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Rounds 4 & 5 - Darley Moor
The weekend of 15th & 16th May saw us head to the Derbyshire circuit for the first time. We were very excited about racing at Darley Moor as we have never raced there before. We arrived early friday afternoon and set up camp and then had a walk around the circuit to familiarise ourselves. The track is quite narrow and although it has a couple of chicanes overall it is very fast and boasts a pretty long straight too.
Saturday's practice cam around all too quickly and we headed off on our first ever laps of the circuit. It was great fun but quite hard work too! We completed 6 laps in the time allocated and the gearing choice of a 35 tooth rear seemed pretty good.
Race 1 came and the start was a real mess. We were allocated position 11 but due to the way other crews had positioned themselves found ourselves stuck at the back! The flag dropped and we got oof to a slow start stuck behind a couple of slower outfits that took us almost half a lap to get past due to the tight nature of the circuit. As the race progressed we found that the gearing was good for speed but lacked drive out the corners. We finished in a very respectable 8th place and recorded a best lap of 1 min 20 sec.
During the
time before the second race of the day we chose to change the rear sprocket for a 36 tooth item that would give us better
acceleration at the expense of a little top end. Race 2 began with us on grid 8 courtesy of our earlier result and this made the start a much better affair. We had a great battle with the faster guysbut despite our best efforts and a slightly quicker best lap ended the race in 10th.
Sunday saw us take part in the practice session just for fun and we again covered 6 laps and really enjoyed ourselves although it was now clear the front tyre was well past its best! Sadly there was not time to change it for a new one not that we had one anyway!
Race 1 was soon upon us and was absolutely brilliant. We got away at the start and kept in touch with the faster guys and had a great battle first with the Imp outfit of Phil Luhr and Dave Currell and then once we were past them the immaculate Weslake of the Latheron brothers. This saw us changing postions at least 3 times with us getting the better of them. As we went through the first right hander after the startline for the final time we found a false neutral and were rapidly slowing. Ian desperately tugged on the gear lever with his hand as Grants frantic prodding with his foot was proving ineffective and all looked lost. Suddenly a gear was found and we sped off expecting to be passed by the Latherons but this was not to be as they had dropped off suffering clutch problems. We finished in 7th and recorded our best lap of the weekend of just over 1 min 18.
Following the end of the race Dennis Etheridge heard of our tyre problem and came to the rscue with a new replacement. We set to fitting this a squick as we could as there was not much time before the lunch time 'taxi' ride. We managed it with literally moments to spare with Grant able to give a ride to Dave Tyler and Dave Williams which we are sure they enjoyed.
Race 2 and the last of the meeting saw us have a steady and uneventful ride coming home in 8th. We were pleased with this as the clutch was giving a little trouble and had a faint hint of slipping as the race wore on. All in all we had a great time and enjoyed
the circuit very much. The clutch problem was traced by Richard Darby to a well worn lever pivot - thanks Richard and we promise
there will be one meeting you come to watch us at that we wont make you get your hands dirty!
The Easter weekend saw the season opener with the CRMC and our first race meeting of the year. The venue
was the fast and fairly challenging Pembrey circuit in South Wales. For the first time ever we were in a position to take
part in the general test day on Good Friday and despite the dreadful weather during the morning which saw the circuit pretty
much water logged a lot of the time we gained some valuable track time and began to learn our way round.
Saturday dawned dry to start with although the circuit was still pretty damp form the rain on Friday and overnight. It was not long before our first race and we formed up on the grid in 14th position. The flag dropped and we got a good start. As we headed to the tight hairpin for the first time we were confronted with an outfit that had spun and was facing the wrong way! We safely negotiated our way through and worked our way up to 6th place but retired on the 4th lap with a gear linkage that would not coperate! Back in the paddock we found that the gear box end of the gear linkage had bent and was causing the selection problems. We swapped the end over and were ready for Race 2. Due to the DNF in Race 1 we were again towards the rear of the grid on 14th again. We got off to a good start again and worked our way upto 10th place and had a superb battle with Clive Faulkner and Oliver Yardley on their Honda outfit. We swapped places several times during the later laps but a missed gear change saw us drop off on the last lap to finish 10th. Sundays first race saw us line up on an improved 10th position and again we got a good start staying with the faster guys. Sadly we had another DNF and pulled off at the hairpin with a dead outfit. We went to bump start to ride back after the race when the problem became obvious - the throttle twist grip had come loose and was turning on the handlebar! This was a frustrating thing to happen but was easy to fix and after some loctite and bolt tightening being done we made ready for the last race of the weekend. Again we were back on 14th courtesy of the earlier DNF and had another good start. We had another good ride and ended the race in 8th following a good battle with Clint Faulkner and Ben Gray on their Imp. All in all we had a good weekend despite the DNF's and we are already making some changes and getting ready for the next meeting at Mallory Park on Sunday 2nd May.  |
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Beezumph 19 - Anglesey
After less than a week we were back in Anglesey for another track outing. This time we were not racing but taking part in the superb 'Beezumph' rally organised by the Trident and Rocket Three Owners Club. We had come via Banbury earlier in the day as we had the fuel tank repaired and a frame bracket strengthend following the CRMC meeting the previous weekend. We set up camp, had dinner and elected for an early night. However Mother Nature had other plans and not long after midnight we were doing battle againts hurricane spped winds taking down our awning and watching our tent, along with many others, get destroyed - not a good start! Friday morning dawned and thankfully the wind had died down a lot. The place looked like a disaster zone with many tents destroyed and even the massive marquee razed to the ground. A meeting was held in the club house and thanks to some amazing efforts by TR3OC members and circuit staff the meeting was to run. Just before lunch we had our first outing and had a great time. We were using a different circuit layout to last week and as well as being a longer lap introduced another hairpin and a couple of excellent left handers. The second session of the day ended after just 2 laps with a rear wheel puncture! Saturday came and the wether was again calmer and the day went well. Grant and Laura went into Hollyhead to get a new inner tube fitted to the rear wheel to sort that. We had 2 great outings with lots of track time and really enjoyed ourselves. Later in the evening we were presented with the 'Best Sounding Triple' award and were chuffed to bits. The trophy being presented by Gary Nixon. A massive thank you to all the TR3OC members and circuit staff
who made the event happen and turnaround a disaster into a superb weekend. Rounds 8 & 9 - Anglesey
We were very excited about this meeting as although we have been to Anglesey before we have
never raced there. The plan when arriving on Friday afternoon was to set up camp and walk the circuit to gauage an idea of
what lines to take etc. Sadly the weather was pretty grim so we did not do this.
In no time at all we were in the scrutineering bay having the outfit checked over before being allowed to race. it made a very pleasant change to have a scrutineer who was both keen and interested in sidecars do the checking. Having gained the required pass we were ready to go.
Practice went well and we soon got the hang of the circuit - what a fabulous cicuit to ride with its combination of challenging corners and elevation changes.
Race 1 saw us have a superb start from 10th on the grid and a race long battle with the 'fats group'. We crossed the line in a brilliant 5th place - excellent stuff! Race 2 and we had a better grid position thanks to the 5th place from Race 1. We had another good race but, following a gearing change, lost a little pace and came home in 8th.
Sunday dawned and Ian went down to race office to get a practice pass only to be told there would be no sidecra practice. This is so frustrating and unfair as there were a few teams who wanted to pratcice to check adjustments / repairs made would be ok.
Race 1 and again we had another good start. A good ride saw us come home in 6th place and give us a good grid position for the final race of the weekend.
Race 2 seemed forever to arrive as we were scheduled after the ACU race which suffered 2 race stops and many delays. The bad news for us being that we would lose 2 laps and have areduced race distance of just 6 laps. We had a good ride and were running in a clear 8th palce when on last lap we caught up with a much slower outfit going into the Corkscrew which left us no choice but to sit behind them. As we enetered the short run to the finish line the engine cut out! With losts of encouragement form eveyone watching on the pit wall we pushed across the line to finish 10th!
All in all a great meeting with another 4 finishes from
4 starts and all inside the top 10!
Today was a one day meeting at the Leicestershire circuit with a schedule of one ten minute
practice session and two six lap races. It seemed like no time at all and we were called for practice. We took to the track
and quickly settled in and found the outfit to be running very well with all gears working and clearly we had good pace. On
the third lap an Imp outfit suffered gear selection problems causing us to take some pretty quick avoiding action. A lap later
and on the run up to the hairpin the same outfit tried to side swipe us and sent us careering across the grass at high speed,
narrowly avoid the tyre wall and eventually rejoin the circuit and carry on! The next lap was almost as eventful as just before
we came round another Imp had suffered a huge mechanical failure and spilt oil along the Stebbe straight.
Race 1 saw us get off to a good start and we were hanging onto the main group for the first fast and furious 3 laps but as the race wore on we suffered gear selection problems again which saw us loose 3 places and ultimately finish 9th. This was not too bad as the race had seen 23 start and almost half the field retire! Race 2 started OK and following some work after race 1 to try and improve the gear problems things seemed better and we were again in the thick of a battle but on the run up to the hair pin on lap 3 we caught the Imp in front very quickly and had to run wide to avoid hitting it. This saw us stall as we scrubbed off speed and our race was over |
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