Pendine
speed week.
May 21st/22nd 2016
Pendine
sands.
A straightliners event.
Me and Phil
drove up separately and we both got caught in traffic at one time or another,
but arrived in the paddock late afternoon in the rain.
I was
fortunate to have travelled up with Rhona, who had booked us in to a hotel, so
Phil was left to hold the fort, and the gazebo, for the rest of the evening!
High winds meant our new gazebo ended up banging on Phil’s van asking to be
taken down, at a difficult time due to rain etc.
Before I
left the paddock on Friday we both had a chat to one of the teams there,
Desperate Dan’s, who told us about the scrutineering rules for the event which
we had unfortunately ignored during our rush to get the bikes ready for the
event. This led to slight concern about the lack of steering damper on my part
and the lack of cut-off switches on both our parts! Luckily we got everything
sorted before scrutineering the next morning.
So Saturday
was wet. We also didn’t take the tides into account and realised that we
wouldn’t be starting the days racing until the afternoon, which actually gave
us plenty of time to get the bikes ready.
Luckily for
us, our friends Mark and Ian turned up to watch the weekend’s events and so we
quickly roped them in to being pit crew for the weekend, which was a good job
for us as I think we would have struggled to get through the weekend on our
own.
We were in
the queue for the first run of the day, the top speed kilometre, when one of
the first bikes away, a massive Harley, crashed at the end of the run. This
caused a delay of an hour and a half which meant we only got one run on
Saturday. Luckily the Harley rider got away with only a broken collarbone and
thumb.
We both took
it steady on that first run, being unsure of the sand conditions and also never
having raced on the sand, but still managed to get our first new record under
the belt. Phil did the kilo at 86.732mph and I did it at 88.185mph.
A few beers
in the evening rounded off a wet but interesting first day.
Sunday was a
very different day. The weather was amazing and we felt in a better position to
gun it on the sand after having a practice run the day before.
The first
runs were for the one mile record, and Phil went off first and managed another
new record at 97.090mph. My first run ended rather suddenly due to electrical
failure and a slipping clutch so I headed back to the pits for a quick repair
session.
The next
runs were for the mile and a half records, and Phil set a 97.877mph on the
first run and a new record of 98.096mph on the second.
I also had
two runs at the mile and a half. My first time was 100.982mph and after taking
the baffles out of the exhaust, my second run set a new record of 108.28mph.
I was the
last bike to run on the Sunday and felt lucky to have got the second run in
after having to retreat to the paddock for an hour to fix the clutch.
We met
several teams over the course of the weekend that are regulars at Bonneville
Speed Week in America, and we picked up some useful contacts for our pending
trip.
We thanked
the organisers at Straightliners for a great weekend and then packed down and
headed off home with a total of five new records achieved.
What a
fantastic first time out with the Straightliners club! Thanks to everyone for
their help, especially Mark and Ian, and Rhona and of course Barney.
