Cartagena Test 2009
February for 5 days in the sun to get to know the Honda RS125 that I'll be racing in the Relentless GP125 British Championship.
Honda RS125
is being provided by Kinpac Racing.
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Stuff from Superteens, Metrakit and Minimotos.
Niall's Blog
BSB, Oulton Park, 2/3/4 May 2009
I’ve been studying for exams since the Wirral meeting at Oulton so I’ve not really had much spare time to update the website Anyway, as we had diagnosed the ignition problem we were contemplating trying to fix the quick shifter but decided to replace it just in case as we didn’t want another DNF. Hopefully that would be the end of our bike woes and I could get a good result at Oulton. We arrived around 3pm on Friday so it gave us some time to get set up and prepare for Saturday morning as we were out on track early doors at 9am. The first free practice session passed without incident and I just tried to settle into a good rhythm and follow some of the faster riders.
We decided to shorten the gearing as I wasn’t getting to maximum revs anywhere on the circuit. During the second session I felt as if I wasn’t getting the drive out of the corners as I couldn’t stay with the other bikes as we accelerated through the lower gears. Saturday night was quite relaxed and we had a barbeque which was good fun. The sun was shining so we made the most of it as the forecast for race day was a bit grim. Before qualifying we changed the ignition mapping to give more aggression in the lower gears. However I was still losing out loads coming out of the corners. It turned out that the clutch was on its way out and it didn’t click with me...doh!. So there I was on the back row of the grid for the race.
The weather on race day was an absolute nightmare with most classes having to make a guess at tyre choice. It was much the same for the GP125 race. There was an on-off-on light drizzle during the hour before our race so there was a brave last minute decision to make. We opted for full wets which didn’t turn out to be the smartest choice. When I arrived on the grid after the sighting lap the track was bone dry. There was frantic activity around us as everyone decided to switch to slicks on the grid. We had 3 minutes to change both wheels but Dad could only change the back wheel before the grid was cleared. Oh well, I just had to get on with it.
I made a reasonable start and gained a few places but I was getting really bad chatter from the front after only a few laps. In the end the tyre choice was irrelevant as the bike overheated on lap 12 and I had to pull in. So it’s back to the drawing board and hopefully we can complete full race distance at the next round at Donington Park.
See ya.
Niall
