Start your engines. 3/27/2005
I must apologise for the mistake I made in the last post about missing the start of racing season. I can only plead guilty to being under the influence of caffeine. I was rather surprised, when dropping into W.’s shop to pick up some lubricants, to be told that the first race of the season was going to be on the weekend. W. and I were discussing the chances of the various racers participating this year, when the conversation turned around to logistics. Keith had contracted W. to run his bikes for him this season, and W. was talking about the logistics of having to run 2 race machines, alone, with only a young, fresh apprentice mechanic to assist him.
I was, at this point, messing around with the lap timer on Keith’s primary race bike at W.’s request, trying to get it to function and provide a legible output, as opposed to the weird Space Invaders figures we were getting. After changing batteries, checking contacts and the such, I gave up and chucked the lap timer across W.’s workshop, and told him he didn’t have to ride only one bike to the track, since my truck had a 2.5 tonne tow ball installed at the back.
W.’s face lit up when I said this, and he asked if I would like to assist him in Keith’s team this year. I replied in the affirmative, and said he was free to use my truck, provided he paid for my expenses. He readily agreed to this, and we made arrangements to meet up bright and early Saturday morning to bring the bikes to the track for free practise and qualifying.
I turned up on Saturday, and we proceed to hitch the trailer on the back of the truck, loaded with a quarter of a million dollars worth of race machinery. It was rather weird, because I paced off the length of the truck with the attached trailer, and realised that I had effectively doubled the length of my vehicle. I drove it around to get a feel of it, and it struck me that reversing the truck was now an entirely different proposition, because when you turn the wheel in the normal direction for reversing, the trailer wants to go the other way.
We got to the track, and set up shop in one of the pits. I helped Keith get registered, and sent the bike for scrutineering. We slapped the tyre warmers on, and waited for free practise to start. As I sat on the esky, watching the other racers and machines, it struck me that the atmosphere this year was very different from last year. Last year, we were all a bunch of gentlemen racers, playing at being SBK heroes. This year, pukka race tackle was very much in evidence, with at least 3 sponsored teams coming to the fore, with specially prepped machines, and mechanics in matching colours, tool boxes the size of church organs displaying rows of gleaming chrome tools.
The stakes this year have been upped tremendously, with the race now becoming a four way fight at the top, Keith being one of the contendors. Some very serious amounts of money are being spent in the pursuit of a tin cup and $3000 in prize money. No one ever said racing made financial sense, but this is bringing the game to a whole new level. And these guys were showing that they were serious when race #1 started, and a slew of banners and umbrella girls made their appearance.
Unfortunately, Keith was taken out in race #1 by Armand, due to Armand cutting inside of Keith in a corner, and wiping Keith out. I was standing at the front of the pit, round about lap 5, when W. comes running back to me saying Keith didn’t come around for lap 6. I ran out to the back of the pit, waiting for the marshal to bring Keith back, and to await the arrival of the crashed bike to assess the damage.
At this point, I shouted for Hoon, W.’s apprentice mechanic, to unload the spare bike from the trailer, and start prepping it, in case the damage to the primary bike was beyond the capabilities of a screwdriver, a pair of vise-grips and a roll of duct tape. When Hoon got the bike down, I raced like a madman to get the bike race ready, while W. looked at the damage to the race bike. I ran the spare bike over to scrutineering, and the cheif scrutineer was kind enough to speed up the entire process for me, giving the bike a perfunctionary once over, checking to see that the kill switch worked, and slapping a sticker on the tank saying the bike was scruntineered, and good to race.
At this point, Keith, after his return from his visit to the track medic, said he wanted to race to the primary bike in race #2. Which caused W. and myself to fall into a frenzy of banging and attacking the various bent bits on the race bike, and myself transferring the transponder, lap timer, bar weights and other things that were damaged in the crash. After getting the race bike back into a semblance of race readiness, I suddenly realised why I liked bikes so much. Nothing beats the adrenaline rush of racing.
- Posted in : Road rash
- Author : thesnark
Comments»
eh, can join u ah? lepak in the pits with u… help u a bit la, but i don’t do windows.