Event Reports » 2009 » Event 6 - Actrix VMCC Rd 4
For round 4 Moto Academy NZ also set out to get in a good day of training at Manfeild on Friday 21 August. All of the riders were able to make it this time round, so we set down to some work going through basic riding drills. The riders all have some experience on the bikes now, so they are all now branching into the more subtle aspects of racing motorcycles. We have also had all of the forks serviced and reset by the fine folks at Crown Kiwi Technical, so the bikes should work a lot better now.
The practice day went well, the weather was excellent and all of the riders got in plenty of saddle time. So much so that by the end of the day they were all pretty tired.
The race day on Saturday 22 August was as perfect as one could expect for a winter racing championship.
The riders were all entered into 125GP and Superlite/Formula Three for this round (and for future rounds) inorder to get extra tracktime and racing experience. A mate of Glens from Auckland had recently bought an RS125, so he was racing which was fun for Glen. The boys all qualified as expected, with Kyle up near the front in 125GP and in the middle of the feild in Superlite. Prior to the Superlite races we were asked to withdraw due to the Superlite riders concerns over the start. A compromise was reached werein our riders would start from the back. This turned out to be great fun, watching Kyle carve up the feild to finish in 10th, starting from 30th!! Walter and Will failed to qualify for the Superlite race, so were put into the Clubmans race, which also turned out to be a great outcome, giving them both some other riders to pit their skills against.
Unfortunately Kyles first 125GP race went from ecstasy to pain in the last lap when, while in the lead, he fell down in T3. Such a shame, it would have been his second victory, and a well deserved one. In the second race we neglected to find that his handlebar had moved and was in the wrong position, so he was unable to ride properly. Still, he bought it home for a good 4th place.
Glen had a great, solid day and is picking up pace and skill with each meeting.
Will had a piston failure in qualifying, but we swapped him to the spare bike and he also had a solid day finishing all four races.
Walter unfortunately has some work to do, and ended up falling down twice during the day. We have identified areas for him to work on to help with this and we hope that he will be able to work it out.
Avalon racing through Turn 9
Let's see how the riders felt about the weekend:
Kyle Hammond
Well, it was a bit of an up and down weekend for me.
Friday
All of the Moto Academy NZ riders did some testing on Friday, which was awesome to get back into the groove of the bike and to see if any problems arose. Steve set us up with a bit of a suspension drill to feel the difference between too fast and too slow suspension damping. This was a good experience and it was the second time I've done that drill. I did notice a massive change between last year’s suspension and this year’s freshly rebuilt suspension. Thanks to CKT for carrying out this work.
The testing went without a hitch for most of the day and I managed to try a couple different things. It turned out to be a successful day, but I did have some big problems with changing down gears. At the end of the day, we took the bike back to Steve's to see what we could find and at the same time put some fresh tires on, as mine were getting a little on the old side.
We took the gearbox out, and found nothing wrong with it except old oil, so we assumed it was due to the oil not quite being up to it and a little bit old. However when Steve was putting it back together he noticed some wear on the clutch basket that could cause the clutch to drag while trying to disengage it. This was repaired and we were ready to go again.
Race Day
The day was going to be busy, racing in both 125GP and Superlite F3.
125GP Qualifying
I left near the back-end and followed Jaden and William around for a couple of laps. Because we were out first our tyres had only been on the warmers for about 20 minutes or so, so I was taking it fairly easy on the first couple of laps. I started to push things along coming into my 2nd flying lap, but as fate would have it my chain unfortunately came off, mid corner in the hairpin.
With such a poor lap I wasn't expecting to qualify in front of too many people. But I did and qualified in 4th with a 2:13 (Pretty poor time).
After some thought and investigation we think we finally found the problem to be a damaged thread on the chain adjuster. So we spaced it out and that was that!
Superlite/F3 Qualifying
I went out in qualifying only thinking about getting back into the groove after chucking a chain off. I took it pretty gingerly and managed to qualify 12th on the grid with a 2:06, despite not getting in one clean lap due to getting held up mid corner by most of the Superlite bikes. I started to pick up a rhythm towards the end of the session and had good confidence in the front end, compared to Friday.
125GP Race 1
I lined up on the grid pretty confident and determined to get a good start.The lights went on and off, I managed to get off the line pretty okay. I'm getting a much better idea about how to properly launch a 125 these days, so things are slowly creeping away in that area. Holding my 4th position coming into turn 1, I instantly reeled in William Juggins and eventually got past him through the in-field. As I exited the hairpin, I realized that this was going to be a good race, as Avalon and Jaden were not getting away from me. I pushed myself pretty hard to maintain position with these two, riding the bike a little bit too hard and not smooth. I found out later. On the new section of the track, Jaden made a move up the inside of Avalon, it seemed like Avalon was pacing quickly but still not quite quick enough to continue to lead.
I knew at the time that if i didn't get past her sooner rather than later she would start holding me up a bit. I managed to get a decent drive coming out of the sweeper and line up the inside pass coming into Turn 1 on the second lap. I successfully passed Av and found myself having a look up the inside of Jaden coming through T3 (Splash). This would have been a pretty risky pass if I had tried it, so I decided against it and maintained my line and managed to drive out of the hairpin harder than Jaden. Finding myself in the slipstream I looked to out-brake him into Higgins around the outside. However decided against this as I know Jaden is quite strong on the brakes and it would force me wide, which at those speeds would have let Jaden gap me a little bit. Instead, I lined myself up on the inside, braked at about the same time as Jaden, but less aggressively. I saw a gap up the inside and turned in and pulled off a really smooth and close pass. That was an awesome feeling!!
Kyle following Avalon in Race 1 through Turn 11
Focusing then on the race, I rode my heart out for the next couple of laps, approaching the Streetstock riders very quickly. I managed to figure out that I could use these to my advantage and slow down the other two for half a second. Passing the white flag, I had a quick looksie and saw that Jaden was still right there. However, I must have miscalculated the distance, as I heard later that I had a decent gap at that point. But I wasn't going to slow down at all like I have in the past. Unfortunately for me coming around Turn 2 I spotted 3 or so street-stock riders almost at Turn 3. Not wanting to loose a single tenth to Jaden, because I know how hard he pushes in the last lap, I set up a risky pass around the outside of them all. I misjudged and got a little bit too wide and as I got to my max lean angle I got over to the part of the track where it flattens out on Turn 3 and lost the front, binning it on the last lap and going for a roll in the deep mud. Insert your best swear words here!. The decision for the outside line turned out to be a poor one on my part, as I should have better judged the gap. So I basically handed Jaden the race win.
The gap turned out to be nearly a second or two, which was going to be a hard task for Jaden to make up, especially since I had been confidently out-pacing him during this race. I probably learnt more from that one single race/crash than over the last couple of months. It’s still not acceptable as I should have wrapped that race up without a problem.
During the break between the Races 1 and 2 my head was pretty much trying to figure out how I managed to make such a poor mistake. During this time, Steve was repairing the minor damage to the bike, and I missed the fact that the handlebar had rotated around the clamps and the clutch was far too far away. Even after Steve made me sit on the bike too check these things!! Lesson learned by all of us.
125GP Race 2
As soon as I rolled out on to the track I noticed these two things. They made the bike very hard to ride. It’s the little, simple things like these that make a huge difference to being able to ride the bike right. I got a pretty okay start again, considering my clutch lever was barely within reach! I tried to hang on to the leaders, which was kind of working. I was managing to ride around the out-of-line bars, but was finding it extremely difficult to find any front end confidence in the left handers. On the second lap, I took a poor line coming back on to the old track as I came up to the infamous bump which connects the new and old tracks. I managed to go wide very quickly due to no confidence in tipping it. The actual reason was more my head state rather than the bar, but the two combined saw me running wide on the track. But I managed to keep it upright and just rode around to a 4th position.
Near the end of the day, after having been asked to withdraw from the first Superlite race, we were told that we would be allowed back in the race, but starting from the very back, due to the risk of getting eaten up in the start, which was fair enough. I got some water in to me and managed to get back into the zone.
Superlite/F3 Race 2
In this race, I was just out there for fun and to rebuild my confidence. Starting from completely dead last, I managed to get a decentish start and saw myself coming up to a lot of 400's/650's entering turn 1. I chose to go around a lot of them through the in-field and the first corners. As things started to open up during the race, I started to pick off heaps of them at a time. This was great fun and I felt like I was riding quite quickly too. By the end of the race I had passed 19 of them in 4 laps, finishing in 10th, from 29th (or last) place. It was some great fun, but some of these guys were quite serious and didn't like being beaten by a 125 as I had a couple of them rubbing up against me, but nothing really bad, as they were usually gone by the next corner. I just missed out on overtaking an SV to get between the mid-pack and the front pack, on the last corner.
I have many things to work on, but my riding definitely seems to be improving. However as it improves it seems to becoming a little bit aggressive for a 125, as I heard after the first race. I was sliding every corner, but for me I could feel these and felt very much in control. Still, smoother is better. Some things to work on: Smoother braking, smoother turn in's and just generally working on all-round aspects of my riding. My reference points still need work too.
My body position also still needs work, but is getting along very nicely. Notably I am getting quite a sore left hand wrist. Steve pointed out from a very good photograph (Cheers to Clive’s cuzzie) that you could obviously see that I had a lot of weight on the left handlebar. So this is something to have a look at and change slightly.
Fitness is yet another thing that needs improving, and I have started some training.
Lastly, finding how to get into a good rhythm of things quickly.
Lap Times
During the first 125 Race I manage to get a 2:01:9 and consistent low 2:02's. This was the 15th fastest time during the whole day, out of everyone. (Suck on that big-bike boys!! Steve). During the F3 race I clocked a 2:05, but this was very much to do with traffic as I really felt like I was only cruising.
Thanks to:
Steve Bagshaw
Mike Reps
Mum and Dad
www.motoacademy.co.nz
-Kyle #13
Glen Orwin
I arrived at Steve’s place on Thursday night ready for the test day the next day. We packed up the vans with all the bikes and gear, and then Steve showed me how to change tyres, which was very useful. Steve also gave us our nice new motoacademy jackets, which I thought looked very cool.
Test day
We got to sleep in till about 7 and woke up to a beautiful sunny sky. During the test day we did some suspension drills. We put everything soft, everything hard, and then in the middle. I found that to be pretty good for me, the only issue I had was big head shakes when flipping left to right through turn 3-4. We made some adjustments which made it easier to cope with. From then on it was just about practice, practice, and practice. By the end of the day I felt like I was going much better than the last round.
Race day
This round 125s were up first so we were straight out for qualifying after the briefing. I felt fine on the short track after the test day yesterday, but having only ridden the new bit once before I spent most of the time trying to get my head around the new bit and qualified 5th with a time of 2.20.019.
We also went out in the superlite/pro twins qualifying, which was interesting to be out there with some bigger bikes and gave a chance to get some passing practice with bikes with more power, but less corner speed.
Race 1
I jumped the start a little bit, but stopped and started again. But the good news is that when I actually did get off the line I did a much better job than I have before. At the 1st turn I was only 5 to 10m behind the front runners. This shocked me a little and made me stuff up the first turn a little. I tried to hold on to them for as long as I could, but that didn’t last long. They pulled further and further away, and then I was just on my own for the rest of the race. My best time of the race was 2.12.325. That’s 2 seconds faster than last time we were on the long track. It felt a lot faster than that though!
Glen racing through Turn 9
Race 2
I managed to get another reasonable start, but made heaps of mistakes in the 1st lap, so I decided to just chill out a bit and not crash as I didn’t think there was anyone very close behind me. But James came around the outside of me on the exit of the last turn coming into the last lap, but then I beat him under brakes into Turn 1 and put my head down and managed to get a little gap on him. That last lap made my whole race. It was the first time I had needed to actually fight for a position, and I loved it. With James around now and a similar pace, racing will be a lot more exciting for me.
Glen racing with James out of Turn 6
Kyle and I went out in the second superlite race but had to start from the back of the grid. This was good for passing practice, because we had qualified a further up the grid than that. I was making good progress though the first part of the race, but then started making a few mistakes and didn’t get any further.
I had an awesome weekend, and learnt a lot on and off the bike. I’m feeling better every time I get out on the bike and cant wait to get out again. I’ve hardly noticed winter this year, I’m not sure if it has been better than last years winter (weather is kind of unavoidable in my job), but racing bikes seems to make everything else easy, because I’ve always got something to look forward to.
Thanks to Steve, Mike, VMCC, and everyone else out there.
Glen #15
Walter heading into Turn 10
Will heading through Turn 9