Well...... what a day...... First off.....It didn't end well
Rode to the circuit to meet klincky and the others, beautiful day after some really rotten weather over the weekend, had the promise of being a good day. Briefed as normal and out we went, few wet patches from the overnight rain but drying nicely. The previous day had been a Mazda MX5 track day and the cars had dragged mud onto the circuit in a spot or two but we shall come back to that ...... First session, riding in the fast group and some nugget on a rice burner dumps oil right across the track after failing to do his oil filter up properly, This meant that there was only one clear foot wide strip of tarmac to get through palmer corner - anyone venturing onto the concrete dust was rewarded with a very unpleasant squirming sensation as you were then comitted to the next 50ft on the oil..... not so good! Session one over still learning the track.....
Next couple of sessions passed without to much to report so the Gopro was mounted up, mine on the front and klincky's on the rear. Now those of you unfamiliar with snetterton will not know that the straights are quite long and the SD starts to run out of puff as you head into the 130mph bracket...... Colonel Klincks gas flowing and polishing of heads has definitely improved his SD.... don't let him tell you otherwise!! He F@#ked off down one of the straights and there was not a lot i could to catch him So i contented myself with improving my lines and getting quicker, two laps in and we return to the mud i mentioned earlier....... Running into agostini's a bit on the hot side i decided that it would be best to try and square the corner off and get on the power early as i could just see Klinck in the distance and was optimistically trying to gain a bit of ground. Unfortunately the cars from the previous day had pulled mud from beyond the kerb onto the circuit and it was just at this point that i started to wind on the power. The rear let go first and as soon as it did my first thought was .....
"thats not too bad" (I have ridden a bit of off road)
" its going to be very untidy but i think i can get it back in a straight line ....... oh bugger i seem to be looking down at the fuel tank...... maybe this isn't going to be so easy to collect as i thought"
"ouch the tarmac looked a lot softer than that!.... I'm probably going to get a finger wagged at me by the duchess as she'd made promise to be careful"
"interesting ..... whats that just departed from my bike bouncing down the track, aaah its a Gopro, ...... I'm probably going to get a blocking from Motoronin for that as well (its his Gopro!)
...... So fledgling track hero to zero in a second or so!
Gear held up well with a few scuffs to the leathers and a new helmet in the very near future, only damage to me - a couple of bruises on the hand and elbow! Fairly minor damage to the bike for a high side, Standard rear set and foot peg bent along with a broken clutch lever and some gravel rash to the tank wing - R&G crash bungs really did their stuff. The guys in the pits did the usual of swarming all over the bike to get it ready for the next session but as no pegs were available i had to sit the rest of the day out..... The bike ended up in good enough shape to limp home but i then subsequently found that the side stand switch was no longer working so every time i tried to select a gear it cut the engine....
Thanks Klincky for running me home, your a good man, even if you did cackle like a Hyena when we reviewed the GoPro footage!
Unfortunately on reviewing the footage we managed to transfer it to Klincks laptop so i'm unable to share it with you all at this time....... he assures me that he'll get it online as soon as he gets home..... evil bugger!
Great day though, and a really good track....
So the shopping list is as follows:
New Standard rear set and peg LHS
Front upper R&G Engine slider LHS
New clutch lever - Ebay special me thinks to match tother!
New R&G exhaust protector as Jubilee clip snapped (but it remained on the exhaust and did its job!)
LHS tank wing in Grey
And finally an R&G bar end slider
Oh yeah and a new side stand switch......
..... if anybody has any of the above bits lying around and would care to trade i would be most grateful
..... And finally as it turned out, i was already black flagged for drive by noise levels as i had whipped the baffles back out after being sound checked! Klicky commentted that i must have been spending to much time with Mr Motoronin as it seemed my prang had an air of ..... "The noise nazi's will never take me alive" about it!
Oh well..... Work tomorrow!
Toodle pip!
The Gin Reaper
