First Outing at East Fortune - April 2005

I felt like a bit of a nerd; watching the weather all week, to see if it would be dry or wet. As it turned out, the weather forecast changed each day and just made it frustrating to try and work out. It was maybe an omen !

Billy brought the bikes across from Ireland together with Adrian Ellwood’s R6 and Drixton Honda. This meant there were three bikes in the trailer and one in the living area of the truck, so the whole thing ended up weighing 6 tonnes !

John (my brother) came down on Friday night and stayed till Saturday (when Russell came down too) to help and we needed help!

The weather turned really windy and it began to rain as we put up the garage and set things up, my fingers were numb from the cold and we got soaked. At 10pm we were finished and got into the van for a hot drink. That night the weather was terrible and didn’t get any better till lunchtime on Saturday, which postponed the practice.

We were really busy in the morning, but were ready for practice. I went out first on the 600 with full wet tyres and the circuit was very wet. It felt good to be out, but less good to be out first time this year in the wet, on a new section of the circuit, which was a little slippy.

The practice went well and I qualified 6th on the grid (not bad for the first time on a short circuit on the bike and first time out this year).

The 400 practice was on a drying circuit but i found out through alot of movement and sliding, that the Dunlop tyres I had on were not so good in damp conditions.

Neither of the bikes were geared correctly (we only had sprockets for road racing), so all weekend I ran a low gearing which meant I couldn’t accelerate as much as I wanted and therefore didn’t get to use 6th gear on either bike. This combined with the 400 being a very std (untuned) bike, meant that I qualified on the fourth row in the 400 race.

The track dried after lunch and the first 600 race was in dry conditions, unfortunately for me, the chain came off on the warmup lap and I missed the first race.

OK, thats enough of the excuses……… I got out into the 400 race and from about 19th or 20th began to have some good fun overtaking guys. I found that the lower power of the ZXR meant I could’nt draught bikes up the straight, so I had to be very late on the brakes and carry alot of speed on the corners. It was a good race and I finally got up to 14th.

Not what I’m used to in the 400 class, but with a bog standard 14 year old H model ZXR, I was very pleased.

Saturday finished early as time had drawn out with the weather delaying the practice, so we had an early finish. I got the barbie going (as it was still dry), Mette came down and we had some big steaks.

Sunday

Practice went well on both bikes and I was ready for a good days racing.

There were 6 races (3 for each bike) and it started with the 600’s. I was away in about 7th or 8th and was passed by Alan Bennie on lap 3. Aftre this I saw he was behind Mark Ward and knew that he had difficulty passing him. I got a good line down to Railway and outbraked them both to get past and away. Over the next two laps I managed to get past another two people and felt things were going well, so I got my head down and drove as smoothly as possible to a 6th position.

The first 400 race went well too, despite my starts being abismal due to the very soft clutch on the ZXR. I had a great time, again coming from 20th up to 10th, overtaking guys on the outside, inside, outbraking them….it was a good laugh and I was thoroughly enjoying it.

Next time out on the 600 I got a great start and after a few good dices, got into 5th. I just couldn’t get near the top 4 though and they pulled away from me, but a 5th position was great !

Second 400 race was good with more hooliganism. passing on the outside and outbraking from way behind to get past guys. there was even a wee bit of fairing bashing, as is more likely in the manic (sometimes kamikaze) 400 class.

The third 600 race began with a poor start, but was nevetheless great. I had to work hard to get past a couple of guys, and this held me back from an attack on places higher up, but I got up to 7th and was quite happy with this.

In the last 400 race the clutch was getting quite poor and I lost about 3 rows on the start. Again though, I really enjoyed working hard to pass guys and come as far up as I could.

I finished 13th in this race, I think it was asking too much for me to get higher, I must have passed 15 bikes and some were very difficult to get past.

So for being a shakedown for the bikes before The Cookstown 100 on the 30th of April, it went very well and I can’t wait to get across and have a go at the roads.

I’d like to thank everyone who helped at the weekend in one way or another:

Billy for bringing the bikes across from Ireland

John, Russell, Connor and Dave for Pit Crewing.

Mette for bringing the supplies and bringing me warmth on Saturday evening.
My mum and Irene for driving to Haddington to get more petrol !
To Berenice, Uschi, Senga and Reena for coming down to support.
My Dad for coming down to watch on Saturday !! (first time ever).


Thank you to my main sponsors this year: Here