Monday 11 October 2010

Ledenon - Race report

Well, we are back from Ledenon, after a weekend's racing. For those that aren't too familiar with French geography Ledenon is in the South of France near Nimes, so one would expect there to be lots of sun for the last race weekend of the year, well the weather forecasters got it right for once, and although Friday and Saturday were sunny, the Sunday was a disaster, with rain starting early morning and getting heavier and heavier as time went on. Finally around 16:00 they cancelled our second race because they were so far behind schedule that we would have needed lights to race!

Anyway back to Friday. We arrived early to reserve space for the fan club (this being my home circuit), and setup the tent etc... the only practice was at 15:30. The RD 350 had leaked a little oil from the clutch cover during the trip, so I was really hoping the RG500 was going to be track worthy.

As I mentioned previously, I had upped main jets to 250's for the cooler weather, however when I went out it was a sunny 25 degrees, so I was way too rich. The bike had difficulty making it's way to 8K and then it would fly off at 9K to around 10.5K, really difficult to ride, anyway the engine ran for 20 minutes, and everything seemed OK.

During scrutineering, the bike wouldn't make more than 6k sitting on the stand because it was too rich. I had the 350 go through scrutineering as well just in case.

Friday evening, I went down to 230's again, plus I lowered the needles to the second to highest clip position, plus I removed the carb trunks, which I reckon is probably worth another 15 points.
With these modifications completed we had a drink and went to bed. You can imagine I didn't sleep well, thinking I had gone too far in my leaning off the carbs.

In the morning I decided that a plug chop was absolutely necessary, before racing, so I decided to do only a couple of laps of timed practice on the RG, and this would give me the opportunity to qualify the 350 as well. SO having decided this, I "fixed" my oil leak on the 350 again, and moved it closer to the pits so that I could make a quick change.

Well, the 500 was working much better, much more mid range with an acceptable kick at around 7.5K as the exhaust valves close - as planned I pulled in after 3 laps trying to give a final full throttle going into the pit lane, and coasting to a stop next to the 350. I completed the session on the 350 although they didn't catch any of my lap times after swapping bikes, so I qualified at the back of the grid.

Back at camp, I pulled off the tank and checked out the plugs on 3 and 4, and they were both a dark chocolate brown - yea hey - we are getting somewhere. Still a little rich in my opinion, but working much better!

The village fan club arrived Saturday afternoon, so it was disappointing to wake up Sunday morning to the rain! The first race was at 10:50, and as I sat on the pre-grid we watched the rain really start to fall, a number of my colleagues abandoned at that point, and as we went out onto the track, it was clear that this was not going to be fun. The warm up lap, was liquid cooled, and my tyres were probably as cold as they could get, I got a reasonalbe start and overtook, about 6 guys into the first triple left hander. The water was sitting on the track in the flat bits, and was creating streams across the track in the sloped sections. Everywhere was really slippy! I had a couple of really big moments opening the throttle and after that I decided the main objective was to stay upright!

I finished the race in a lowly position, having been overtaken by numerous bikes, and honestly I didn't have the means to go any faster, the front end was slipping as I leant over, and the back was spinning each time I opened her up. There were two sections where the tyres were gripping so I could give it the beans there, but altogether a poor performance, and totally disagreable - but the positive side was that the bike was working!

Throughout lunch and early afternoon, it was clear that the weather was worsening, and as happens it these cases there had to be a big accident before the race organisers decided to take action. The final of the Promosport 600, and someone fell at the first bend and was run over by a few bikes, the race was red flagged, and the debris and ambulances took about an hour to clear. The guy was in pretty bad shape, last we heard he had 2 broken legs and crushed chest - I hope he makes it!

Anyway after much discussion the rest of the afternoon was canceled, so we packed up in the rain, with at least the knowledge that both my bikes are now working well....

Photos and video later.

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