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KNOCKHILL 24/25 MAY 2008

It seems like ages since we last got out in the sidecar having missed the North East Club meeting at East Fortune gave us an extra weekend off. We were sharp on road on Friday night and it makes a big difference getting the awning up in the daylight as the light nights stretch. We had little to do to the sidecar from the last meeting but decided to drop the gearing even further. We decided to leave the change until after the first practice so that we could get a clear idea of an improvement. Ultimately we are trying to hit top gear by the top of the hill past the finish line.

The first practice went well. Kerr has been getting a lot of good advice recently from other drivers such as Andy Laidlow and Michael Keenan. We seemed to be going smoothly, were later on the brakes and perfecting a mean slide round the hairpin. Jen had also finally lost her fear of Duffus dip and could concentrate on working out where to put her weight to maximise grip at the right time. Bob changed the sprockets between practice sessions and we tried again. It was definitely an improvement and again the session went well. Unfortunately the practice sessions are not timed with the transponders so it’s difficult to know how much of an improvement had been made.

Thankfully the sidecar can be scrutineered on the Saturday night now which makes for a less stressful Sunday morning so we got it checked over and signed off before settling down for the evening. Ralph Pryde very kindly changed our back tyre for new rubber (sponsored by Danny McNeil) we were good to go. We were in for a nice surprise later that night as the MaCaffertys presented us with a carved sidecar – THANKYOU!. It is a work of art sculpted by a man in Carrbridge from solid wood with a chainsaw. The MaCaffertys also thought it would be a good idea to add the saltire on the nose cone and the well loved number 44. Young David MaCafferty had a similar scale model of his solo bike outside his awning – beautiful!

Carved sidecar

Sunday was a beautiful sunny day. We set out for qualifying but as the tyres warmed up and we tried to get some faster laps in we started to hit problems with the gear changes again. We only managed a 62 s lap and it didn’t feel anything like as good as the Saturday afternoon performance. With the sidecar back in the awning we tried to work out what it could be. It felt like the ignition cut off wasn’t sufficient to allow the up shift to take place. We took the plate off to look at the control box. Low and behold it was flapping around inside the chassis instead of stuck to the inside on its Velcro pad. When it came loose it must have upset the dial setting hence the problem! At least we had an answer – reset, stuck with tape and a new Velcro pad we were good to go albeit from the back of a fast pack.

Races would not start till after lunch. This lunch break would be a bit different as the Scottish Sidecar Racing Club were putting on a ‘be a passenger’ session. Over 20 people had already signed up to go out. Kerr had arranged to take out Grizz, a friend of Derek and Wendy Glass from Digby Brown Racing. We got him kitted out and signed on. What Kerr didn’t realise was that this was not the only passenger he would have to take out. His mum Carol was sneaking into a set of leathers in the back of the lorry too. Carol had never been on the back of any of Kerr’s road bikes and reckoned she wanted to see what it was all about. The look on Kerr’s face when she appeared, ready to go in her one piece leather, was priceless. Carol went out first for her 3 laps of Knockhill. She had the biggest grin on her face when she came back in and was glad that she now had an idea of where the track went as she never usually has time to get further than the pit wall or hairpin to watch. Next time she’s going even faster! Jen’s a bit worried about having to swap jobs as all the cooking and cleaning looks like much harder work. Grizz was out next and with a bit of instruction on where to put his feet and hands he set off for his 3 laps. He loved it too and, watch this space, might be a passenger in the making.

Kerr with mum, Carol in the outfit

Suddenly it was time for the first race. Setting off from the back of the grid was depressing but there were a lot of seriously quick outfits ahead. We had set a target of lapping under 60s and our sights were on this and getting back to the form we had found on Saturday afternoon. James Neil had qualified with a 58s lap and he was never far in front. A few laps in and we had caught and passed him. Unfortunately we couldn’t make it stick and he pipped us to the post and we finished 9th with a best time of 59.95s we had just made it. While waiting for the next race we heard that David MacCafferty had come off his 600 and hurt his back in a pile up at the bottom of Duffus. Thankfully all repairable!

We were raring to go in the second race determined to get an even better lap time. This time James Neil stayed just out of reach but by the end of the race we had managed to get an 8th and reduced the time to 59.36s. This was a whole second a lap quicker than our previous best which is no mean feat. Now that the 60s hurdle has been overcome we can only look forward to more improvement.

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