Some fun...

Had some fun with the video camera this weekend... Play the following video with the sound.

Video of Race 2 Croix en Ternois

The quality is pretty crap, but anyway it gives you some idea. Look out for number 62!

Croix en Ternois

Croix en Ternois
The race weekend started on Thursday evening, packing the trailer and car and trying not to forget any essentials, and some non essentials too.
Friday morning, and we dropped Carly off at her train, and set off on the long road to the North of France. Croix en Ternois is about 90kms before Calais, so approximately an eight hour drive.

We found the circuit fairly easily, although we did make a small diversion around a couple of nearby fields in search of a second entrance to the circuit, but after disturbing a couple in the back of their car, we came to a conclusion that we would have to make a U turn and go in the main entrance.

Proclassic had a rather small portion of the car park allotted to the 30 or so bikes being run, so space was tight, we didn’t even get to put up our awning, making the most of the trailer door to shelter from the wind and occasional shower.

Friday at 17:45 we had an allotted free practice period of 20 minutes, so I was out there learning the circuit as fast as possible. The circuit is basically a long straight, followed by an “S” and then another couple of faster bends before a tight hairpin back onto the straight. It was quite easy to learn but the final hairpin was the most difficult bend to learn, as very heavy braking followed by hard acceleration onto the straight caused a number of difficulties for more than one. One of my fairing brackets broke on this practice session, so back at the pits it was out with the tools and some bodgery to “fix” it. A part from that the bike seemed to be running well.

The rest of the proclassic teams arrived late into the night, and I had my first personal spectator arrive, my brother Chris had driven his bike down to meet us and turned up around 19:30, just in time for dinner. He slept in the trailer!

On the Saturday, we had just one session of timed practice which left plenty of time for polishing, or fixing, or modifying the bikes, which a number of the others were doing. Having full confidence in my superbly prepared bike, I spent the time watching the racing, mostly practice. The other categories running were :-

Promosport – 600 & 1000
Monobikes
CB500 cup
ER600 Kawasaki cup

My timed practice ended up with a best time of 1 minute 10 seconds, not bad I thought, until you see the times of the others! 1:12 put me on the second to last row of the grid, the front runners were doing 1:01, humm that means we will be lapped in 5 – 6 laps, I will have to be careful not to get lapped more than twice!!

Race One
Sunday morning at 10:55 we were sitting on the pre-grid, waiting for the 500’s to finish, After about a 20 minute wait in the sunshine (hot and sweaty), we were given the order to start engines, unfortunately mine wouldn’t! Chris and Libby, eventually managed to push me to start the bike, I think I probably flooded it after the first couple of kicks, but anyway, an uneventful setup lap and then 2 warm up laps, and into our grid positions. Red light, green and we are off. I got a good start, and managed to overtake a couple of guys going up to the first bend, my race tactic was to stick with Sylvain Gaigeard who was 0.7 second per lap faster than me, and just starting in front of me. This I managed to do quite well, after having a couple of overtakes with a Green Moto Guzzi (Poireaux Un team), Sylvain Gaigeard was trying to get past Hervé Lion (900 Honda) at any opportunity. I am sure with a few more laps I would have got past Sylvain, but I just wasn’t close enough… anyhow, my best lap was down to a 1 minute 9 seconds, which I was pretty chuffed about. The tactic obviously worked a little!

Race Two
No problems starting this time, the grid positions were based on our finishes in the first race, and I had moved up into the same row as Sylvain. Same tactics as before, a good start and I was in the thick of it at the first bend – very heavy traffic, I got overtaken and I took back a couple, all in all, I don’t think I lost any positions, there were some of the bigger four strokes who came through fast. I was happy to get through the first couple of bends with no incidents! I was going well through the twisties, and getting burnt on the long straight in front of the stands, I really need to get some more horse power from the 350! Daniel Cusimano came through after me giving him a hard time to pass. He started from the pit lane after he had forgotten to remove some rag from his bell mouths! I had a fairly quiet race – I am sure I can go faster around here. Final time showed I had not improved my personal best only managing a 1 minute 10 – almost a second slower….

Anyway overall I managed 18th position (13th in my class – 3 points) and a 17th position (14th in my class – 2 points). A total of 5 points to add !

Once again a great weekend, this time no-one fell, and the rain held off all weekend.

I will post a couple of clips, when I have had the time to download from the video camera…. Speak to you soon. In case you were wondering the second photo is the eventual winner of the Unlimited category - Patrick Rigaud (Kawa 1166), going past Franck Arnold (750 Honda).