Snetterton - a rider monkey's view (long)

The weekend started well - most of the team pitched up at Snetterton
around Saturday lunch time, and we managed to blag the garage we were
to use for the race on Sunday (the track day organisers wanted £65
quid; we just walked in through our neighbours garage).

I went out for the first session of the afternoon, and everything felt
fine. Despite being on very worn slicks from last season, I felt
comfortable doing 1:20s, and everything seemed to be working well,
especially the rebuilt engine and the completely overhauled brakes. In
fact, they're the best brakes I've ever raced with. However, when we
came back into the pits Pip's evil eye spotted all sorts of problems:
- the fuel tank was leaking petrol
- one fork leg was leaking oil
- a water hose was leaking water.

It seemed like most of the internal fluids wanted to get out. The
most serious problem was the tank. We drained it and applied Belzona
liquid metal stuff to it, and waited, while, via several complex phone
calls, I arranged for Gyp to pick up the spare tank from my place
(which, for some stupid reason, I'd decided against bringing). The
belzona refused to set, and we basically lost the rest of the
afternoon. In the mean time, we'd contacted Lozzo and he was on his
way over with a replacement fork seal and some fork oil. Simon fixed
the water leak while everyone else was occupied. When Loz arrived
with the seal, we stripped the fork, replaced it, re-did the fork oil
and had it all back together in time to get scrutineered, and then get
down the pub.

Gyp was an absolute trooper and left at some god-awful hour in order
to arrive with the replacement tank before 8am on Sunday. The
quick-fill filler cap was stripped from the old tank and fitted to the
new one, and after a little cursing it all went together and we were
ready for practise at 9am, which was undramatic. As usual, we
practised "gently" and were something like 31st out of 34 starters.
My time was marginally the fastest, so I had first dibs on position -
I decided to do the start (which I rather like), Alex always enjoys
bringing the bike in at the end, so Daz got the middle stint.

Fate had one last bite to place on our bum. In changing the wheels
for lovely new slicks for the start of the race, the thread in the
captive nut of the quick-release rear wheel system stripped. The crew
were fantastic - there was no panic, they knew they had 50 minutes to
sort it, and sorted it was. We made the start, and lined up with the
rest.

I love the buzz at the start of the race. You can almost feel your
adrenal gland pumping. I had my usual spiked racing boots on and was
across the track and away in quick time, making up a bunch of places.
Once the order had settled a bit I got into a good rhythm and started
stringing together 1:18 laps. Which is my usual pace, and about what
I expected. And then something odd happened - as the quick boys came
past to lap me (after about 20 minutes), I managed to tag on to them
just a little, and I started putting in 1:17s. And then I was
catching people, and I started doing 1:16s. And, then, in one heady
moment, Suze showed me a board saying 1:15 ! [She timed it as
1:15.97; the official timing system had it as 1:16.15. Drat]. But,
the session was an absolute buzz, and when I came in at the end of the
1st hour we were running in 14th place, and 2nd in class.

Daz went out while I went for a lie down. Our quick pit work had put
Daz out in a good position - we can refuel so fast now that we make a
lot of time at the changeovers. Daz put in a bunch of consistent
laps, and although we lost a little time to some of the teams around
us, we held on to our top 20 placing, bringing the bike in at the end
of the 2nd hour in 17th place. More fuel was added, Alex hopped on,
and we were back out there. Suze always times our stops from foot
down in the stop box at pit entry to foot down in the stop box at pit
exit, and we were doing 49 and 50 second stops (there's a 30mph speed
limit in the pits, too). I must get her to time our actual
"stationary" time, but I'm sure it's less than 30 seconds.

Alex started to have some problems in his stint - the chain had
stretched (or something) and was jumping the sprockets, and slowly
getting worse. He stuck with the correct procedure, which is to stay
out as long as the bike is not dangerous, but towards the end of his
stint it got very bad, and he started losing lots of time. He
signalled to Suze that he was coming in, about 10 minutes early. As
soon as he stopped he told the crew the problem, so they pulled the
wheel out and threw the new one in. The QD system on the rear wheel
relies on the chain adjustment being consistent, so spanners were
required to adjust the chain, and here things went wrong. In the heat
of the moment, the chain was adjusted without the wheel spindle in
place (which can be done because the wheel is semi-captive in the QD
system), but mis-adjustment of the 'push' and 'pull' adjustment bolts
distorted the carrier slightly, and the spindle wouldn't go all the
way through. And then it wouldn't come out. I sat by, waiting for it
to be sorted, which it eventually was, but in all the "stop to stop"
time was 7 minutes, when it should have been less than 3.

So, back out there. Wherever I'd found the extra couple of seconds in
my first stint, I'd lost them again - I couldn't do better than 1:18s,
but I seemed to be able to do them consistently enough, so I had to be
happy with that. This session was a fair bit quieter - although the
race was amazingly crash-free (only 5 in the whole six hours,
apparently, and the pace car never turned a wheel), there was quite a
lot of mechanical carnage, and a walk up the back of the pit garages
showed a lot of bikes in bits with people frantically working on
them). I was also feeling pretty tired, and had couple of lapses of
concentration, causing me to give myself a stern talking to in my
crash helment. Eventually, I saw the 3, 2, 1, IN boards, and was glad
to hand over. I waited for the positions to settle and checked the
screens, and we were still well inside the top 20, around 17th, and
3rd in class.

Daz went out, and put in some good times (faster than his first stint,
I believe), and after the changeover to Alex we were running in 16th
place. Points in the "overall" championship are awarded down to 15th,
so we started to wonder if we might trouble the scorers for the first
time (our previous best overall finish was 22nd). And then the team
running in 15th pitted, and we were promoted! Yes! Often the last
hour of an endurance race is pretty settled, but this was nail-biting
stuff - the teams behind us were lapping faster, but did they have
time? The Kawasaki Newcastle bike overtook Alex to claim 15th, and
then almost immediately pitted for fuel, and in the words of Simon had
"the most leisurely stop you can imagine - I expected them to get
sandwiches out". So, we were still there. But then a hard charging
R1 was cutting through the field - having dropped down the order with
mechanical problems earlier, it was now catching Alex at more than 5
seconds a lap, and, with less than 30 minutes to go he got past and
just kicked us out of the points. But the tension wasn't over yet -
the bikes in 17th, 18th and 19th place were all on the same lap, and
everyone was still racing hard. The time ticked away, and the team
alternated between watching the results monitor (set up in our
neighbours pit) and watching over the pit wall). With less than 10
minutes to go, things looked safe, despite Alex going grass tracking a
couple of times. The flag came out at 6pm, and the whole team hung
over the wall waving Alex past. We'd got our best result ever!

We all gathered in Parc Ferme with big grins and lots of back slapping
and hand shaking, both amongst ourselves and with the other teams we
know - there's always such a sense of achievement in finishing an
endurance race that everyone is pleased for everyone else. Despite
various mechanical problems, the Team Ixion boys brought their bike
home, and (I think) really enjoyed themselves.

And then we went to the prize giving, which is a first for Team UKRM!
Alex, Daz and I collected a big pot each, and had our photo taken. It
took me a couple of hours to get the grin off my face.

So, what a great start to the season. The whole team really were just
that - a team. Everyone did their job, worked hard, and made it
happen. Many thanks to, in no particular order, Suze, Simon, Pip,
Nigel, Gyp and Hog, as well as to Lozzo and Adie (and not forgetting
our marshal, Nigel's sister Tracey). Also, thanks to the supporters
that I only briefly had time to chat to during the day.

Roll on Brands Hatch!

 

Champ fumbled, fiddled and fingered:

Magnificent team work all around!


--
Steve Parry
K100RS SE & F650
and a 520i SE Touring for comfort

(not forgetting the SK90PY)

http://www.gwynfryn.co.uk

 

Champ wrote

I have most of your stops on tape. Easy enough to extract the data.

I might have been there for that had some **** bothered to tell me where
we finally finished. I didn't know about the 3rd in Class, AGGOGW.

Indeed.


A Good Day, well done all.

 

Champ composed the following;:

Professionalism at it's best ..

I used to be into sidecar racing and the starts always got to me .. I
_always_ wanted to piss so badly that I let go of the handles right until
the start flag dropped ...

Extremely well done.

Indeed, Might even get there meself to watch for an hour or two .. we think
we're going to be nearby that weekend.

 

Champ wrote:

Before I start, some pictures (taken by Steve Auvache):
http://www.sweller.dynalias.org/krc/0405snet/

Don't know what happened to the one with Suze and Hog on the pit wall
it's just not on the camera. Real shame as Suze didn't leave her post
all race.

On one stop (the last, I think) according to the time monitor the total
lap time was 1'40, with the rider (it was Daz) running around the 1'18s
the total stop cost us 22 seconds. This is including the pit lane entry
stop, 30 mph speed limit, rider change and a full 25 litres of fuel.

I'm guessing but I don't think the fuel rig is actually connected for
more than 4 seconds.

We claimed a few laps back after the spindle debacle by these quick
stops. Some teams took four or so minutes to fuel and change riders we
took seven including a tyre change and a bonus **** up; so not bad but
not good enough.

Hoo Har!

 

Great stuff, and a good report as well.

Has the web site been moved? I just tried to check out when the rounds
'near' to me are on. If you are at Donington again I'll definately try
and get there.

Keep it up!

 

Ooh, could I ask you to do that please?

 

Ah, sorry about that, lad's. ;-)

--
Alex
BMW R1150GS
DIAABTCOD#3 MSWF#4 UKRMFBC#6 Ibw#35 BOB#8
http://www.team-ukrm.co.uk
Windy's "little soldier"

 

Pip almost looks respectable

 

Still waiting for that idle faux-oirish **** darsy to get his finger
out.

Dates are here : www.krcendurance.co.uk.

Our 2005 site should be up soon.

 

Champ wrote

No probs but gimme time.

I have looked the tape over twice and will be able to sit down and write
it up during the back end of the week.

Or you can wait a little longer until I get it onto the computer and I
will cut the relevant sections out for you and you can analise it to
death at your leisure.

 

Without wanting to step on darsy's toes - if he's too busy then I'm more
than happy to throw something together - even if it's just in the interim
until darsy gets time.
Lemme know.

 

The Donington round is on my birfday, cool! (it probably will be)

 

mostly finished, but having problems FTPing stuff to the server.

 

It was too bloody roasting last year so I wouldn't mind it being a tad
cooler.

 

Hmmmm.....

This gave me something to think about:
http://www.sweller.dynalias.org/krc/0405snet/photos/photo10.html

So... have a look here:
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/frjackukrm/album?.dir=/ad40&.src=ph&.tok=phzJAyCBV4p_xTSK

Is Gyp not telling us something?
--

Cheers!
Fr Jack
96 Tiger.
FRJACKUKRM AT GMAIL DOT COM
skype: fr.jack (without the dot)

 

Well, they both look vaguely human, I suppose. Gyp is the bloke in a
hat - I've no idea who the other guy is, but I suppose I'm just being
Aced.

 

Nigel Kennedy or Gary Oldman, I'm not sure which but I'm fairly confident
they're not Gyp.

 

Champ wrote

I dunno.

Anyway, if you look at the expression on his face it seems that he
pleased about something. At least I think it is pleased.

 

Congratulations, and thanks for the report. I was wondering how things
had gone on as the group seemed strangely devoid of any reports. Well
done one and all.