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Racer series 1/5th scale bike national round 4 Derby Mark's meeting Round 4 takes us to Derby and a nice little track situated next to the giant cooling towers of Drakelow power station. This was to be a make or break meeting for us. Steve Newey had won the first three rounds of the championship and somebody else had to win to stop him running away with the championship. We decided not to do a whole weekend away, through cost more than anything. So we set off really early Sunday morning and arrived at the track early enough to get some practice in before the petrol heads were allowed to fire their engines up. The track was very bumpy, which doesn't suit bike racing at all. Still, it was the same for everyone and in the end it came down to bike setup and a little bit of luck. The problem was that to make your bike fast meant a compromise on handling and with the unpredictable nature of the bumps it could all turn nasty very quickly. One minute you could be hammering down the back straight quite happily, the next you could be three feet in the air. My day started quite well with a thirteen lapper in round two, which put me in third place. Rounds three and four I spent trying to cure my re-occuring steering problem which I finally did which left just the final. It is difficult to tell where I qualified or indeed in what final I was in. The problem was due to the computer program being used. For some strange reason the heats were all being run as finals, so when it came to the proper finals it couldn't sort out an FTD only the order we all finished in the last final. Confused? you will be. At the drivers briefing it was announced that marshal post six was to become post one, post three was to become post two, post five was to become post three etc. etc. Then to add more confusion, heat two drivers would marshal heat one and vice versa and then heat six drivers would marshal heat three. Confused yet? OK here's some more. It was decided that because of the nature of the track we were to take it easy and not race ????? So to sum up we rode our bikes round the track for five times and I've no idea where I ended up finishing. However, we did manage to work out that Ian won, so well done Ian, but to be fair to everyone else they obeyed the race directors ruling and didn't race, so technically Ian should be disqualified. :-) See you at Round 5 Ian's meeting The word was put out before we went asking, ‘What was Derby like’. No one had been there before but rumour had it that there was good grip but it was bumpy. As it transpires this was right on both counts but with massive understatement. There was enormous grip on most of the track, and the only places that the bike would slide were on the bumps, which were everywhere, or on the pieces of track polished by the tyres of IC cars diff’ing out on more bumps. We got there earlier than necessary but this was a blessing in disguise, as the organisers weren’t allowing engines to be started until 9.00. This gave us an hour’s free practice, which originally gave us some hope. Unfortunately as the sun came out and the grip came up the problems I was having with severe wobbles of every description, got much worse, and by round 3 it was un-ride able. Up to this point I hadn’t had any luck either with a transponder that didn’t work in round 1 and a bike in bits, requiring a significant rebuild, in round 2. (I bent the rear drive/suspension shaft, chassis side plates and numerous small screws – prior to that I had also damaged 2 spur gears and was having to run the original stuff). So by the 4th round and ready to give in I rebuilt the bike and set it up in a way I hadn’t yet tried. I put the kit tyre on the front that Mark was getting on well with, and went out for a laugh. Imagine my surprise, when I suddenly realised I had a bike I could now ride. It was still awful but on the ride able side of awful and as the track layout actually suited bikes I was starting to have some fun. Unfortunately for various reasons we never had a final proper with just a re-run of the heats which in fact were finals and I was starting in 3rd place in final 1 with Mark, Graham, Ken and Paul. So not only was I going to miss out on a race with Mr Newey, but I was already giving up 3 or 4 seconds to him…. Still the bike was good so at the shove-off I rode hard and although I crashed more times than I can remember, I put in some good quick laps to put the pressure on the others in the 2nd final. Well fortunately for me Steve’s bike had been getting worse all day as well, and although he rode well, he also had 2 crashes and more mistakes than he’d like to be reminded of so at the tone I wound up beating him by 6 seconds. A great result and not only because
I won and because Steve didn’t but because there were at least 5 other
bikes that could have won given the breaks. Things are getting competitive….
Roll on round 5 |