Meeting results

Ian's meeting

After Round 2 Mark, Graham and I had all driven home a little dejected, with none of us achieving what we felt we should have. So immediately afterwards I set about lightening the bike. I didn't have to really as it was already the quickest thing out their by miles but I felt like I needed to do something to turn my season round. So after a weeks hard work I then put the bike down and don't touch it for 6 weeks !!!!! Crazy schedule this but I guess we have to fit into everything else and any way my sailings getting heaps better.

So hear we are, Round 3, Crystal Palace, and at what feels like the start of a new season its been so long. The weekend didn't get off to a great start though. Mark wasn't going, Friday night when I dusted everything off I blew up the transmitter, and with sailing commitments on Saturday, struggled to get a replacement and then during practice on Sunday before the race meeting got underway I snapped a brake cable and then broke a rear shock ball joint.

But that's just about where my problems ended. It was cloudy and overcast to start the day with a drizzle of rain making heat 1 real slippery but my BD4 was awesome. Even with one lap of 1 min 30!!!! (Great marshalling) my sub 30 sec average bought me within 0.3 sec of Barry Walker at the line to finish a close second. However after the round 2 fiasco (Ill get to that) race control subsequently found that the computer had missed a lap so I finished up 1st after round 1 a lap up.

Round 2 and the tracks dry and I'm flying. In fact I'm flying so fast the computer couldn't keep up with me consistently lapping faster then the min lap time set into the program. Once this is corrected I find that I'm now 2 laps up on everyone.

Round 3 and Steve Newey finally gets himself sorted and moves up to second with me improving but several crashes slowed me up so I'm now only half a lap up on Steve but still 2 laps up on the rest.

And finally round 4. With a light dusting of rain this was never going to improve anything but I found it the most enjoyable heat of the day with it really hard to push the bike in the slippery conditions with out crashing and yet very rewarding when you did and held it together. Interestingly the top three in this round were all BD4's so our claim that it isn't as good in low grip conditions is clearly unfounded.

And so that's it. I took pole again and was looking good for the final when once again it rained only this time it water logged the track. We tried to run the final but 30 years of IC cars, rubber and caster oil have polished the tarmac to a mirror smooth finish and presented an impossibly slippery surface on which to ride. I almost made a lap before the race was abandoned after the first minute and a half and was comfortably 2 corners up on everyone else :

So a first win for both me and BD4 with another BD4 claiming 3rd in the hands of Graham Clark. Not the way Id want to win but with my bike doing 23 second laps and (once Id settled down and stopped crashing) lapping consistently in the low to mid 24's not undeserved. (No won else managed to get below 25 all weekend!!)