What a great day! My yesterday was spent in the rally car, and it was a cracker. Even though things didn't work out race-wise, today made it one of my best weekends ever. Big thanks to everyone who made it happen!
Random points:
The track was about the best I've ever seen it. Got a bit dusty in the afternoon, but still good.
Fernando's son is going to embarass a lot of us when he becomes a senior.
Damien Crane embarasses a lot of us already.
My DT125 with the 175 top end and YZ carby is awesome. The air cleaner fell off in practice (thanks to Bill C for pointing this out to me). I didn't think it had swallowed much dirt, but in the first race it ran like a bucket of pooh. I pulled the plug out to discover that something had been floating around in there and had closed up the plug gap to 0.000001mm. Closer inspection revealed that there was also something (a rock?) jammed down in the plug too. Dennis loaned me a new plug (thanks Dennis) and it ran fine again (albeit low on compression).
Tom. It seems that the planets were finally algined and jimson and his son Tom made it to a HEAVEN round. Tom busted both shocks on the DT1 on Saturday but they both had big grins that evening. Tom's first ever race started well, but ended badly about 5 seconds later... After getting a respectable start, he clipped the back of our webmaster's RM and went down
before the first corner. What should have been a 'nothing' fall got pretty ugly when the DT1 landed on him. As he said later, "Hitting the ground was fine - then the bike landed on me!"... He ended up more than just a little bit sore, but with no permenant damage.
They're hoping to be back for Buladelah.
Graeme on the freshly finished RM was on fire. Even had the audacity to overtake Noel at one stage!
Thanks to Garry for offering me a ride on the DT1 after Tom put himself out of action. I even managed my first ever class win in the second pre-70 race. The naysayers might (should!) point out that there were only two of us in the class, but right now, my glass is half-full, thank you very much!
Despite the bent bars (hi Tom), it's a really nice bike to ride - beautiful engine. Give Tom a bit more race experience, and I can see him giving Neville a very hard time on it.
My second race on the DT175 was going great. The best I've ever ridden, I reckon. Then 3/4 of the way through the last lap, it just stopped dead. ARGH! I later discovered that one of the ignition wires had come adrift, but only after I'd DNF'd. Dammit, I could still see Snowy on his Husky out there in front if me when I stopped (not that I was going to catch him, but he's usually out of sight halfway through the first lap...).
Yes, I'm sitting here with a beer in my hand, and a big grin on my dial. Recently, my enthusiasm for this sport has taken a bit of a battering at the hands of bitching and political infighting, but it's back now.
Edit: Thanks also to Uncle Lozza from The 2-stroke Institute who pointed me in the right direction WRT tuning the 175's carby, over the phone. It wasn't fully sorted due to the very limited amount of fiddling I did and the even more limited testing opportunities, but it was a lot better than it had been.
