Would you Adam and Eve it? The Castle Park jinx struck me again! I ran out of fuel again (see blog Nov 9th 2008)
Well, what cracking weather we’ve had lately, so it was nice to drive for a couple of hours in bright sunshine up to Castle park. I picked up Adam Blake on the way as he was riding as well.
I’d had a new clutch put in the bike this week, a heavy duty one at that, it had caused a few teething problems when I tested out in the week, but thankfully all sorted now.
Yet again a few lads from our neck of the woods made the trip up and we managed to get all parked up next to each other so we could all have a good bit of banter amongst ourselves. Jack Twentyman, Andrew Smith, Phil Harris, and me and Adam.
So with bright sunshine it was off to get the bike looked over and to sign on. It’s amazing who you meet sometimes when your standing in the queue ain’t it? I got chatting to the guy in front and it turned to be an old competitor who I had many battles with a couple of years ago when I started out doing the ORE series. Mark Schofield it was, haven’t seen him for a couple of years, and when you read on, he turned out to be my saviour, unbelievable! (more of that later).
Also had a quick chat to the next young ’top gun’ waiting to make his name nationally in the enduro world, Rich Tucker, take note everyone!
Got back to van and had a friendly bit of ’competitive chat’ with Andy Smith, who had the bit between his teeth today because he didn’t like me beating him last time out at the SCEC race a few weeks back. Although to be honest, I did send him an e-mail to remind him of it, so we were all set for a good battle today!
Then we all went down to the start to do the sighting lap. I’m not very keen on them myself, but everyone to their own.
So onto the start itself and I didn’t make a bad one, in the top 10 as we tore across an open field and onto the moto x section before entering the woods. This 1st section gave everyone a bit of breathing space to sort themselves out, albeit being fast, but there was plenty of room with some nice jumps thrown in for good measure. Andy got just in front of me and I hung on to his back wheel trying not to let him get away but with the adrenaline at a high, a rider tried to overtake me and overcooked it and went down straight in front of me. I hit him and nearly came off, but managed to stay on and with that I took a quick look back to see if he was alright, hit a rut and off I came! Oh bugger, I lost sight of Andy and by the time I got re-started I must have lost at least 10 places!
The woods themselves were not as badly rutted as the last race that was held here, but still tricky in some places and even with the recent dry spell of weather we’ve been having, some of the trails were still wet and slimy. Not very technical, but enough to give you a test if you got it wrong!
We went in and out of the woods a couple of times across some moto x type tracks which joined parts of the course together, one having that massive ‘big dipper’ where you just pinned back the throttle, hammered it downwards and rode back up the other side, great stuff, and flat out.
The whole course being about 7-8 miles I reckon, so a good lap.
After the 1st lap shenanigans I settled in nicely and felt good, not too much to report and I had only had a little ‘off’ due to over balancing in a slimy rut.
I think it was about after an hour into the race when I came round to the lap scoring that I saw Adam standing there, helmet off, so obviously he’d had a problem and couldn’t carry on.
Around the 2 hour mark I pitted and Adam was there to give us a hand, so I had a quick stop, and back out I went.
I still felt good, so was really enjoying it and everything was going well.
The last couple of laps and with me going the same pace and not letting up, I passed rider after rider as quite a few had slowed down a bit. I started my last lap 10 mins before time, and still feeling good, pushed even harder hoping to make a place or two. I managed to get passed 2 other riders in my class and pulled away from them until the Castle park ‘jinx’ struck me again.
With just about ½ mile from the finish, I ran out of fuel! Dear oh dear, I couldn’t believe it, and with me stopping every bike in sight in order to ‘blag’ some fuel off of someone, those 2 riders that I’d just overtaken, got passed me again as I stood there stranded. Turns out that indeed I did lose 2 places as they were on the same lap as me and finished just in front of me due to my unexpected stop. Pee’s you off a bit that, chasing someone for 3 hours, passing them, and then getting overtaken again near the finish coz you ain’t put enough fuel in!
A YZ stopped for me and helped us out, I thought I recognized him, and I couldn’t believe it was Mark Schofield, hadn’t seen the guy for 2 years, met him at signing on, and now he’s came to my rescue, spooky or what?
With no one about with any kind of vessel to put petrol in, I thought quickly and emptied my camelbak out, Mark took his fuel pipe off, and we put some in there.
She fired up, and off I went again to finish the race.
I know what you’re thinking, why don’t I put more fuel in? Well to be honest, I’ve now got the ‘gasser’ pretty much spot on when it comes to how much I need, and today was no exception, I just didn’t compensate for the sighting lap which in the end cost me. So in theory, I did have enough. Aaaargh!, those bloody sighting laps!
Nice to finally meet up with Pete Boyles as well. I met him in the pits at the end. Pete's been following the blog from the earley days so it was nice to put a face to the name as it were. Mind you, we're going to be at each others throats this week as we're both riding the Midwest race in the same class!
When I got back to where our vans were parked, we weren’t very happy campers at all. Adam’s front sprocket had rounded off after only 3 or 4 laps, so he had a DNF.
Jack Twentyman was lying on the floor in agony ‘chundering up’ all over the place after having a big ‘off’ in 4th gear (champ rider in 4th gear, that’s got to be fast) and I was a bit annoyed about the fuel episode.
We all concerned about Jack though, and it was a good 20 mins before he even moved! We did offer to take him to the ambulance, but Jack is as tough as old boots and after a while he’d recovered enough to make the drive home.
Overall an enjoyable day and it was nice to have some decent weather for a change instead of me freezing my nuts off all the time!
Fishing position: 8/27 (clubman 2st)
Bike status: new clutch
