ROWRACIN 27th Mar Swanmore

[oldboyonrgv]

Row has never raced to full track or his 65 here so its gonna be another learning day.

A dry and dusty track greeted us on Sunday morning so we knew Row was in for a hard day in the saddle. I had made a few changes to the bike between meetings, so I didn’t know how it would work out, we have had the front forks re-built with new bushings and also had them converted to cartridge type which should make them more plush to hopefully give Row more confidence in the front end as most of his crashes are caused by losing the front. I had also changed the reed valve in the engine for dual stage type to smooth the power out more and possibly give him more bottom end grunt to help the starts and exits from slow corners.

Row had done really well at the last meeting coming in with 15th place overall (different club) so I was hoping that we could get into the low 20’s for this meet (this club, PMXC, has one of the highest levels in the country so we know we are up against it).

Row completed practice with no hiccups and reported that the front end felt better than last week.

RACE 1
Row pulls peg 39 so we are last on the start gate and have to line up at the lower end running into the powder at the first bend, this also means we are on the inside with the whole filed coming across, I tell Row to hold the inside and keep a straight line to the first bend because if he tries to move out he will get side swiped. Gate drops and Row hugs the inside into the first corner, he has to join the queue to get round and exits in the lower third of the field, It’s a bit of a melee as the filed sorts itself out, Row catches another rider on a fast uphill straight and goes for the inside on a tight left hand bend but the rider just in front comes across him and falls off, row has nowhere to go and gets tangled up in the crash ending up on top of the pile of bikes, the bikes are jammed together and Row has to pull and pull to free his bike, he eventually gets it upright re-starts and gets going again now half a lap down on the field. Row manages to carve through about four other riders during the race including catching one and lapping him within the remaining time ! but he’s lost sooo much time that he’s never gonna get back. I also notice that the bike is still ‘popping’ when Row gets it flat out. He gets 29th out of 35, he’s a bit miffed when I meet him at the end of the race (and very annoyed with the boy who fell off in front of him!) apparently he had no option but to try to ride over the stricken bike but didn’t have enough momentum to do it !.

The bike has some new war wounds but I am more concerned about the popping as this means that the bike is running lean at the top end, I can’t leave it like that because it may cause an engine seizure and a big accident for Row, so its out with the carb and a wander around the paddock to see if I can do anything about it, I talk to a few of the guys about the problem and they all say that they are using the same carb setup, then one says to check the float height, if its too low it can cause lean running on main jet, this rings a bell because I lowered the float setting in the winter because the bike was spilling petrol out of the fuel over flows, I get back the bike and re-adjust the float height, fingers crossed for the next race!

Manda turns up with my daughter and promptly gets her gear together and disappears again because we have been selected for Marshalling duty in the afternoon.

RACE 2
Because of the lowly race finish we are once again on the ‘dirty’ part of the grid, Row makes a reasonable start and jams it into the first bend, no problems this time as he is clear of the slower riders, He has a good battle holding off another rider through most of the race when he gets mugged on the last lap and loses the position (bugger!) anyway a 27th place finish doesn’t sound much better that the first race but the pace has really picked up and Row was at least not half a lap down for the whole race !. The bike is no longer ‘popping’ but we now have a low down pick up problem causing the bike to ‘bog’ out of turns.

Once back in the pits I tune the airscrew to clear the pickup problem, thanks for helping John (Rows uncle), Row is a lot happier with this race and says that he was really laying it over in the corners ( a sign that the front end is giving him more confidence).

RACE 3
We at last get a reasonable grid position although still a bit low down we are more toward the middle, the bike seems to be picking up a lot better now as well.
GO! Row blasts it out of the gate and is in the top 15 into and out of the first corner ! he’s riding much more aggressively and has the bike sideways in and out of the corners, although he’s doing his best he is gradually getting caught and taken by other racers but at least he’s giving them a go, the race runs down and Row brings it home in 28th place, I have managed to spot where he is losing huge chunks of time but of course its too late to do anything about it.

So that’s it for another meeting and looking back I think that this has been Rows best series of races in this club O.K so we haven’t broken into the low twenties yet but we have some practice planned before the next meeting and I have some areas I want Row to work on, the bike was definitely running far better in the last race and Row really likes the ‘new front end’

Row still recons he can get into the top 10 before the end of the year

[oldboyonrgv]

[ptong]

great pics!!

[phlat65]

great reports! keep them comming.

looks like a great place to ride, lots of off camber. He looks good on the bike!