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NOHAIR Racing Team, http://www.nohair.co.nz
1999 NZRRC Rnd 5, Manfeild, Feilding.
We\'ve finished the championship. - In one piece. I ended up being tied 13th with Hugh Reynolds, officially, he came 13th and I came 14th due to his rank at Ruapuna.
We\'ve not managed to attain the goals which we set at the beginning of the year (top 10 finish).. This was partly due to mechanical failure at Round 2, but also down to stiffer competition than during last years racing. We had set our goals based upon last year\'s performance, and they have been very different classes because of the people who had entered this year.
Anyway, on to this weekend. - On a bright and cheery note. We had an excellent fun time racing, and we managed to pick up some points. We so very extremely grateful to Phil Winter and Yamaha NZ who stepped in at very late notice during last week to assist in some fairly major engine work on the R6. It is very clear that had we not received their help and support, we would not have been racing this weekend. - Thank you very much!
We ended up collecting the bike, and leaving Auckland at 5:30pm Friday night, arriving in Feilding at midnight. Saturday morning we had to re-mount the radiator, ram air ducts and fairings. We teamed up with Peter Clifford and Luke and Lance (F1 Sidecar team) again, and formed a very civilized pit area under a large display canopy provided by ClearSpan (CARLTON group) to the Sidecar boys.
Practice, as some of you may know from the website, yielded us some good times, 1\'14.8\" which was within a second of last years best times. We had a very good run of practices and I was feeling very comfortably on the bike. Again, I feel the need to sing praises for the R6, it\'s such a good bike to just get on and ride hard. Toward the end of Saturday, the brakes were feeling a little poor, so we took the pads out in time to bed some SBS pads in during the last session. The pads which we took out were the ones which we put in at Pukekohe, so there was plenty of meat left on them, but there was a visible amount of glazing on the pads. We roughened them up on the concrete floor to remove the glazing in case we needed them again on Sunday.
We went back to the hotel for a lovely relaxing soak in the spa, followed by a trip out to Warren Turner\'s home for a BBQ. - Very nice indeed.
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Sunday morning\'s F2 race (race 5) went quite well, but I was again suffering from a slight lack of brakes, the new pads were no where near bitey enough. I was racing mainly with Glen Williams (AMCC) and was attempting some braking moves which the pads just couldn\'t perform well enough for. At the end of the race, my right arm was pumped, it would have taken at least 3 hours for it to return to normal. I was having to squeeze on the lever so hard to get the bike to stop. Imagine squeezing as hard as you can, 5 times a minute for over 12 minutes, and this is what I was having to do with my right arm. We took the SBS\'s out and replaced them with the Yamaha pads again.
The second race of the day went much better. After bleeding the brakes multiple times, and cleaning the pistons in the brakes and ensure that they were moving freely etc, I regained all of the bite and feel which I was used to. The brakes on the Thundercat and the R6 have the same calipers, and both perform superbly. In the first 3 or four laps I passed around 4 people and was on a real mission to catch and beat Glen Williams. I passed him and held a gap to finish 13th, collecting 3 points. This race was so much fun. I really felt like it had all come together, the braking, the bike, the gearing, everything. For the first time, I was able to keep Owen Jessop in view for the whole of the race. I really felt like I was making progress.
Overall, my placing had not changed at I started round 5 in 14th place, and that\'s where I\'ve ended up. Looking back we\'ve had a fairly hard season, but it\'s been a lot of fun, we\'ve met some great new people again this year, and we\'re so pleased that we competed.
I\'d like to thank the people who made our season possible;
- Red Baron
- Yamalube
- PPG Paints
- A.P.T.
- Fastrack
- Moore and Sanders Signs
- Race Glass (Melbourne)
- Moller Yamaha
Thanks also to Greg and Jane Percival who were kind enough to lend me the Thundercat again this season.
I\'d also like to thank Peter Clifford who has been exceptionally generous throughout the season with his support. I\'d like to wish his team all the best of luck in their coming season!
Make sure you check out our team website;
http://www.nohair.co.nz - there\'s heaps of photos and pictures, you can also catch up on any missed race reports.
Again, thank you for taking an interest in the racing, it was good to see so many of you our there at the track..
See you all soon at the Streets.. - Watch out for #14 :)
