Jen Crosby's Racing Blog

Tuesday March 28, 2006

Race Report - Snetterton...Fantastic!!

Arrived at the circuit Thursday late afternoon, where Loz and Nige had saved us a garage even though they weren't actually racing (you stars!!). Got unpacked and the bed setup in the van, and then started on the bits that I needed to do on the bike – water pump cover, and front sprocket. All sorted, and I went to bed nice and early, ready for practice in the morning.

And in the morning... it's raining and the track is drenched. Urgh - not what I wanted for the first laps of the day! On go the wet wheels – which took me ages, I really need to practice doing it quickly!! I went out and did a few laps, but had real trouble getting the bike up to temperature. Snetterton is a pain when it's cold - the problem is out on the long back straight you're at risk of cold seizures if the temperature doesn't stay up – hot cylinders, cold water pumping around them...not a good idea! So I pulled in early having pootled round for a while, not wanting to rev the engine out, and put some more tape on the radiator. Next session out was still running a little cold, and it was still a very wet track. I had a bit of a moment at the chicane when my foot came off the peg, which was a little scary, but no harm done. I came in early again, not feeling too confident   I sat out the next 2 sessions, I just didn't want to go out in the rain! I know I should have really, I could use the practice. After lunch there was a definite drying line, so I went out again, and finally started to feel more comfortable. After that I put the dry tyres back on, and went out to try and get some decent practice time in. Annoyingly my laptimes were 5 seconds slower than at the end of last year, but at least I was feeling happier out on track, and more in the right frame of mind to be racing the next day.

Friday afternoon after my final session and it's time for scrutineering, and Loz and Nige yet again show themselves to be top pit crew by pushing my bike to the scroot bay and putting it through while I get my clothing checked. Thanks again guys!! I passed scroot, but the official pointed out two things that he wanted me to sort before I went out the next day. First, my fairing had a couple of sharpish corners which he wanted me to tape up – no problem there, duck tape on and that's that. Second, the exhaust can seemed to be a little loose so he recommended I tighten it up. However, it didn't turn out to be the easy job we all though it would be – one of the rivets holding the can to it's collar had come out, and two more were loose, which is why it was moving about so much when the scrutineer wobbled it. Well I don't have rivet gun, or a drill, so the hunt was on to find someone who did. After asking around someone suggested I go ask one of the sidecar teams (cos they have everything!). After walking round the paddock trying to even find a sidecar, Loz and I finally found Sean and Mark Hegarty who kindly lent me the rivet gun. In the end I didn't do anything until morning, when Nige helped out with drilling out the old rivet and putting the new ones with the aid of Greville's drill and some rivets supplied by Deb.

I didn't have a practice session until 10.30, so after signing on I had plenty of time to chill out and have breakfast. The track was still damp when Conrad went out at 9.15, so I wasn't feeling too good about going out, but I knew I had to, even if it was only slow. It turned out ok – still a little damp in places like the Bombhole, but mostly ok. I didn't push it, but just got a feel for the track ready for my first race. Mind you, my first race wasn't until after lunch at around 2.30! Had a nice morning, this time actually getting to watch some of my mates race this time – Conrad out in Clubman 600 and Greville out in SB400, as well as some of the Minitwins, Chris and Susie.

For some reason I was feeling really nervous Saturday morning, much more nervous than I was for Brands. I was definitely feeling like I didn't want to go out, but of course, I was going to anyway. I think the prospect of it being wet was really getting under my skin after my foot slipping off the peg in practice (that after all is what caused me to have my one and only off so far at Brands) – well that's the only thing I can think of that would explain it. Finally it came round to race one, and sat in collecting next to Radka, she rubs her tummy to indicate how nervous she was – and I really sympathised! At least it was dry though, even quite sunny! I started 19^th on the grid – the Thunderbike championship was also on the grid with us, and they were up front, so all the C400s were on the back few rows. Made an average start, making a couple of place up in the first lap, and then basically ended up just following Lisa around for the whole race. I couldn't seem to catch her anywhere, but she wasn't pulling away either – most frustrating! The race was ok, not particularly eventful apart from being lapped by many of the much more experienced and very very fast Thunderbike riders. I felt like I could have pushed more, but it was steady enough. And I'd managed to knock 3 seconds off my Friday laptimes, so I was pleased with that. Final position was 9^th in the C400.

The second race on Saturday – well to be honest I can't remember much about it!! I was feeling loads better about going out than I had been that morning, it's always much easier when the first one is over I think! My laptimes were around the same kind of time, a little slower but consistent. I think I made a place or two throughout the race, but it was generally uneventful. One thing I was finding though was that my bike had really bad front end chatter under hard breaking at the end of both straights. It was starting to really hurt my arms, and it was making me brake earlier, so I made sure that I went to ask Steve Jordan if he could take a look for me at some point soon, see if we could dial it out. Final position was 8^th.

Saturday night and Conrad and I had agreed we would take Loz & Nige out for dinner to say thanks for sorting the garage for us. We tried booking our 'usual' haunt, the Breckland Lodge 5 minutes down the round in Attleborough, but it was full, so we ended up driving first around Attleborough, and after no luck there, the next town, Wymondham until we found a curry house. It was mega-busy, but they found us a table after 20 minutes, and it was actually really good food! It ended being a reasonably late night, especially as the clocks were due to go forward overnight, but it was great to be out with everyone, all my racer mates

Sunday morning, and Steve Jordan has popped round while I was out of the garage to take a look at the suspension. Thankfully Greg was there to describe what I was feeling on the bike, so Steve fettled the rebound on the front and rear, and I got a practice pass to try and test it out in the 3 lap session. It's hard to test it fully when it's not race conditions, but I gave the brakes some good welly out on the back straight, and although the problem hadn't gone away fully it did seem to be better, so I was hopeful that it would stop me braking early and stop hurting my arms!

First race out, and I'm ready to give it a go, determined to make a better than my usual average start this time. I started in 17^th on the grid, on the outside, so I felt like I should be able to find more room on the first corner round the outside. I made a blinding start! Best I've ever done – doing my first mini-wheelie in the process  - I shot forward making at least 6 or so places by the time I got to the first corner. Then – disaster! A few metres ahead of me two bikes make contact and go down, and I'm forced to ride way out over the grass to avoid them. Once on the grass I'm thinking “don't touch anything!” - brakes are a bad idea, and so is throttle on damp grass! I just tried to aim back toward the track, praying I wouldn't slip and fall over! I made it, and took the next corner a little gingerly while I tried to scrub any remaining mud off the tyres, and then gunned in down the straight in pursuit of Toby Lewis who rejoined the track a little way ahead of me. Pretty much everyone else managed to avoid the incident and had made plenty of headway round by then. A long way to catch up from there  I came round to the line to complete the first lap in 28^th, only 2 from the back.... I was so annoyed after making my best start so far only to have it scuppered by an incident in front, but hey, that's racing I guess. So after that, I got my head down and tried to make some of the lost time back. I think I made about 2 positions back, but finally finished in 12^th in the C400, and had a 26^th on the next grid

In the afternoon, about 30 minutes before my race, my greatest fear happened: it started to rain. It wasn't too heavy, but definitely rain. The race that was about to go out was declared wet, so I was watching with interest to see if the rain would stop, and if it did whether it would dry out. I have free tyre choice in my class, so it doesn't have to be declared wet before I can run wets, however, I wanted to be sure it was wet enough before putting them on. The rain stopped a little while later, and the windy conditions started to dry the not massively wet track. I took the gamble to stay on dry tyres, as although it was damp, it really wasn't wet enough for full wets. Still, I was really nervous, and was really battling with myself to put the worries out of mind and just get out there and bring me and the bike home in one piece. So we pull out to the collecting area, and out onto the grid where I'm waaaay at the back. I seem to have managed to put all my worries about the wet out of my mind now, although I've no idea how. The warm up lap was scary, it had started raining again, and I pootled round near the back to try and avoid any silly incidents before the race had even started (others weren't so lucky!). Onto the grid, and we're under starters orders. Lights go on. Lights go off.... and I make the start of my life!!! I flew off the line and made masses of places up by the time I'd safely made it round turn one. Looking at the breakdown of laps it turns out I crossed the line after lap one in 12^th - from 26^th – I managed to take 14 bikes in the first lap!!! Man, I hope I can pull that off at more races  It turns out that 12^th over the line was in fact 3^rd in the C400, but I had no idea where I was and was just trying to keep the bike upright on an increasingly slippery surface.

The rain was coming down harder now, and I could see bikes in front of me touching the white line and having the back end swishing all over the place, so I was desperately trying to stay clear of them. Having to wait for ages for the bike to get upright before putting on the power was a challenge too, it's a completely different style of riding with those tyres on. I put in a couple of laps, still pretty tentative, and had a brief battle with James Williamson who was awesome on the brakes in such stupid conditions, and then the following lap I was overtaken by Bob Turner. I followed them both for ages, and definitely had the opportunity to overtake at least once, but I just thought better of it, thinking it was too risky and I didn't want to crash! If only I'd known I was battling for third, and my first pot – I definitely would have tried harder. I managed a really good couple of overtakes – round the outside at Corums, and on the brakes at Riches, that gave me loads of confidence as I'd been too scared to overtake anyone on the brakes so far that weekend. There were so many crashes in that race – it seems every time I came round a corner there was someone else on the floor. Eventually the race was actually red flagged at 6 laps – and to be honest not a moment too soon, as I was tiring fast and it was getting wetter and wetter! As I pulled round the cool down lap Michael, one of the marshalls on flag off showed me 4 fingers to indicate my position and I was gobsmacked, followed by screaming wildly!  What a race – scary, but fantastic all at the same time – I really enjoyed it, not just because of getting my best result so far, and only narrowly missing out on a pot, but also it was just a great race, challenging and fun.

I've been on such a high since then – even now I'm grinning thinking about it! What started as a reasonable, average-ish weekend ended just brilliantly! I'm full of confidence for Lydden no in two weeks time – I can't wait to get back out there again. If anyone reading is umming and aaahing about going racing, just do it – it's bloomin' fantastic!!

The usual thankyous: Loz and Nige – top pit crew, garage reservers and film technicians; Conrad – who I'm really proud of after having such a good weekend with a PB to boot; all the C400 guys, you're all top!! Reggie and Nick Lewis for some very sound advice on the circuit; and of course my lovely hubby Greg who always gives me tons of support. Not forgetting of course my orange ZXR.

Oh - when I arrived at the circuit Thursday night Loz & Nige had done this to their van

More pics to follow soon.

( Mar 28 2006, 01:29:20 PM GMT+00:00 )

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