NG Oulton Park 9th July 2011

Race 2 ; Round 8 Qualifier

I went to Oulton knowing that I still had my hand injury from the Pembrey accident but as at Mallory Park I have to keep getting the points as to not to let Adam the 2010 run away with the championship.
Last year I had the disappointment (too say the least) of not getting any points due to a front wheel bearing failure so I was hoping Lady Luck wasn’t going to smack me in the mouth.
I was give position 7th on the grid and when lights went out I had a ‘Stoner’ start and was 3rd into the first corner. I managed to keep 3rd and was even thinking of taking a chance at 2nd to pass Philip Evans aboard his CBR1000 RR Fireblade but the pace of these modern sports bike out of the chicane and up the very steep hills was seriously fast and my 27 year old FJ wasn’t a fair match, by lap fourth I got over taken.
Lap 5 I suddenly developed a problem that the engine wouldn’t rev pass 7,000 revs. Shit!.
Perhaps I wouldn’t even make the finish so I backed of and after a lap the motor went back to normal but by this time I had dropped to 6th in race but 1st in class to take the flag.
This meant I was ahead of Adam who was only 2 places behind.

To fix the unknown fault we replaced all the fuel hoses, new fuel filter and replaced all the fuel. Noticed a leak from the battery so we removed and checked it out.

Race 12; Round 8; Championship race

After the final call I jump on bike and ‘Peg’ gave me a bump start (no starting internals on FJ) but it didn’t fire up. Shit!
Tried again. No popping or banging. Now I’m starting to panic. Quickly take the seat and covers off to view battery and notice there was a second earth lead that I had forgotten to attach. I ran around like a headless chicken to get a 10mm spanner. Then found it wouldn’t fit in the small confinements, so after more flapping I attached it directly to the frame. Put the stuff back on and it fired up first push. Got onto the line to find everyone was waiting. That was close!

No quite a good start as the first race but came out 5th but managed to get a place back to forth before the end of the first lap. The bike was going well as I at to drive really hard out of the bends to make up for the lack of top speed and accleration compare to the Streetstock bikes. Managed to gain some time on the brakes but on every up high the guys were gone.
On the 5th lap coming out of Cascades bend the rear tyre let go, I backed off and in doing so a Streetstock bike came pass, then a few metres later another passed, Its amazing that in those few seconds that I back off resulting in two passing.
The end result was I took 6th place in race and more importantly I got 1st in Class.
I manage a fastest lap of 1:50.75 to break the Pre-Injection class lap record (third lap record this year).
Mean while, Adam (R1) was having a massive fight with Nick Colley on his R6 and Michael Hobbs on another R1 was only 3seconds behind waiting to pick up the pieces.

Mura (Steve) had a good day to, he was 7th in class for the qualifier (2:00.38) and was 8th in class for the race (2:02.06) but looked visibly quicker so we're not sure if something strange happened to the timings in the race. Steve's looking better and better each race, getting confidence back after last years incident at Anglesey so nice one Steve.

Jorge (Paul) had never been to Oulton so was quite nervous when he went out for practice but came back happier and managed 9th in class during qualifying (2:03.25) and again 9th in the race with a 2:03.80, he's getting more and more comfortable on the FJ each race so well done.