Castle Combe Results

This was going to be titled "it *is* Champ's fault", but see below.

I've broken my curse of Castle Doom^H^H Combe.

Qualified in 18th on saturday early afternoon with a 1m 33s lap time
and the wrong gearing - it was all over the place in a too low going
in and too high coming out kind of way, so I made the decision to
change it for the race. We had no practice, just straight out into
qualifying *again* which is getting to be a real PITA.

Race 1 - saturday at 5.30pm and fark me it was hot! Got a flyer of
a start and was fighting up in the thick of things then we started to
string out. 8 laps in that heat on such a fast track was a nightmare.
Managed to just about hold it but lost one place from my start and
ended up 9th at the finish. Best lap 1m 28s - gear change worked!

Race 2 - sunday 11am and even hotter than yesterday. Race was
delayed as one of the guys who came off on saturday (he went
up Avon Rise and into Quarry, reached for the brake and the
bar came back to the lever!) had forgotten to empty the airbox
of oil after fixing it, and on the left into the first chicane it
promptly
emptied itself over his rear tyre (and the track) and he slid off
into the field. I got another flying start and managed to hold my
position and battled through some of the Class B riders in front,
who were behaving like they were in a dog-fight and leaning on
each other out of most corners, to finish 8th with a 1m 27s lap.

After coming away from CC last year with two broken bones in
my hand and a battered bike, I'm well chuffed with those results
as I was still a little fearful of the track. It's still bumpy as ****,
and a couple of times I went over the same bumps that threw
me off last year and the bike gave it's head a shake, which
certainly put the frighteners up you.

Other comedy moments include the trim falling off my helmet
on the start line (so tucked it in my leathers to fix later) and
getting my foot trapped underneath my peg at Quarry as it
slipped off and nearly wearing through my toes, getting almost
spat off in a left-hander at the esses as the exhaust ground
out (out of seat moment!), a huge rear slide at Quarry in front
of a big crowd, my team mate almost ejecting himself right
in front of me at Quarry and dodging the faller in Race 1.

Some pics here (inc. sidecars and KTMs)
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph//album?.dir=/7a72re2

and here's the Race 1 crash:
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/reservoircogs/IMG_5343.jpg

Thanks to Mark for coming and saying hello - hope you
caught the race and it looked good!

[0] I was working out that Champ was the bad omen as he
had been present at the round last year (and Bear, but he
redeemed himself by attending and I did finish!) and then I
realised that he was at Snetterton and I finished that race,
so I can't blame him.

 

Well done. Always good to put in a decent ride at a 'bogey track'. Never
been back to Three Sisters after the notorious bumps on the one really
fast bend bounced the Rotarini on to very ridged narrow grass run off
and I finally binned it uncomfortably close to the armco.

--

+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Moto Guzzi Mille GT/Squire RS3 Gilera Nordwest |
| Gilera GFR Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+

 

And very entertaining it was too.

In the top left of that picture, next to the guy standing with the
camera, is SWMBO. I was to her right, just out of shot. I think I got
some good photos of you: I'll let you know when they come back.

 

Seemed like a good place to be - most of my "moments" were at
Quarry, either with people falling off, trying to fall off, or me
trying
to fall off round that corner.

I hope the slide looked as impressive as it felt if you saw it.

 

It was good, although not quite as good as the sidecar passenger who
fell off in the sprint.

 

I was talking about Champ - I thought he was only at CC and
I'd fallen off, but he was at the Snetterton race (doing his own)
and made somebody else fall off instead.

Or maybe it was the fact that you were both in the same place
at the same time and the continuum had been disrupted...

 

TVM. One more sig and I'm bib free!

 

How many sigs for a national licence? Not that I'll ever need one!

 

Circuits isn't a problem as we only do one-day affairs but at
different tracks.

I guess, but it might exclude me from the current series.

 

It is supposed to be a novice series, and they take a dim view
(and it may well be in the rules now) with non-novice riders
joining the Class B series. The rules are very tight on bike
modification - no tuning, limited changes, etc - to keep things
as cheap as possible.

The rules are a bit more slack in the Class A series (which
I am in) as we have a lot of Clubman level now. I don't know
if the rules exclude National level, but wouldn't be surprised
if it did.

 

Heh.

"You can't race here any more, you're too good."

 

Well yes, that's kind of the point. It is supposed to be
a novice championship and the two classes mean that
you can move into the (harder) Class A once you've
got a taste for it and want to move on a bit.

So far the DSC have put an extra 50-odd racers onto
the books of New Era, with only about 5 of them not
being novice licence holders.

It's a way of racing (a) on the cheap (b) on a Ducati
(c) with your mates and (d) not straight out into the
axe-murderers class!