Anglesey March 22nd 2009

Saturday March 21st 09: 

This was a test day in preparation for the race on the Sunday.

While the rest of us over winter had tarted up our FJ’s (remember! looking good is important!) Liam’s “Corky” understanding of this was a few stickers to cover the scratches and loosing the air intakes from the fairing whilst testing the FJ on the Queens highways. Although Corky did manage to bring the engine down to me so I could squeeze some more ponies out of the poor “beaten to death” engine.

Steve “Mura” had also been testing his new and very pretty FJ Racer built by his own fair hands with all the Mura top secret spec engine mods, only to find that more oil was on the outside of the engine than in after the cam chain tensioner decided to go AWOL.

Steve “Who” had been quietly working on his beautifully built FJ racer over winter with some mods ideas taken from mine. Well! Why try and re-invent the wheel? Plus a few little nice touches of his own.

Giles’s “Toad” racer had a new gearbox fitted from an XJR1300 and Mura kindly gas flowed his head, plus he painted it “Racing Toad Green”, shame Mura found no time to re-spray his own, bless him!

Nick “Thrush” was on the spare FJ that I had built last year, but now with a Penske rear shock to take his light frame of 17 stone.

My FJ racer had not stood still over winter either (as you would expect) and my 09 mods included a slipper clutch (never fitted before to a FJ) as well as a modified steering frame angle that we have nicknamed ‘ST’ for Shopping Trolley.

It didn’t take long at the race meet for the piss taking to start, as you would expect.

Team Hackerstini had a new posh team marquee kindly purchased by Giles (Toad Racing). He even had a flag so that Team Hutchiemura could find us in the pit area so they could set up their Tesco version marquee‘s.

Saturday March 21st 09: Test day.

This year we have six FJ’s on the grid. All the guys from last year, plus the new kid on the block, Thrush. So during Saturday we spent some time showing him around and setting our bikes up. Corky had thrown the gauntlet down early and was setting some very fast times, he was out to beat me (Doc) and the rest of the FJ boy racers.

Sunday March 22nd 09: Anglesey race day

During the 15 minutes practice Mura’s FJ had the base gasket let go, resulting in oil leaking from the engine, this a was real shame as Mura was really on the pace and was looking to put pressure on ‘Who’ and ‘Toad’.

Powerbikes - Race 6: Grid Position

Corky got lucky and had a low starting grid and put this to good effect, really fighting with the unlimited race bikes (R1, GSXR1000 etc) and finished a very good 20th. I wasn’t so lucky and was in fact the last one on the grid of 37 bikes, but managed to finish 27th. Another disaster at Team Hutchiemura as ’Who’ dropped the FJ into the banking, right in front of ’Toad’. He was a little bruised and the bike was soon fixed after being towed back to the pits. Toad and Thrush took the race as a good time to get some practice in and at least finished the race with improving times.

Forgotten Era: Race 8 - grid position.

For some reason the Forgotten Era over 500cc wasn’t large in attendance, in fact it should have been called the ‘FJ Championship plus guest’ as there was the 6 FJ’s plus Steve Cave on his Exup Yamaha, (though it had just been rebuilt). I got my normal good start but Corky was soon up my chuff and it wasn’t long before we left the others behind. Then on cue, Corky made a pass by out-breaking me into the hairpin after the fast 150mph uphill straight. It was short lived as he had gone in too hot and I simply took him on the exit. Corky riding like an Axe Murderer was my shadow whilst looking at any point to take the lead. The air temperature was only 10’ degrees but dry, by lap 4 my visor had misted up, even lifting up the visor made no difference. Finally, on the last lap, Corky passed me but, whist opening my visor, the thing came undone on one side so I backed off and got to the finish. Steve Cave, Toad and Who were having a battle for 5th, 6th and 7th which is how they came over the line, with Thrush coming over the line in 11th.

Powerbikes: Race 12a - Championship race

Corky started off in 20th, I was down to 27th. After a great start, by the second bend, I had passed Corky while he was held up. It was a typical Powerbikes race; down the straights the Powerbikes would pass only for me to try and out-brake them. Corky’s luck ran out when turning into the Hairpin only to ‘T’ bone a fallen bike, though the rider managed to jump out of his way just in time. Sadly Corky had hurt his hand in the accident which later transpired to be a broken bone. This meant he was unable to race in the Forgotten Era point’s race which was a real shame as I’m sure he would have pushed me to the line, or even managed a win. I finally finished 19th place.

Forgotten Era: Race 16 - Championship race

With Corky out this meant my main challenger was Steve Cave on his Exup. The plan was to get a good start and see if I could make some distance over Steve then, settle into a good pace, as it’s very difficult to catch someone up over such short 8 lap race. The plan worked well. Steve went very well but was unable to make up the lost ground. ’Who’ made a great start and with Toad matching his lap times it was a close 3rd and 4th. Thrush was on a fast learning curve and managed to improve his lap time by 2 seconds from the first race to make it a very respectable 5th place. Mura not having a FJ to race due to his bikes oil leak, made a brave move and took Corky’s beaten up Fudge racer out. But by the second bend Mura realised there was a problem with the bike when it didn’t want to make the turn and went right up the banking. He persevered and dragged the bike home to get some points at 6th place. We found out later the forks were bent. Oops!

What a mixed bag of luck the first meeting of the year was, with lots of bad luck in the Hutchiemura camp, with two crashes, plus two unserviceable FJ’s and a team mate out of action. Team Hackerstini ran with military operation efficiency so there’s going to be a lot of humble pie in the Mura camp.

Next Race is at Oulton Park on Saturday April 18th, sadly, without Corky, so let hope he get well soon.