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Friday, 7th July 2000 - Oulton Park - Track Day Left the
island on Thursday night again, Graham (Burden) was supposed to come, but
didn’t make it (he had a YEE-HA at The Skerries).
He was still a bit sore, so it was just me and my girlfriend Ann and our
ol’ Merc van. Arrived at
Oulton at around 1.30a.m. Friday morning and found that the gates were locked.
Juan and his girlfriend, Dawn, were already in the paddock asleep, so we
parked up outside the gates and slept in the back of the van. Next morning,
found Juan’s van in the paddock,
he had saved us a space with the help of a wheely bin, so parked up and signed
on for the all day session (at the cost of 80 quid) at around 8a.m. Four sessions of 20 minutes, two in the morning and two in
the afternoon. Erected the
awning that fastens on to the van, that I had borrowed from Skilly (workmate)
and armed with a new Honda genny, thanks to Target Tools Ltd (01624 613332), and
new jack-up plates for my foot-rest hangers, manufactured by Joe at J.W. Welding
(07624 496314), by far the cheapest option, gave me just as much clearance as
rearsets, although the riding position took me a little while to get used to. Improved my
previous best lap at Oulton by 10 seconds, in the morning sessions, but wasn’t
happy about the front end chattering. I
posted a 1΄52…….. Juan
did a 1΄49, still loads of areas
I can improve on, like braking later and basically trying harder, but you
don’t win any prizes at a track day. A
few of the British Superbike boys were there, most notable Moodie, Reynolds and
Hayden, wish I was as fast as those loons. A couple of
other Manx lads turned up for the afternoon sessions, Nigel Beattie and Steve Ashcroft….
Ashy binned his R1 at Island Bend, not a good place to jump off, that’s for
sure. Thankfully, he was OK, but a
little concussed. His bike was not
too bad, mainly cosmetic. Nige was
going really well and qualified 10th.
Juan qualified 29th in the 600 class. Richard
Hocking from BIKESTUFF (01778 346081) arrived for the two afternoon sessions to
try and help sort out my suspension settings.
Unfortunately, we needed a lot more time than we had, it’s amazing how
quickly those 20 minutes go by… but I did learn something….. thanks Richard.
My front end was really bad around Druids, but apparently so is everyone
else’s, this also made me feel a little better, I thought it was just me. I wasn’t
doing the race on Saturday, as it was an MRO event, and I wasn’t really on the
pace of these blokes, so I sat it out and saved myself for Sunday, and watched
Juan instead… he got a 30th and a 25th and he was riding
his nuts off. He got into the low 1΄45
bracket. Whilst I wasn’t racing, whipped my wheels off and
put new Dunlop D207 GP’s on. Top
tyres these, best I’ve used so far, that’s for sure.
The others only look half worn, but I’ve done 4 meetings and 2 track
days on them (315 miles total), so it was time for new ones. They lasted longer than I had expected….. good news for
me!! Oulton Park, Cheshire. Circuit length: 2.775 miles
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Copyright © 2000, 2001 Tommy Clucas Racing.
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