Pau - Results

Well, I came back from Pau with (another) trophy! Well it was in the Unlimited series on the RD350, where there was only 5 competitors, but still a second place that was not easy to get.

We arrived at the circuit around 15:00 on Friday, after a never ending drive across France - Pau is in the very South West corner of France. We left Grenoble in a heat wave, and I was surprised as we approached Pau to find at least 10 degrees cooler than Grenoble at around 26 degrees - first "free" practise (20 Euros!!!), and the bike was going well, I can tell when the engine is funning well as it slips the clutch quite badly and this was happening at around 10k rpm.

Pau is a very twisty, circuit with ups and downs, with 3-4 very high speed bends, I enjoy it, although it still holds a few mysteries for me.

Timed practice on Saturdat morning, and once again the bike was running well, although the powervalve cover came lose. I managed a 1:34 which turned out to be my best time of the weekend, and put me on the 5th line of the grid.

Race 1

I got a pretty good start, and it helped to be a bit further forward, so I could put some distance between me and the faster (in a straight line) four strokes behind. I did however got taken at the start by most of the "600's", and I followed them to the end of the race, managing to overtake, and dice with one of them, but never really endangering their positions. I finished 17th stratch and 3rd Unlimited - not bad. The bike was not pulling aswell as the Friday, due largely to the extremly hot temperatures Saturday afternoon.

Race 2

On Sunday we woke up to a heavy cloudy/misty morning - great the bike would get less hot in the race! I started from line 5, and again an OK start, but I did get taken by a number of guys, i fought my way back to roughly where I was in the previous race, although too far back to fight with the 600's, although I did have a bit of a dice with a VFR 750, where we swapped positions a couple of times. Again the bike was not running quite as well as the Friday, so I will have to check it over for the next event at Croix-en-Ternois in September. I finished the 2nd race once again in 17th spot, but this time 2nd Unlimited.

Photos and video to follow.

I will update the blog with my progress on the 500, which I should be able to finish for September, so I am hoping to be able to compete in the Endurance with the 350 and the other short races with the RG500.

Speak to you soon! Happy holidays.