Upon
arrival on The Island we set about fitting some new throttle bodies to
the Supertwin to increase power. To get these set up properly we went to
see Slick Performance who
ran the bike up on his Dyno. Whilst this was being done we had to
source a new rear wet tyre as forecast wasn’t looking grand for
practice.
Sure
enough practice was a very wet affair, but after Tandragee earlier in
the year was quite comfortable in the tricky conditions, ending practice
8th fastest on
the 400. Sadly the weather deteriorated and cancelled after the 400’s, so no 650 practice.
Tuesday dawned and the weather hadn’t improved, so we changed wheels yet again, in fairness we are getting quite good at this now.
Practice
was wet and after leaving the holding area and the back end tried to
come around and meet the front, I remembered I had a new tyre on the
back, so took it easy for
a couple of laps.
On
the fourth lap my exhaust came loose and started making a real racket.
This happened on the approach to Cross Four Ways, where I knew Ian, a
marshal I know, was watching,
so wondered if he loosened it, as he like the sound of it with no can
on.
When
I checked the practice times, it became apparent that I hadn’t
qualified the 650, and no amount of pleading would change the organisers
minds. So we packed up the 650
and that was that for it’s week.
Better news on the 400 though, and I qualified 13th fastest for our first race on Wednesday evening.
The
lights went out for the first race and the bike directly in front of me
snapped his chain and shot it out the back like a spear. I went to the
right to avoid it and so
did the rider to my left, which nearly ran me onto the grass, losing
any advantage of starting from 13th.
After
regaining my composure I set off after the others but soon realised I
was going to have to treat this race a practice session, being the first
time out in the dry. I
just couldn’t get any rhythm and was mucking up gear changes all over
the place, so just tried to work out where I was going wrong. It came as
no surprise after the race that I’d not got anywhere near my previous
personal best lap, so headed home and hope
for a better day on Thursday.
Thursday was another dry hot day so did a couple of little jobs and got the bike checked over before the race.
I
got a much better start, and had nothing thrown at me this time, so got
my head down and went for it. I felt much more with it and had several
good dices, including waving
to Jez Hill as he bogged down whilst trying to overtake me. It was like
a red rag to a bull and he was soon passed. After this I had a good
race with Chris McGann on a 125. Due to the way a 125 makes it’s power I
could overtake him on the fast bits but he
could carry much more corner speed, so just waited for him to come
passed at every corner, which he did, but was good fun.
I finished a respectable 15th
and found out that I’d gone two seconds quicker than I had done before
around the Billown Circuit, which was a good way to end what
had been a frustrating week.
Hope you enjoy these cracking photo's from John at Manannan Images, many thanks John
It’s only a few days and we are back over to Northern Ireland for the race of legends at Armoy, all being well.
So until then, take care and speak soon
Cheers
Stuart
You were on the coverage of the Southern 100 (Eurosport) several times Stuart, although I do need to have a word with you about your turn in point at one corner.
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