Wednesday 16 April 2014

2014 Round Two: Anglesey

My first visit to Anglesey - and what a track! I arrived in plenty of time and got the tent set up right next to the track. After helping unload the DKS vans, Steve (5), Mark (97) and I walked the track. It looked fantastic.


Prologue:

From the last meeting, I had had front issues - when we took it back to Replay Scooters, we noticed that the Nissin caliper only had one nut fitted - the other had fallen off on the workshop floor. I assumed that the vibrations had been caused by this but swapped out the front pads for non-sintered too - just to try to get more feel.

Anglesey:

Come the practice around this epic track and I felt okay - the vibrations were not solved but were only bad braking into the corkscrew section. I was mid pack as I would have expected with not a lot to do before the first race.

In race one there was an incident so the race was re-run. In that race, I had a great scrap with Mark Clipstone (44) but both of us and Mark Hullah(28) got stopped prematurely before we crossed the chequered flag.

In race two and three, it was much of the same, battling with Mark until the last lap where my engine felt like it had developed a misfire. I nursed the bike home and had a closer look at everything. I put a spacer beneath a section of the ignition and waited until morning to try out the fix.

Race four came and the bike started okay (with the exception of a backfire through the carb) but during the sigthing lap, the "misfire" was still there and it felt like a jumping gear I pulled in to save the motor.

For the final race, I still couldn't tell what was wrong so I checked the drain plug and that was when we saw a mass amount of metal shavings. With a solution found, we swapped out the gear selector for a new one and got ready for the final event.

Again, it was no better but this time, I stayed on for the first lap and miraculously, the issue disappeared. I finished the race in fourth place in class due to the high number of DNFs and DNSs.

Unfortunately, over the weekend, my camera broke so I will have to get a new one sorted over the year.

Epilogue:

The actual issue was a lose drive sprocket bolt - and the cause was the MB bolt - This was replaced for the next meeting at Cadwell Park.

Results:

Race 1 - 7th in class
Race 2 - 7th in class
Race 3 - 7th in class
Race 4 - DNS
Race 5 - 4th in class

Many thanks to the DKS team for the help and support over the weekend - especially getting me out for the last race. 

Race Scooter: All events occurred April 2014

Thursday 3 April 2014

2014 Round One: Croft

The annual visit to Croft! Sporting new panelwork and a refreshed engine for the season Saturday morning could not come soon enough. Over the winter I secured a hospitality package from DKS meaning that there is much less to worry about for the meetings. Pictures and videos will be posted both here and YouTube over the coming weeks as I give the blog a complete refresh and update the information with some unpublished posts from 2013.


I thought that the weekend went well and much better than expected, despite a mechanical failure on race three. By the end of the weekend, I was up to the pace of the previous year and 5th place in class and much more confidence than at the start of the weekend.

Race 1 - 8th in class
Race 2 - 7th in class
Race 3 - DNS
Race 4 - 5th in class

Many thanks to the DKS team for the help and support over the weekend - especially getting me out for the last race. 

Here is a teaser of the footage. More to be uploaded after editing. Watch this space.



Race Scooter: All events occurred March 2014