Knockhill - May 1st 2010

Just booked into the Advanced group at Knockhill for May 1st.
Hoping now I'm on stickier tyres to finally break the minute
marker.

I stick with the Novice until I get my mojo back then I'll try & get in to the Inters before the end of the year

Will you be there in May?

I may well be mate. Just waiting to hear back from my mate who's in Afghan. We are meant to be heading out to Losail to m y mate out there for some track time around that time but if I'm here I'll try to book up. Who's doing teh day, just KH circuit ?

Yeah, Knockhill. It's not up on the web site but they're taking phone bookings. Would be good to put a face to the name.

Losail? Not jealous at all.

Ye, I'll try & book in. Is it s full or half day, how much ?

Just lucky my mate works with Honda out in Qatar mate, get a blade & the gear tyo go & have a play

I believe I hate you!

It's a morning, 9am to 1pm, four sessions, £65.

I'll try to get some quick answers so I can get a spot in the novice group

Try and brake my 1 hour lap time

I doubt you're quite as slow as you make out. But as long as you're having fun the lap time isn't really so important. I just use it to measure if I'm improving (and I haven't been for a while).

With mojo I'm fine but I just need some bike time now to get my head straight and some good rubber to aid my short-comings

If I get my head straight I should hold my own in the Intermediates

I'll let you know mate

How to get into someones head

Walk past there bike in the paddock, sharp intake of breath, followed by a shaking of the head and walking off.



Not that this has been done before

Just need to look at me with a raised eyebrow at the moment

shadow wrote:How to get into someones head

Walk past there bike in the paddock, sharp intake of breath, followed by a shaking of the head and walking off.



Not that this has been done before

That's low!

But funny.

Thats yea challenge for knockhill then, see how many people you can get looking at there bikes.
its 1 point for a quick glance.
2 points if they have a good look.
and 10 points if they phone someone up to say the bike is fooked, people keep shaking there heads at it. (has happened)

I'd lose - I wouldn't be able to keep it going, I'd either crease, start to look embarrassed myself or just take pity on them.

Cruel

Best ploy is to remind them during the general course of conversation of 'that' wee bump going into (choose a fast turn) which can really through ya front end out if you're not careful.
It'll really screw them up for at least 2 sessions while they try different lines, and wonder why they haven't found it so they can then avoid it lol

Evil.

Iggy wrote:Best ploy is to remind them during the general course of conversation of 'that' wee bump going into (choose a fast turn) which can really through ya front end out if you're not careful.
It'll really screw them up for at least 2 sessions while they try different lines, and wonder why they haven't found it so they can then avoid it lol

Thats a good one mate

Taz - Only tickets available for advanced but I may pop up to watch

Shame. Let me know if you're up.

I'll BBM you

Kaiser wrote:I'll BBM you

That just sounds wrong!

Arrived at Knockhill nice and early on a freezing cold morning. It was raining on and off on the way over but only grey and occasionally spitting at the track. Things didn't get off to a great start though.

First session out I broke down during the warm up laps - just started to stutter and die on me and I barely limped back to the pits. It felt like fuel starvation which has happened once before at Cadwell but I thought I had fixed it. Many thanks to Nixxl for suggesting the fuel breather (which I should have thought of but I'm thick). Drained some fuel to give it a bigger air gap and had no more problems.

Second session was rough as a badger's arse. I was scrappy, scruffy and dog slow. Last time in Advanced at Knockhill I felt on the pace but I was getting hounded. The bike felt like it was moving all over the place, as though the tyres were shot and my gear selection was all over the place because I was approaching corners too slowly. I have one excuse, my left wrist was really sore (must have hurt it more than I thought at Cadwell) but mostly I think it was just in my mind.

Third session was pretty poor too, still scruffy and slow, but at least slightly less of a moving chicane than before. Three or four times I got movement that felt like a progressive slide coming out of the hairpin. Sadly not because of my wonderful pace and riding but because I was in the wrong damn gear and exiting the hairpin in first.

I finally started to get my head straight in the final session. Consciously made myself relax a bit, forced myself to allow the bike to run through the corners and got on the throttle some more to settle the poor abused thing down. My lap times tell the story - instead of being all over the place, different every lap as they were in sessions two and three, I started to consistently lap within half a second of the same time each lap (shame it was 1:03, but at least I was smoothing off). Finished the session starting to feel a bit more like myself, still off my normal pace but at least no longer getting in the way of the poor buggers sharing a track with me and bagging a couple of faintly comforting 1:02 in my last laps.

Despite the problems I came away pretty pleased. Feel like with Nixxl's advice I've nailed the problem with the fuelling, and got my head something close to straight by the end of the fourth session.

Interesting read Taz, when you back there again?

I've nothing booked for the rest of the year. :(