The throttle goes both ways - but
only one of them is fun!
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The throttle goes both ways - but
only one of them is fun!
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Bollocks... what a fucking day :-(. Started getting lost trying to follow Autoroute's fucking directions and failing, proceeded through me binning the VFR because the back wheel locked up under braking (with no justifiable provocation)¹ at a critical moment (cracked and bashed left fairing lower), continued with me arriving late at Cadwell after 4 straight hours in the saddle and having to go out with the group _after_ the one made up of the rest of Wycombe MAG, then topped itself off with my spectacularly cocking up the line through the Gooseneck at Cadwell on only my fifth lap and binning the FZR400, thus earmarking me for the early bath. £85 - 4.5 laps. No comments from the instructors about my riding or my lines because they hadn't had time to watch anything I was doing yet. Total fuckup. Totally expensive fuckup. Add up the cost of the day today, excluding the Honda plastic :-(, and it works out at about £45 a lap. I've also been in the saddle for about 9 hours today, and I can barely sodding well walk. We were following the instructor round in a gaggle as he wound it up. I was third in line, but the geezer in front of me kept braking mid-corner, and wandering all over the plot, so I really couldn't practice my lines or anything. Eventually, he missed a gear on an exit or something and I went past him, determined to follow the inestimable Lee Pullen² (our instructor) for a lap or two to get the line. One corner later, he waves me past so he can follow me... So the first corner I've got is that BFO sweeper which you are supposed to double-apex - except that I didn't, I went round it as one corner, and popped out on the RHS of the track (rather than the left), facing a short straight with a brow on it. So I gave it the berries, and this little 400 hit the powerband and went "ZOOM" into warp drive, while my feeble brain was going "what comes next?". Then I saw the kerbing disappear off sharply to the right and realised what came next - far to late to do anything about it. I hit the brakes hard for a millisecond or so, down to about 90 according to the Marshal on duty there, and realised I couldn't turn in without something horrible happening³, so decided to go straight on. Then I had a horrible mental vision of a Marshals post being slap in the middle of my projected trajectory (but fortunately it was just that, a vision), then I was on the wet grass going very fast indeed. I held the bike upright, crossed the track further down the gooseneck (hitting the brakes hard while on the tarmac and scrubbing more speed off) then carried on down the hill towards the tyre wall, trying hard not to touch anything but in the end having to brake to avoid a nasty crunch. I managed to brake noticeably, catching a couple of slides, and was just thinking I had got away with it when the whole plot went out from under me, three feet from the tyre wall at about 10 or 20 mph…Ken Haylock [VFR750FG]
[23/11/2001] Actually, whilst the overlength rear shock didn’t help matters, in hindsight it was mostly all my own cock-up… [23/11/2001] A mere two weeks later, he was tragically killed while racing at Spa. [23/11/2001] This may even be true—but then everything felt like a million miles an hour as I trundled round the track, arms locked out straight onto the bars in terror, so it probably isn’t. Not that I’d have had a clue how to turn in quickly back then, even if I’d wanted to.... |
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Copyright © 2003 Ken Haylock. All rights reserved.
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