Hi all,
Racing at magny-Cours in the centre of France this last weekend. The circuit is our second closest to home, so we left Friday morning and arrived at the circuit at around midday, I was aiming to be ready for a 14:00 practise, but they had shifted times, and we had to wait until 17:00 for practise on the RG.
You may recall, that I had added the rubber connecting tubes back to the carb trunks to see if I could identify where my premix leak was coming from, and also I had changed my clutch cover to see if there was any leaks coming from the clutch cover. I went out and the bike was far to rich, just adding the rubber connectors with no filter made it unridabley rich! I even got a black flag coz it was smoing so much - they did apologise afterwards, as they didn't recognise it was a two stroke (hah). I pitted and had a quick look for leaks, and pulled off the rubber connectors, and went back out, and of course the bike pulled far(!) better, although the clutch was slipping at high revs.
Coming back in after practise, there was much less oil on the engine, so I can assume that I had a leak from one of the oil seals in the old clutch cover, that only leaked oil when hot, plus I still have a liberal covering of petroil mix on the engine, but I am convinced now this is somehow coming from blowback from the carbs (even with the trunks in place).
I managed to get another practise in with the RD350, and established I was running out of engine down the long straight, so a change of gearbox sprocket was in order (going from 15/39 to 16/39). The 350 was running well, although I definately need to dial in something a bit better, the new carbs (VM34) seem to have taken away some of the instant punch I used to get, and it doesn't rev out as well.
Qualifying on Saturday morning, we had 4 laps on the 500 before the session was interupted by a red flag incident, someone had lost it going into the first left hander, and had come off at around 160 (kmph), so was taken off to check for fractures in his ankles. I managed a respectable time in the first 4 laps, of 2:08 which would put me mid grid.
On the 350 I managed a 2:15 which put me in the second third of the grid.
The circuit, was built for F1 racing and is wide for a bike track, and you can really go fast virtually everywhere on the bikes. The limiting factor are your balls - most of the time! Time is lost in the 3 chicanes which is where you need the technique to get the bike to drop from one side to the other as fast as possible, without losing too much speed.
Race One with the 350 went OK, I got stuck behind a big Kawasaki (4 stroke), who whilst faster than me on the straights, was no match in some of the nadgery, but I couldn't get enough ahead to compensate, so he beat me into 22nd place! I was quite disappointed, and the lap time weren't running any faster than practise, but I never really had a clean lap, so a difficult race.
VMA Postclassic Race 1
Race One with the 500, started off as usual with a crappy start, I just have too much sympathy to rev the nuts of it at the start, so I end up bogging down, but never mind, this gave me loads to overtake in the first few laps. The RG was pulling really strongly, and I was able to outpace some of the GSXR's down the long Estoril straight down to Adelaide, I had a couple of nice dices, and ended up in front of some of the guys normally in front of me, on the last lap I could hear a bike just behind me, so I was really tight on my lines trying not to give him the least opportunity to get past, the only place left was the drop into the "lycee complex", which is a right hand bend followed by a chicane on to the start finish straight and the line, he came steaming past me on the brakes, but I knew he had overcooked it, so I crossed behind him and took him straight back, thinking I had got it sewn up, I tipped into the right hand part of the chicane to find a green machine up my inside, with no place to go, I lifted up and cut the left hand part of the chicane, he would have beat me over the line, but let me back past - must have been feeling guilty! Finished relatively happy, best time was a 2:06.
ProClassic Race 1
Race Two on the 350, and pretty much the same scenario as Race 1, I got stuck behind the same guy, and just couldn't get him back. We finished a couple of places higher up, because some of the faster guys didn't make it!
VMA Postclassic Race 2
Race two on the RG, I got past all the traffic in the first lap, and started to hunt down the next guy. He was quicker than I, and I had a lonely race pretty much on my own for the most part. Attempting to go faster in the chicanes, still only managed a 2:06 again, but happy to have had an incident free weekend.
ProClassic Race 2
The clutch slip on the RG500 was adjusted out at the handlebar, and I was running 230/240 mains, with 15/39 sprockets, Tyres were Michelin Power one (1.5bar) and rear Dunlop GP Race 211 (endurance 1.2 bar).
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