Podium time for Boyter, Moody and Blackney
Vendetta Racing: More Silverware for the Trophy Cabinet
Friday 25th November, your mission should you decide to accept it is to finish 1st and 2nd in both 600cc races. You can select a small team of trained operatives to assist you in your mission. Should you fail, your trained operators will not accept any further missions with you.
OK, the last bit may not be strictly true but you have to exert a bit of pressure on the riders. The story actually starts on Thursday 24th November when Alan & Mahmoud took the advantage of three 20 minute test sessions in the afternoon. Both bikes were running OK but they sounded a bit “wooly” during gear changes. We should point out at this point that “wooly” is a technical term and not something that comes from a sheep.
At the end of the three sessions, Alan (whose bike was a bit was more wooly) starts to look for the cause of this “woolyness” which ultimately leads to the bike deciding that it no longer wants to run. A “request” was made to Gary at Gulf Sport to bring his road going version of the Triumph 675 to the circuit the following morning for spares. You are a good sport Gary.
Moody heads the chasing pack
Now we move on to Friday 25th November. Mahmoud’s bike was up and running whereas Alan’s bike still refused to start. Gary “kindly” brought his bike up to the circuit where it was promptly stripped for various components linked to the fuel system. The team tried changing batteries, injectors, relays, fuses, engine control units (ECU’s), removing the air filter. Nothing, nada, zip, diddly squat. Could it be the fuel pump????? The fuel tank from Gary’s bike was transplanted onto Alan’s bike and hey presto, Alan’s bike then decides it wants to join the party and start. A huge cheer erupts from the garage as the other bikes celebrate the sound of Alan’s bike running. Right we have to drain both fuel tanks, remove the fuel pumps and fit the fuel pump from Gary’s bike into Alan’s fuel tank. Once this was done all we had to do was rebuild the rest of Alan’s bike. We only had about 15 minutes so that he can go out and qualify.
Whilst all this frantic work was going on, the warm-up came and went with nor problems for Mahmoud but unfortunately for Ian Wilcock who had an incident resulting in a suspected broken leg. Get well soon Ian from everybody.
Qualifying:
Mahmoud, 2 laps to warm the tyres, 2 fast laps and then into the pits. 1st place in class, 3rd fastest overall, job done.
Alan, a total of 8 laps saw Alan in 4th place overall, 2nd in the 600cc class. The bikes till wasn’t running 100% (closer to 95%).
Race 1:
Drama before the race starts. On the grid formation lap (pit exit to the grid) Alan’s bike develops more mysterious fueling issues. He pulls straight into the garage. The team immediately start work on trying to find the problem. Meanwhile, when the lights go out Steve Blackney was off out of the starting blocks quicker than Usain Bolt, closely followed by Mahmoud it has to be said (both riders beat the two 1000cc capacity bikes off the line). Mahmoud managed to pass Steve on lap one but Steve stuck in there and was no more than ½ second behind for the 1st 6 laps. Slowly Mahmoud extended the gap to 2.1 seconds (it’s great when you have a tv on the pit wall so that you can see the time gaps). 6 laps later and it was “hello Mr. Chequered flag, nice to see you again, 1st place you say, excellent”. Podium time.
Race 2:
Somehow one of the ECU plugs on Alan’s bike was working loose and thus breaking the contact. The offending item was given a real speaking to told to behave itself. A couple of zip ties pulled nice and tight and away we go……hopefully.
So with Mahmoud starting position 2 on the grid and with Alan on the last row (as a result of not finishing race 1) the question being asked by the team was could Alan get onto the podium.
Steve Blackney got another brilliant start but Mahmoud was soon past, but where was the 1000cc BMW, the answer being someway back after another terrible start. Mahmoud kept stretching his lead over Steve but slowly, slowly Nasser on his BMW was closing in on Mahmoud who was leading the race outright. This gave Ian (who does Mahmoud’s pit board) a bit of a dilemma. Did Ian show the gap to Steve (who was 2nd in class) or Nasser (who was in 2nd place on the track). The dilemma being that if Mahmoud saw only a gap of 3 seconds he might keep pushing and push too hard and crash then he would get 0 points, on the other hand as the gap wasn’t coming down that quick perhaps he could win the race outright.
Ian took the decision to show the gap to Nasser and let’s go for glory. Nasser got with 1 second then promptly lost 2 seconds on the next lap. Could Mahmoud beat a 1000cc bike? Sadly on the last lap Nasser got past Mahmoud finishing 0.660 seconds ahead as they crossed the line. Still it was a class win which extends Mahmoud’s lead in the championship. Mahmoud’s fastest lap was 1:33.447, this was less than 1 second slower than a 1000cc bike on full racing slick tyres.
Alan wheelies his way to another podium
Now let’s recall Alan’s race. Alan got a brilliant start and was straight away moving forward. Lap after lap, lapping faster and faster Alan moved towards a podium place and half way through the race Alan moves into 3rd place. Steve was about 3 seconds ahead with Mahmoud in another time zone. Lap 8: 3 second gap, lap 9: 2 second gap, Lap 10: 1.8 second gap, Lap 11: 0.6 second gap, Lap 12: 2nd place. Alan’s fastest lap was a 1:33.870 to which he stated “my word that was a bit quick” well there were not the exact words he used but I think you get the just of his happiness.
Back to the podium the team goes for more trophies, oh nothing beats getting nice shiny trophies.
The team congratulates Steve for his 2nd and 3rd place finishes and will be contacting him for his starting technique and to Surya Raja who won his first every rookies cup race and then promptly went onto to win his second rookies cup race.
This was the last race day for the bikes until 10th February so on that note the team wishes everybody a happy festive period but rest assured they will back wanting a few more trophies when the racing recommences.
