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KNOCKHILL 14 JULY 2007

Well that was quite a break, must be nearly 6 weeks since we last went racing. Our last visit to Knockhill ended in disaster as a worn hub plate caused the bolts to shear and we lost the rear sprocket half way through an excellent race. Moray Firth Precision Engineering came to the rescue again and made a brand new hub an exact replica but in one piece instead of two for added strength. How they managed to get the measurements so precisely off oval holes I have no idea. Precision tool makers they most certainly are – and no CNC machines either!

With the hub reconstructed and the bike reloaded into the lorry we set off for Knockhill on Friday night to arrive in torrential rain. We put the awning up, tied it down well with our new heavy duty ratchet straps, and went off to bed soaked. Saturday was much brighter and we checked the bike over again ready for practice in the afternoon. We had found a little black seal on the garage floor when going to load the bike and suspected it could be an ‘O’ ring from the chain, damaged when the sprocket ripped loose. It was and we had to shorten one of the spare chains to use instead. Thanks to Andy Kennedy for donating a rivet link from the bottom of his very oily toolbox. While sorting out the chain a sudden and I’m sure the only, gust of wind caught the front of the awning. It had somehow come loose from the skip it was tied to and decided to do a handstand and get its back legs stuck on the roof of the lorry. Oh yes – another awning saga! It was all hands to the pump with everyone trying to grab a hold of a leg before it got any further. Someone was going to have to get on top of the lorry to free the legs. Next thing we knew Robin Daykin (Team Past It) was up there like a squirrel handing us back down the legs. Who said he was 70? more like 17! We are very grateful to all those who rushed to our aid even though many were ready to go out for their first practice session.

Tied down the awning again and got ready for practice but Jen was feeling more than a little rusty and didn’t seem to get into the swing at all. Other drivers and passengers said that they too were feeling rusty after such a long break and it would come together for race day. Thankfully Knockhill now have signing on and scrutineering on Saturday evening so we got that out of the way to save rushing around at the crack of dawn on Sunday. What a scorcher Sunday turned out to be. Practice and qualifying sessions kicked off promptly at 9.00 am. Our qualifying session was nothing special but Jen seemed to find her form again and Kerr perfected some fine slides round the hairpin. Duncan Hendry followed us round for a couple of laps as he has been European Champion with a similar a Windle chassis. He reported that our sidecar was handling well we just needed to be a bit later on the brakes.

The first race came round quickly and we had an excellent scrap with Steve Charlton’s outfit. He kept out braking us into Duffus dip but couldn’t keep to us up the start finish straight. Having pulled a short lead from him he unfortunately broke down and we came in 7th. Kerr got another awesome start in the second race. The start didn’t go so well for Craig and Bryan Nicol whose throttle stuck open taking them rapidly into the tyre wall and the race was immediately red flagged. Thankfully they came away with minor injuries. The race was restarted and Kerr got another excellent start off the line. There was an ominous blue reek coming off Mike Keenan and Alan MacKinnon’s outfit which didn’t last long before blowing up. We kept up a good pace and came in 6th. The best news of the whole weekend came when we got the time sheets and discovered that we had finally broken the 60s/lap with a fastest lap of 59.6 secs. So we came away having made good progress and gained some valuable Scottish Championship points. Next stop East Fortune next weekend! Apologies for the lack of photos.

We are also pleased to report that we have another sponsor, local plant contractor Darris Plant, who have generously paid the entries for the remainder of the season. Thanks Macsigns for rustling up another sticker.

Best wishes to you all

Kerr and Jen

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