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This weekend gone we headed to the BMF Tailend show held this time in Lincoln. Its the second year the show has been up north away from its normal spot at Peterborough.
This time round the ACU were onsite and Health and Safety allowed the Moped Enduro to go ahead after cancelling it last year.
The show sadly clashed with a few other events including BSB, NABD rally and the Ace Cafe’s Brighton Run which kept attendance down, still the shows organisers announced a reasonable 10’280 through the gates.
I had a wedding the previous day so met the team saturday morning, which gave me a chance to take the bike although its a most boring ride up to Lincoln from Birmingham! (Mines the ZXR at the back…)
We were rudely disturbed during our saturday morning testing by the Red Arrows playing around
Sadly due to the high winds most other acts were kept down, the IMPS display team were out but had to pick their moments between wind gusts but were still impressive
Its the first time we have raced on grass, which was great fun if not a challenge. Talk about baptisms of fire!
The bike ran well during Saturdays race, held back by the riders more than anything. With our new mods we were using up more fuel than usual which called for a refuelling pitstop around an hour into the 90minute endurance race. Although once we were going we had some great speed and were able to take some places down the main straight, albeit loosing them through the fast (confidence sapping)corner sections.
However whilst pushing the bike back to the paddock we noticed a few worrying noises coming from the gearbox.
Upon inspection we discovered the retaining nut holding the drive pulley in place had worn and come loose causing the gearbox cooling fan to grind itself to peices on the inside of the casing. The lack of airflow coupled with the dust kicked up off the track meant our brand new clutch had cooked itself and the drive belt wasn’t too healthy either.We made repairs as best we could, another team kindly lent us a spare clutch but the drum was too worn. So the overheating gearbox and clutch coupled with an issue with the carb, we think the pilot jet (orignal jet) is blocked, causing poor acceleration and cutting out at low revs.
It was the best we could do sadly.
Saturday night was taken up with the usual drinking events, a Bon Jovi tribute (Bon GiOvi) took us well into Sunday morning, excellent band, although I am concerned that I knew every lyric to every song!
Lack of sleep before Sundays race brought the usual hangovers
And we set to the track. The problems from the previous day we soon apparent as we dropped straight to the back on the first lap, top speed was still great but getting there was another matter. Opening the throttle often meant putting your feet on the floor and waiting for the clutch to bite, which isn’t a pleasent feeling on a live race track!
To compensate for the cutting out issues we had turned the minimum throttle speed up, which kept the bike running but cooked the clutch even more.
Power issues soon got worse, the bike pretty much stopping when you wanted it the accelerate, accelerating mid corner on its own and creeping forward in the pits when nobody was even sitting on it!
After about 40 minutes, 4-5 pitstops and 5+ trackside breakdowns, we made the decision to retire.
Our first retirement since we started doing this (5-6 races?) but it was still a bitter pill to swollow.
Either way, for the 2011 season, 6 hours of endurance racing, we finished 17th from 42 in group and 28th from 65 in total.
Last year we finished 37th from 65 if I remember correctly. So a marked improvement.
And thanks to everyones advise this year. Onward to next year then!
Cracking time had by all. Some great pics too. You all looked great in the red jackets and white lids…
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