PCRA Final Round, Broadford Oct 2-3
Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2010 9:31 pm
I felt a bit uneasy putting this up, what with Mike lying in plaster and sling, but reading it will pass the time for you Mike!
PCRA (Post Classic Racing Association of NSW) is my old club from Sydney and the people who put on the Barry Sheene meeting each year at Eastern Creek. Due to the demise of Oran Park they had decided to do an away race which happened to be at Broadford, so I was keen to catch up with some old racing mates and have a run around together.
I only took the VFR up since I’m still lapping faster on it than the FZR at this particular track. PCRA run a combined grid, New Era (P6) and Pre Modern (Jan 90-Dec 95) together for F1 and F2 capacities. I was hoping local knowledge would give me an advantage, at least for a little while! I knew I had to qualify well to try and keep ahead of the faster straight-line speed bikes, but thoroughly surprised myself by being 2nd on the grid behind John Rickard’s FZR1000, so the two locals were 1st and 2nd. I’d also done my best time ever by a good half a second and gone under the psychological 1.04 barrier and on old rubber, which was more encouraging still. I am still quite mystified how fast laps are made; at the time I had no sense that it was that quick, it just seemed reasonable. Then when you think after a race, wow I reckon I did a brilliant time, it’s slow. How does it work, anybody?
Anyway, it was as quick as I could go and there are a couple of seriously quick bikes and riders making up this grid, so I was only going to go backwards as they eased into the track and got their championships settled. However, I got a decent start in the first race and as the two FZR1000’s shot off to duel (John and Nigel Taylor who was leading the PCRA P6 F1 championship) I found myself in 3rd outright waiting for the freight train to come past, but it was a few laps before the ex Superbike ZX7RR (148bhp apparently) came by, then A grader Brett Clark on a Fireblade, who I finished just a second behind at the flag. I’d matched my qualifying time and done well against better bikes, so felt pretty pleased, enough to consider my work done! These guys didn’t know who the hell I was, I was loving it!
The second race on Saturday was much the same, except the faster combos were dropping their times and much further ahead of me by race end, John pulled out a 1.02.6 which was just superb. He said later he was on the ragged edge…..
Being on pretty old tyres that were starting to move around, I had a used Bridgestone front and was lent a used rear to put on, both of which still had more life in them, so on they went. In the warm-up on Sunday they felt good so I was hopeful of maybe shaving a tenth or two off the previous day’s time. But in the first race the back end started moving around quite a lot and my times slowed, a nice young guy James Pace who has only just started racing on a ZXR750 got the better of me and I played safe to finish. He was celebrating quite a bit having beaten me across the line which looked funny, it wasn’t a world championship or anything, but then I thought, oh well if it meant that much to him I should take it as a compliment, so fair enough!! He was knackered after the race so at least I made him work for it! John meanwhile had found the other side of the ragged edge and crashed his FZR on the last turn, thankfully he was ok, so it meant I stayed 5th again over the line.
On inspection the right hand side of the rear had a chunk out of it and was peeling. The track has one left hander so this wasn’t good. I raced down to the tyre truck who we knew was heading off early at 10am but I’d just missed him, so we managed to scrounge up a manual bead breaker, compressor, balance stand and weights in order to put the old rear back on!! Turns out, the chunked rear was five years old! I learnt some lessons about tyres this weekend……
I was feeling pretty knackered by now and just saw out the last two heats, running 2 seconds off Saturday’s times. By now all the visitors had picked up their times, the leaders were now doing flat 1.02’s !! and I had to fight to keep my 5th spot in the last heat from the guys just behind. It was a great weekend catching up with the old crew like Stuart (Jaffa) from this forum who was there on his YZF, he had a good run and stayed safe. Everyone seems keen to come again next year, so I hope they do.
That’s pretty much my club racing year done, I feel relieved. It’s ended on a high and I feel like I’m walking on air today. It’s only club stuff and we’re just old hackers but the pressure of race days, the lead up and the fear of getting badly hurt has been getting to me. Yet I can’t switch off the racing imperative gene and be content to just ride around. Now where are those kids I need to spend more time with…
PCRA (Post Classic Racing Association of NSW) is my old club from Sydney and the people who put on the Barry Sheene meeting each year at Eastern Creek. Due to the demise of Oran Park they had decided to do an away race which happened to be at Broadford, so I was keen to catch up with some old racing mates and have a run around together.
I only took the VFR up since I’m still lapping faster on it than the FZR at this particular track. PCRA run a combined grid, New Era (P6) and Pre Modern (Jan 90-Dec 95) together for F1 and F2 capacities. I was hoping local knowledge would give me an advantage, at least for a little while! I knew I had to qualify well to try and keep ahead of the faster straight-line speed bikes, but thoroughly surprised myself by being 2nd on the grid behind John Rickard’s FZR1000, so the two locals were 1st and 2nd. I’d also done my best time ever by a good half a second and gone under the psychological 1.04 barrier and on old rubber, which was more encouraging still. I am still quite mystified how fast laps are made; at the time I had no sense that it was that quick, it just seemed reasonable. Then when you think after a race, wow I reckon I did a brilliant time, it’s slow. How does it work, anybody?
Anyway, it was as quick as I could go and there are a couple of seriously quick bikes and riders making up this grid, so I was only going to go backwards as they eased into the track and got their championships settled. However, I got a decent start in the first race and as the two FZR1000’s shot off to duel (John and Nigel Taylor who was leading the PCRA P6 F1 championship) I found myself in 3rd outright waiting for the freight train to come past, but it was a few laps before the ex Superbike ZX7RR (148bhp apparently) came by, then A grader Brett Clark on a Fireblade, who I finished just a second behind at the flag. I’d matched my qualifying time and done well against better bikes, so felt pretty pleased, enough to consider my work done! These guys didn’t know who the hell I was, I was loving it!
The second race on Saturday was much the same, except the faster combos were dropping their times and much further ahead of me by race end, John pulled out a 1.02.6 which was just superb. He said later he was on the ragged edge…..
Being on pretty old tyres that were starting to move around, I had a used Bridgestone front and was lent a used rear to put on, both of which still had more life in them, so on they went. In the warm-up on Sunday they felt good so I was hopeful of maybe shaving a tenth or two off the previous day’s time. But in the first race the back end started moving around quite a lot and my times slowed, a nice young guy James Pace who has only just started racing on a ZXR750 got the better of me and I played safe to finish. He was celebrating quite a bit having beaten me across the line which looked funny, it wasn’t a world championship or anything, but then I thought, oh well if it meant that much to him I should take it as a compliment, so fair enough!! He was knackered after the race so at least I made him work for it! John meanwhile had found the other side of the ragged edge and crashed his FZR on the last turn, thankfully he was ok, so it meant I stayed 5th again over the line.
On inspection the right hand side of the rear had a chunk out of it and was peeling. The track has one left hander so this wasn’t good. I raced down to the tyre truck who we knew was heading off early at 10am but I’d just missed him, so we managed to scrounge up a manual bead breaker, compressor, balance stand and weights in order to put the old rear back on!! Turns out, the chunked rear was five years old! I learnt some lessons about tyres this weekend……
I was feeling pretty knackered by now and just saw out the last two heats, running 2 seconds off Saturday’s times. By now all the visitors had picked up their times, the leaders were now doing flat 1.02’s !! and I had to fight to keep my 5th spot in the last heat from the guys just behind. It was a great weekend catching up with the old crew like Stuart (Jaffa) from this forum who was there on his YZF, he had a good run and stayed safe. Everyone seems keen to come again next year, so I hope they do.
That’s pretty much my club racing year done, I feel relieved. It’s ended on a high and I feel like I’m walking on air today. It’s only club stuff and we’re just old hackers but the pressure of race days, the lead up and the fear of getting badly hurt has been getting to me. Yet I can’t switch off the racing imperative gene and be content to just ride around. Now where are those kids I need to spend more time with…
