Race Report - Round Four - Donington, 13th August 2005

(just catching up with posting these...)

Race Report - Round Four - Donington, 13th August 2005

With over a month off from the last race, we'd had a chance to fit the
Keihin FCR39 flat slide carbs onto the bike and book in for a trackday
at Donington the week before the race to get some practice in.

As I had never been out on the track at Donington, it would all be down
to how much time I could get out learning the track and playing with
the bike settings to find something that suited me right. So on the 2nd
of August myself and nearly a dozen other DD riders all booked onto a
trackday there. We had debated which group to go into - fast because
we're "racers" or inters because Donington is a fast track and our
bikes are not - but the majority had opted for inters, myself included.


Donington is a good 3 hours drive away from Essex and so I left off
early from work to get the bike all ready and onto the trailer, and all
the kit into the boot for the drive. It was quite uneventful and I even
filled the bike and cans up with petrol on the way too, stopping off at
a Shell station to fill up with Optimax.

It was nearly 9pm by the time I arrived at the circuit but I couldn't
find any of the other people who said that they were camping, so I
asked at the gate and the guard said it would be ok to camp just inside
the gate if I wanted to. Knowing that there were a couple of overnight
stops on the cards in the upcoming races, and fed-up with freeloading
in other people's tents or accomodation, we had been to the local
camping shop and bought a nice 3-man tent. The tent is really easy to
put up and offers plenty of space inside, and it had been tested in the
wettest weather imaginable at the DSC trackday at Cadwell a couple of
weeks before, so I knew it would be ok. As it was only £50 it would
easily pay itself back over the price of B&B after a couple of uses
too.

Having pitched the tent by the entrance, I then got into my sleeping
bag and tried to get to sleep. When I say "tried", imagine sleeping a
couple of hundred yards from a runway. For those that haven't been to
Donington it is right next door to the East Midlands Airport, and the
planes are less than 100 feet off the ground as they pass over the
circuit, and I was trying to get to sleep under it. The planes were so
low that the strobe lights underneath them were lighting up the inside
of the tent! I think I finally crashed out about 1am, and was woken up
intermittently after 4am as the planes continued. I made a mental note
to book a B&B for the race weekend.

Driving the short distance into the paddock at about 8am, I met Tony
(#12), Ali (#7), Tim (#21), Andy Roberts (#99), Domski (#23), Michael
(#22), Mike (#33), Nick (#34) and Ian (#42). Also there, but
instructing on the trackday, were Geoff Spencer (#8) and Clint (#62). I
began to wonder if we were going to get points for this...

Having unloaded the bike into one of the garages that Domski had bagged
the night before - he actually sneaked into the circuit and put his
tent up inside one of the garages, and even he said it was noisy as
hell in the night! - I walked up to do the obligatory signing on for
the trackday. On getting my numbered sticker back, it turned out that
I'd been moved down a group to Novice. Eh? I said that it probably
wasn't a good idea, being a seasoned racer and all, but they basically
said "tough". Nice! On getting back to the garage, it turned out that
everyone who had booked into the inters had also been bumped down. In
fact all but three of us were in the novice group! It made me wonder
what anyone on their first trackday in the novice group would think
when a dozen mad DD racers all piled into the first corner.

First session out and the bike was running fine and seemed to have a
little more midrange than before. A lot of the others disappeared into
the distance but that didn't bother me as I like to build it up slowly,
plus I'd never been out on this track before. It only took a couple of
laps to get used to it and then I left the brain behind as I started to
push the bike more into the corners and started playing with some of
the bigger bikes in the novice group. They would come flying past me on
the straights, then brake way too early, wobble round the corner then
blast it back down the next straight - all good fun when you can pass
them at the end of every straight on the brakes on your little 50bhp
Ducati. I got playing with a Yamaha R1 or R6 and after a couple of laps
I managed to get past him and stay there. As we came over the
start/finish the chequered flag was out and I looked behind to see
where the Yam was. It was at this point that something in my head
screamed that I should look where I was going, so I did. Now Redgate is
a nasty corner when you're concentrating and I wasn't. I basically
cocked it right up, and knew I wasn't going to make it so I stood the
bike up, kept the throttle on and dived head first into the kitty
litter, heading for the tyre wall at about 60mph. More by luck than
judgement, I kept the bike and myself upright through the kitty litter
and slowly managed to bring it round to run along the track, at which
point I came out of the kitty litter, onto the grass and then back onto
the track. Just as the instructor came past. He looked at me and shook
his head. I didn't blame him.

As the day went on the laps got quicker and I was starting to really
enjoy coming down Craner Curves flat out in top, knee down round the
outside of the packs of wobbly riders all trying to clip the apex of
the corner. Fair play, but that wasn't the quickest line and I was only
pointing that out to them. Most of the track is spent with the throttle
pinned on these little bikes, and it was going through fuel quite
rapidly. At least it gave me a good chance to practice some of the
techniques I had been reading about in Keith Code's Twist of the Wrist
books that my mate Oz Mick had lent me, and also to see how different
gearing made a difference around the track.

In the afternoon sessions I hooked up with Andy Roberts (#99) and we
spent quite a few laps following each other and checking each other
out. It was great fun as we were pushing each other on, going faster
and faster. In one of the sessions, Tony (#12) came flying past me on
the straight and had a good look as he drew up alongside and then
flipped the bird as he went sailing past. The bastard. The next session
out and Tony came past again in exactly the same spot and did the same
thing again. Only this time, Nick (#34) followed him through and saw
what Tony had done, so he did it too. However, Nick was a lot further
along the track and must have looked up to see the Esses approaching
rather rapidly as he screwed up his braking and nearly carried straight
on. If I hadn't been laughing as hard into my helmet I'd have given him
the wanker sign as I went round the outside.

In one of the last sessions in the afternoon, I came round Redgate and
the bike just died on me. I knew instantly that it had run out of fuel.
As the bike coasted I knew I had to get off the track, but for some
reason I went onto the grass at about 50mph. What an idiot! Again, more
by luck than judgement, I managed to slow the bike down and just leant
it up against the tyre wall and sat there watching the bikes go by. At
the end of the session, the breakdown truck came and picked me up. In
the briefing, they had said that anyone running out of fuel on the
track would get a good kicking, so when the breakdown guy asked what
happened I just said "it went bang and died, so I pulled the clutch in
parked it up." I think he believed me, as it was a Ducati after all.

With the trackday over and myself and Andy running at about 1.30s round
there I was quite happy that I wouldn't do too bad in the race itself.
There was just over a week to go so it would hopefully all still be
fresh in my mind come raceday.

In the week leading upto the raceday, I didn't do anything to the bike
and only needed to book a place for B&B, which I did through the
Donington Park website itself as they have a list of local places. I
checked where everyone else was staying but at £95 per night it was a
bit rich for this budget racer, so the place for £35 a night, with
breakfast, and only half a mile up the road was more like it.

The plan had been to leave work at lunchtime, which I did, and get
home, get changed, pack the gear into the car (which I now have down to
a fine art), hitch the trailer and head off to Donington with plenty of
time to get sorted. Of course, as you should know by now after reading
a few of these, things never really do happen just like that. Certainly
not for me, anyway.

It wasn't so much that anything was wrong, but I just seemed to be
running quite late and didn't have the car packed and ready to go until
nearly 2.30pm. Add in 3 hours for the journey and I'd get there
comfortably by 6pm, so still not too bad. Trouble started on the M11
though as it seemed that everyone else wanted to be on the same piece
of road as me, so I started queueing a few miles from Cambridge, where
I would turn off onto the A14 to pickup the M1 further west, due to an
accident. The traffic crawled for at least an hour and it got to the
point where I really didn't want to sit in it anymore, so I jumped out
of the car and got the map out of the boot to plan a way round. I'd
spoken to Rob who was about half an hour ahead of me and the accident
had closed the M11/A14 junction, so even if I did get there I would
have to take a detour. Looking at the map, an easy route would be to
head west on some minor road then cut north to rejoin the A14 further
on.

As we'd been crawling along the M11 for sometime, I wasn't really sure
what junction was ahead, but any junction would do as it had been an
hour since I'd previously seen one. I swung the car out into the inside
lane and headed for the slip road and freedom. Unfortunately I didn't
get to any kind of roundabout or junction, which is what I was
expecting, but instead ended up joining the A14 - heading east! This
was the last thing I wanted so another quick look at the map and I had
a course plotted to double-back and take the A428 west then pickup the
A14 past the accident. That was until the radio announced that the A428
was now also blocked due to another accident and everyone else trying
to do the same thing! As it turned out, I was heading north on a B-road
which was relatively clear and could then cut across west and drop back
onto the A14.

One detour through some small villages later and I ended up on an
industrial estate in Huntingdon, just north of Cambridge, with hundreds
of other cars who were also trying to avoid the traffic. Luckily
though, most of them wanted to head east on the A14 rather than west
with me, so getting back onto the A14 wasn't a problem and again I
could motor along with the trailer bobbing about behind me. As I got
closer to the M1, the radio started reporting queues on the M1, from
junction 23A which was the exact junction I wanted for Donington. It
would still be about an hour until I got there, so I kept tabs on the
traffic reports to see if the queues would grow back down the M1 from
J23a, or clear up. By the time I'd got to the M1 and through the
roadworks about 10 miles before J23a, the radio was still saying that
there were queues but as I got closer it was obvious that they were
further on and I turned off to Donington without any more problems.

It was now around 7.30 as I drove into the circuit and Rob had
mentioned earlier about joining everyone for a curry nearby. As I drove
up to the paddock, I saw Rob's car loaded with people heading the other
way - no curry for me then! In the paddock I spotted the DSC flag and
made myself a parking space then unloaded the bike underneath Michael's
(#22) gazebo with a few other bikes that had been left for the night.
The Ducati UK guest bike (#0) was in the tent next door as this would
be ridden by Michael Neeves of MCN, along with Chris Butcher's bike
(#77) and also Dave Reilly's bike (#55) which would be piloted by Marc
Potter, also of MCN. Neevesy, as us racers call him, had been at
Cadwell on our DSC trackday to test the bike and by god was he quick. I
thought it was a MultiPasta 1000 the way he was motoring it! If he
could keep that up in the race, Geoff might have something to worry
about.

With the bike unloaded and the trailer stashed out of the way, I was
free to head off for something to eat and checkin at my local B&B. The
B&B is only half a mile up the road from Donington (easily walking
distance if drunk) but they didn't have any food available, so I called
Dickie (#47) to see what he and his wife were doing for the evening as
they were at the Donington Park Farmhouse hotel right at the circuit
entrance. They invited me over for dinner with them at the hotel, so we
had some nice food (albeit expensive) and a couple of beers and chatted
about bikes, racing and plans for next year. I headed off to my B&B
around 11pm and headed straight up to bed. Apparently the owner is a
bit of a Carl Fogarty nut and it's not adviseable to get talking to him
unless you have a few hours to spare. With me wearing my Ducati jacket,
I ducked my head and walked briskly up the stairs, avoiding eye
contact, as I passed the lounge where he was sitting. I swear I saw him
spot me and get up to come and have a chat but I might have imagined
it! There was some film on the tv - I can't remember which one exactly
- but I know it was gone midnight and I really shouldn't be watching it
but I was.

Up at 7.30am and down to breakfast, fellow rider Paul Payne (#68) was
already there with his wife, so I joined them at the table for some
chat and some breakfast. Having eaten so much the night before I really
didn't feel like it and felt guilty at leaving half a bowl of museli
and not touching much of the cooked breakfast either; it was probably
nerves as well. Heading off for the track I got there around 8.30am,
just as scrutineering started. All I needed to do would be to be to get
into my riding kit and push the bike over to the scrutineering, and
that would be me ready until practice.

The meeting at Donington was a "Super Club" meeting, whatever that is,
but basically it means that there are twice as many people as normal in
the paddock, and a lot more races. Because there were more races to
squeeze into the day, it turned out we wouldn't be having any untimed
practice but that we would be straight into timed practice! At this
point I was very glad to have done the trackday the week before,
especially as I had originally put down to enter the Sound of Thunder
races to get more tracktime and practice, but most of the DD riders had
been refused entry to make way for the "real" SoT entrants instead.
Some of the others hadn't ridden Donington at all, so hopefully this
would give me the upper hand on them and I might do well. To make
things worse, qualifying would be split into two groups - half out with
the Sound of Thunder and the others out with the Hornets and CB500s.
What a mess. To make things worse it started to rain.

As the rain came down, the first group were called to go out and
qualify. I was in the second group, so would still have another 20
minutes to wait. Halfway through their qualifying session it got red
flagged due to a faller from the SoT class (probably out on slicks!)
and so they didn't get a very good session. Luckily the rain had
stopped by the time the other half of the group got called, so we were
praying for a dry(ing) track for our session.

Lining up in the collecting area, it was drizzling but not actually
raining. At least it was giving the track a chance to dry, or for a
dry(ish) line to appear, so that would all work in my favour for
qualifying. We got out onto the track and I found my rhythm and slowly
built up the speed as I got more and more comfortable. The rain held
off but the bike just didn't want to rev out in top down the back
straight, even though it had been fine the week before on the trackday.
Still, I got my head down and tried my best and kept it upright on the
track.

As our first race wouldn't be until after lunch, I got changed out of
my leathers and had a wander around to take my mind off the racing. The
rain was starting to fall again and a few of the DD racers and some DSC
members were all huddled into the Pitstop Diner watching the rain come
down, getting heavier and heavier. I'd never raced in the wet before,
and certainly never done a wet trackday, so this would make things
quite interesting for me. Someone appeared with the grid for the race
and I'd put in a 1:32.01 which was 19th place, and one row behind Andy
Roberts (#99) in 15th with a 1:30.29. This was when the doubts started
to creep in that maybe the bike wasn't running right with the flat
slide carbs, or maybe it had some other problem. But still, I was one
place ahead of fellow Essex boy Dickie in 20th place with a 1:32.26s
which was good enough for me!

A couple of guys from the UKRM newsgroup turned up to support and came
to find me. My good friend Bear had been at Castle Combe when I crashed
so he was talking up his jinx of making me crash here as well. With the
rain still coming down it was anyones guess as to what would happen, so
he may well be right!

Time for the first race rolled around and we went out for our formation
lap to the grid. As we got round to Craner Curves, my visor started to
mist right up, so I had to click it open to demist, and then the rain
started pouring down the inside of my visor. Great- not only was it wet
and slippery, I couldn't see where the **** I was going now either! We
formed up and I found my place on the grid - I'm not falling for the
two sets of numbers trick anymore - and we waited for the off. I
concentrated on the lights rather than the people around me and got my
customary flier of a start as the lights went out, carving up the
middle of the pack. However, the story remained the same and I promptly
got mugged for just about every place I had made up on the first
corner. Redgate is a tricky corner anyway, as it is a tightening radius
curve and this throws out the actual apex from where you think it
should be. It means you have to brake late and deep into the corner
before banging it over and quick turning the bike out. At least that's
how it was explained to me on the trackday but all that goes out of the
window when it's six abreast into the corner.

Coming round the track I was doing quite well and actually in 13th
place crossing the start/finish line, but I just didn't have the balls
to be agressive on the brakes and in the turns, going more for the
smooth ride to keep it upright in the wet conditions. Donington is a
very slippery track in the wet, at least it was for us, and coming out
of every corner the back was coming round getting on the power. After a
few laps it became quite predictable, to the point where it was
actually quite fun getting it sideways out of the corners. The 620
engines also had some nice long straights to come motoring past me on,
so it was very difficult to hold places from the twist'n'go boys.

On lap 4 I had spotted Antoine (#82) in front of me and started to reel
him in. I caught up with him going into Coppice corner and dived up the
inside on the brakes, purposely pushing him wide into the corner to
upset his rhythm as I knew he could easily pass me with the power of
his 620 down the back straight. I kept my teeth clentched, waiting for
him to pass at any moment down the back straight, but it didn't come
and I was into the Esses with him still behind me. As I powered out of
the Esses and over the line, Antoine came flying up the inside of me
and all I remember thinking was that he was going very quickly, in fact
quite a bit quicker than I would be going for Redgate. As he tipped the
bike in he was a good 3 feet off the dry line and I thought to myself
that he would do well to get that back. At that moment the front
folded, the bike went down and off he slid into the kitty litter, face
down with the bike spinning behind him. At this point I shouted to
myself to watch the track and not the rider - TARGET FIXATION!! - and
got on with the last lap as the flag had been out as we crossed the
line.

http://www.horrible.demon.co.uk/bikes/donington2005.jpg
Antoine goes sliding off as #111 comes into view.

I hadn't looked behind me all race and I thought that I was quite
comfortable, but as I began to brake for the Esses, the last corner on
this last lap, Kev Ellis (#88) on his lowly 583cc motor came flying up
the inside on the brakes taking me by surprise and I knew that there
was no way I would get back past him before the line. Realising that
I'd been stitched up good and proper, I had a quick look back as I
crossed the line but there was nobody else to be seen.

After the race I got changed again and went for a wander around the
paddock. I headed over to see Antoine to check that he was ok, but his
tent was a flurry of activity as they worked on his bike, clearing
gravel out and getting it ready for the next race. Antoine was ok and
his bike didn't need much doing, so he would be back out again in the
next race. I saw Kev in the paddock as well and swore at him for his
dastardly tactics. Kev said that Antoine had been laying face down in
the gravel, smashing his fists down in anger as Kev went past shortly
after me!

Final result for the race was a 17th place - 15th for points with the
two guest riders - and a lap time of 1:49.23s which was a bit
disappointing, but only 8 seconds off Geoff's fastest lap of 1:41.08!
How does he do it? Back in the paddock I got chatting to Marc Potter
and he said that he had actually been leading the race at one point, as
he was sitting in second then Clint (#62) in first had crashed out and
gifted him the lead. Marc then made a couple of mistakes and Geoff took
the lead, and just started to pull a gap on him. He was all hyped up
and you could see that he had really enjoyed the race. Neevesy had
finished in third, so Marc was obviously chuffed to also have beaten
his colleague.

The rain continued to fall and it even started to get heavier, so it
looked like the second race would be just as wet. I resisted the
temptation to change the gearing from the standard 15/41 to 15/43 in an
attempt to get drive out of the corners as it was probably better to
have the lower gearing in the wet and keep the power delivery smooth.

The rain got worse in the run up to the race and sitting on the grid it
was absolutely chucking it down - real big lumps of rain. This meant
that there was plenty of spray as well as misting in the visor and
rivers of water running across the track in places. I got my usual good
start and then the usual mugging at the first corner, but this time I
was used to the bike sliding around on the wet track and felt like I
could push the bike a little bit more than before. Kev came past me on
the second lap so I tried to stick with him as I knew my 674cc bike
should have more power than his 583cc engine. Domski (#23) went past
down the back straight on the power a lap later and again I tried to
hang onto him a hoped he would drag me along and we could both get past
Kev. Domski went past Kev on lap 4 and again I was right up behind Kev
and started to line him up at Coppice corner to try and get more speed
down the back straight and hopefully make the pass stick.

Unfortunately for me, Kev has a lot more race experience and was
braking later and holding his corner speed a lot better than I was, so
what he was losing down the straight he was easily making back up in
the corners and, but for a suicide attempt, there was no way I was
getting past. As we came round to Coppice for the last time I closed
right up as much as I dare and thought about going up the inside, but I
remembered what had happened to Antoine in the last race, chucking it
away on the last lap, and there would only be 1 point difference even
if I did get past him. So instead I decided against trying to get past
and stuck behind him to eventually cross the line in 19th place, which
was 17th for points with the 2 guest riders.

Back in the paddock I got changed for the final time and started to
pack away most of the kit. We picked up the race results and I was
surprised to find that I had been running a lot slower than I thought I
was going with a fastest lap of 1:51.08s. Again, series leader Geoff
had put in a 1:41.69s which was only 6 tenths of a second slower than
in his first race, so obviously it was me rather than the conditions.

With the bike loaded up and having a chat to some of the other guys,
the rain finally eased and the sun even threatened to shine. We had our
usual prize-giving ceremony and the draw for a pair of tyres but I
didn't win any again. As we are sponsored by Pirelli, and have to run
Diablo tyres as a control tyre, they give us one pair for each race
which then gets raffled between the riders. Once you win you no longer
go into the draws, so as time goes on we all get more of a chance to
win.

With the bike loaded onto the trailer and the kit all in the boot, the
sun started to shine as we said our goodbyes and I left the circuit. I
was pretty pleased that we had done our first wet race and that I was
now even more confident on the tyres, especially getting used to
feeling the bike sliding in the wet and the rear coming round on the
power. It was actually good fun and great experience as we are bound to
have another wet race with either Brands in September or Cadwell in
October. Most of the way home it was raining as I seemed to catch up
with the big clouds of rain from earlier in the day.

Back home I put the bike and trailer into the garage and unloaded the
car, then cracked open a beer and sat down to relax. It was then that I
realised I had yet to iron some shirts for work the next day and for
the rest of the week, so I reluctantly got the ironing board out and
ironed enough shirts to last me through the week.

The next day at work I was a bit tired but certainly not aching and it
seems that my body is getting used to being out on the track - before I
would have stiff legs for a couple of days and be walking around like
John wayne. I had my usual weekly meeting with the boss in the
afternoon, so I'd been preparing the usual reports and updating the
status of projects. I thought it was a bit strange when we got into the
lift to go to the meeting rooms upstairs in our building, as normally
we use the ad-hoc meeting room round the corner. In the lift, my boss
said "I'll tell you now that there will be a lady from HR in this
meeting and it's not good news." Oh shit.

At this point I knew that this would be my last day at work and all I
could think of was that I was being fired for whatever reason and I
would be escorted from the building by the security guards. As I sat
down my heart was going more than it ever has done lining up on the
grid waiting for those red lights to go out, and the emotions were
starting to build up too.

My boss explained that as part of a cost reduction exercise, they were
going to merge my (internet dedicated) development team into the larger
company wide development team because there was not enough work for my
team and that they had done a "job matching" exercise on my postition
with the outcome that, unfortunately, there was no suitable job for me
in the company. This was a bit of a shock as I'm a developer and not a
manager (according to my job title) and we had more than enough work
for my team, and probably another person as well. It was then that I
heard the word "redundancy" and all I could think of was the nice fat
check that was coming my way and the chance to replace the 674cc
carb'ed bike with a nice 620 fuel injected one. My boss then said he
was sorry (yeah right) and left the room to avoid the possible punch in
the face he was expecting, but all I could do was grin like a bloke who
was going to be paid to sit at home on his arse for the next six
months. I just wish I hadn't bothered ironing those shirts now.

Current Standings

Qualifying: 19th. Best Lap 1:32.010s
Race 1: 17th (points for 15th). Best Lap 1:49.23s
Race 2: 19th (points for 17th). Best Lap 1:51.08s
18th in Championship on 60 points.
Link to Full Stats breakdown including lap times.
http://www.theresults.co.uk/New_Era_Results_13th_Aug_2005_Donington_Park.pdf
Link to PLJ Official Pictures.
http://www.pljphoto.com/photos.asp?...813_Donington_Park&Rider=111_Antony_Espindola

Next Round: Brands Hatch - Sunday 11th September.

Back to the Racing page.
http://www.horrible.demon.co.uk/bikes/racing2005.htm

 

... but what was the food like?

 

In uk.rec.motorcycles, Cane amazed us all with this pearl of wisdom:

And were there any brolly dollies.

 

Check the date - I've not written that one yet but I'll
get it sorted and posted asap ... hopefully before the
weekend and Cadwell!

 

snippetty...

Good report... I've never bothered with reading one of these out all
the way before... COOL...