit is great to ride. It's bumpy, scary and fast all in one measured dose, which makes for a very exciting lap. I do feel a little shell shocked now (Sunday) as your body takes quite a hammering from the bumps, but it was worth it.

The wider front wheel  brought back some confidence in the front end which had been missing in the last two rounds. On to Thruxton on 3rd June. Can't wait.

Don't miss it!