V8 Supercars – Bahrain Wrap Up

What a difference a race can make.

After Craig Lowndes’ relatively poor showing in practice and qualifying, then a lack lustre 9th in race one, he has clawed his way back into championship winning contention.

With Rick Kelly crashing out in race two of the program; it gave Craig the perfect opportunity to grab back a bag of points. The result was that at the end of this weekend he is now only 7 points behind Kelly, with one race to go. The final races at Phillip Island will be an absolute corkers, I may even travel down to watch it, although with Phillip Island’s fickle weather patterns a comfortable lounge room has its alluring qualities as well.

Well done to Jason Bright who gave Ford Performance Racing a well deserved round win and his efforts also ensured Ford secured the manufacturers title. If Craig can gain the drivers championship it will give Ford the ‘Triple Crown’ – Bathurst, Manufacturers and Drivers Titles.

It was also good to see my smokey (I have predicted he will do well in my last posts) salvage a solid 14th for the round after a disappointing first race. Steven Johnson (son of legend Dick Johnson), come from 27th in race one, to record an 11th in race two and a 6th in race three. A lot was said of Rick Kelly’s claw back after race two, but Steven deserves some praise as well.

Bring on Phillip Island….

Cheers

Dave

Track Day – Calder Park

Last Saturday, I was able to blast some of the cobwebs from my motorbike, the mighty Yamaha TRX850.

My mate Bob and I have ridden both Phillip Island and Broadford tracks, but this time we had the opportunity to blast around Calder Park in Melbourne.

So Saturday morning I packed the car, put the bike on the trailer and drove the family to the track. I was a bit nervous to say the least about this track, I always am at a new track, but this one didn’t seem to have a lot of run off if things got a bit ‘tricky’. My only exposure to it was watching some state level car racing on SBS about two weeks ago and it looked really bumpy.

I arrived at the track at about 8.15am and wheeled the bike into scrutineering. After the rider briefing and an adjustment to the chain (it was a little tight), we prepared ourselves for the first session.

Riding down the long pit straight, I prepared myself for the redline racing that was to be the next 20 minutes. After the first lap I knuckled down to find my groove.

Each session I attempted to improve my pace around the track, searching for the best line and searching for that extra bit of pace. Calder is a tricky little track, especially the back part, with some kinking right to lefts and you could even get a nice little power wheelie coming over the rise after turn three.

As always Bob was much quicker than me in the fast bits. I don’t know how he does it but he seems to be able to go 20km/h faster than me in the fast bits. He is a good rider, but a very modest one, he was able to mix it well with more powerful machinery, so was I but to a lesser extent.

Speaking of power, down the straights is where Bob and I could have down with an extra 30 to 40 horsepower.  To give you an idea between the discrepancies in power output, my TRX is about 70-75 horsepower. Now a 2006 R1 is about 180 horsepower

My TRX’s top speed is about 225 km/h. I was almost hitting this speed about 150 metres from the 200 metre braking marker down the front straight. Now this might seem fast, but the myriad of R1’s, GSX-R 1000’s etc in our group where probably hitting closer to 300km/h, making me look like I was doing 60km/h. This can get frustrating when you do all the hard work in staying in front through the twisty bits, only to get swamped on the fast straights.

All in all it was a great day. I had lots of fun, got to catch up with my mate Bob, and my wife and son got to watch me race a round the track. Matt especially thought it was great to see me fly past where he was watching, and occasionally I would give him a quick wave as I sped past at about 180km/h.  Thanks to Bill and my darling wife for taking some video footage of a couple of sessions.

I would encourage anyone who hasd a motorbike to get out and do at least one track day in your life, you will have an absolute blast. If you are in Australia I can strongly recommend contacting Scott or Nicole  from Champions Ride Days they organise a great fun and safe day.

Cheers 

Dave