Clapton- June 17th 2007

‘Prevention is better than cure’ so they say, so I had a new piston put in the TM during the week, better to be safe than sorry! As I felt with the amount of events I’ve done, it was due a new one.

It had rained all week, but the weather held up for us today, overcast but very warm and muggy. After a 3-hour drive we got there early, too bloody early! The race was due to start at 2pm, but the quad race earlier had been running late so we weren’t due to start until nearly 3.30.
So with a bit of time to kill I wandered off and had a look at the course while the quads were at it.

With all the usual done it was finally off to warm up our engines and wait for the sighting lap to begin. The bike wouldn’t fire up, I’d fouled up the plug (should have put a new one in anyway) so I tried to bump her as the start was on a hill, no joy there, I was now at the bottom of the hill at the pits, some guy give me a push, still no joy, so I quickly got back to the pits to get a new plug.
All the bikes now had started there sighting lap so I was getting a bit anxious .
I opened up the toolbox only to find that the only plug I had was an old one, which didn’t look too good. I put that in, still didn’t fire up, I quickly cleaned the one that I’d already taken out and tried that, still wouldn’t start!
By now I was f*cking cursing myself, surely I can’t miss this race (another round of the 2 stroke champs) just because of a poxy plug! sweat was dripping off me, I was now panicking as all the bikes had now returned from the sighting lap. I always carry new plugs, but just didn’t pick any up this week (twat).
Then a voice said ‘need a plug mate, my mates got some’ I asked if his mate raced a 2 stroke, ‘yes’ he said, nice one!, I put it in and she fired up straight away! Off I rushed up the hill just in time for the start.

Flag dropped and off we went, I made a decent get away in about 3rd, pleased with this as I think there must have been about 25 in the 2 stroke class.
As this was another ORE event, there were a lot of motocross sections across the fields, short laps too, about 8 mins a lap, so you did a lot of laps in 2 and half hours!
One bit of the course had a long flat straight on it about a quarter of a mile long, so you could ‘nail’ it a bit.
There was also a nice little slippery wooded section after a stream crossing, nothing major, but it did get a bit tricky as it got more cut up as the race went on.

I pitted ok after 1hr and 40 mins feeling quite good (especially after earlier).
A couple of laps later I managed to part company with the bike by doing a ‘doughnut’ on the small stretch of concrete farm road that we had to cross, apart from that little ‘off’ everything went ok and i ended up finishing 4th in the 2 strokes.


Finishing position: 15/46
Bike status: new piston
Injuries: none