Motorcycle Drag Racing Team
This year, not only was it the 25th Anniversary of the Bulldog bash, but all three of us had been invited to do demonstration runs, which Lizz and Jake thought was pretty cool!!
Jake and myself went up on Wednesday, the two bikes already polished and checked over, whilst the Fuel bike was arriving with Rene on the Thursday. Once he arrived we set up, wheelie bars on, and just waited for the arrival of various crew and rider, Binzi, Bryony, Chris, Klaus and Lizzy on Thursday evening.
Friday came, the weather was on side, and the RWYB started, and we started up all bikes, checked for leaks, and waited until demo time. I had really wanted Lizzy to do a test run, to iron out any gremlins before the demos, as we had had issues again with the nitrous not working, but this was not to be. The stunt riders started their routine, which was our cue to get lined up in front of the wall, and ready for racing.
Jake was racing against Scott Collier, Lizzy against Ken Cooper, which she found too funny for words (Something to do with him being a bit of a hero!!) and I would be doing a pass on my own.
Jake's run was ok, but trying to find a clutch set up, as the track was very sticky, was causing problems, but over all he was happy. Lizz was going to do a normally aspirated pass, and did a stonking burnout to a big cheer from the crowd, Ken being very gentlemanly let her go first, a .2 reaction, a 1.20 60 foot, not too shabby for a normally aspirated run, and then hit the rev limiter. The bike just wasn't changing gear, so she shut off, and coasted up the track, while Ken stormed past, and took the win, leaving her to push the bike to the end, before someone came to rescue her. She managed to hobble back to the start line to start me up, and see me back!
My run was good, strong burnout, and good and straight, pushed back , launched, and ran a 7.0 @ 196mph, good start, but we had to find the 6 second passes again!!
Back to the pits, did the usual maintenance on mine and Jake's, then onto Lizzy's - took the clutch out, and then Klaus discovered that the reason the bike wasn't changing gear was because the shifter had detached itself from the ram! Relief that we didn't have to drop the sump, and change gear selectors, the bike was happily going through all the gears, we got ready for the second run of the day.
Again Jake's run was ok, still struggling a bit with a very sticky track, but got to the other end. Lizzy got to the other end, but still had big problems with shifting, or not as the case may be. After one more attempt at getting up the track, and locking the gearbox up, and having to take the chain off to get towed back, she sulkily agreed that this was no place to be attempting to repair this, as I had problems of my own, I broke the drive chain last run so we checked the engine and found a problem with the valves not sealing Again, my amazing crew come up trumps time and time again. Rene asked if we were here to race, or here to party, so we took the head off lapped the valves (fortunatly none were damaged) and re done the clearances. Eventually getting finished at about 3 am, to be continued after a bit of sleep.
My proudest moment of the weekend, not only having the whole of the Nitrous Junkie riders racing at the Bulldog, but coming back down the strip after my last run (7.0 secs @ 197mph) with my son, Jake.
We have some work to do on Lizzy's bike before the National Finals, and we are both hoping to get to test before the European and National Finals.
Big thanks to all our Super Crew. You guys and girls are all totally awesome - Frontman Rene Van den Berg, Chris Pyke, Binzi, Lizzy's new International crew - "Yellow" Klaus Brinkman, and new team member Bryony Wadkin-Snaith. A mention must also go to the Hells Angels for organizing another superb Bash, Status Quo, Bad Manners and The Dammed are still great showmen ! Big thanks too to Chris, Dicko and Sarah for the invite, and hope we will get invited again !
Lastly ,we would all like to wish Lizzy all the best for her knee operation on Thursday, and hope this one is a success.