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Knockhill 29/30 August 2009
The season is passing quickly and this is the last round at Knockhill before the Jock Taylor. It coincided with a round of Ulster Superbikes and although there were a few solo bikes over from Ireland there was only one sidecar from across the water.
We got a clear run down the road on Friday night now that the Bankfoot road works are finally finished and arrived just after eight. There was just enough light left to get the awning set up and tied down before the wind got up – not that we are paranoid! We also got to plug into the big generator in exchange for a diesel contribution which was excellent. Another bonus was the night heater, kindly fixed by neighbour Donnie, with a replacement pump the lorry was as cosy as toast.
As a two day meeting Saturday morning was an early start. We got signed on and scrutineered then waited to get out for qualifying. When we got out we put in a good few laps. Kerr wasn’t too happy about the handling of the chair and the boys took the wheel arch off to check that everything was ok. The tyre didn’t seem to be working properly so a few more psi were added to see if it would slide more and grip less. We had qualified 7th between Davie Annan/ Grant Hunter and James Neil/Graham Whitehill on the grid with a 59.53s lap.
They ran races 1 to 3 before lunch which made our first race the Scottish Championship. At lunchtime we got the chair tyre changed for a new one to eliminate that as the problem. The first race got off to a good start. Kerr kept the pace up in every lap and stayed in 6th to the line. There are only a few points between us and Davie in the Scottish Championship it was a valuable victory. Fastest time 58.625s.
Not so lucky in the second race - it started to rain as the afternoon progressed but had been nothing more than a drizzle. This shower was a bit heavier and we changed to the wets. As the race got closer it stopped. Theoretically, the races before hand should have dried the track but there were too few tyres on the track and not enough heat to make a difference. We had changed back to slicks and taken a gamble. The field was mixed some wets, some slicks, some both! We went out on the warm up laps and that was quite enough it was way too wet we had to abandon the mission and pull out, we were not alone.
We would get another Scottish Championship race on Sunday. Trying to work out the handling issues we looked into changing the chair angle. This would involve taking off the hub so we thought we would try lowering the tyre pressure again and altering the brake bias to put more on the front. The tyre pressure certainly made a difference as the chair tyre was an even temperature after warm up. Just one problem – the new chair tyre put on the day before had a big screw stuck in it. It had to be taken off and the old one put back on. Perhaps it could be plugged and vulcanised.
In the first race Kerr got an excellent start and we were in fourth place for a couple of laps. We dropped back to 7th with even our Championship contender ahead. Kerr got his head down and got a sharper run into the hairpin we got back past on the hill and stayed ahead until Davie burned his clutch out at Clarks. Fastest time 58.717s with the overall race time falling every time.
We packed up the awning before the last race and watched the dark clouds collecting to the west as the race got closer. We all went out on slicks as it really was dry this time but a fine mist hit the visor even in the warm up. We got another good start but this time there was no Davie to dice with. Hamish and Michael Mackay had a good run however and as the track got damper Kerr eased off keeping just enough of a lead to take 7th.
We were all organised for heading home and got back up the road in time to watch Moto GP perfect timing. Next outing is a trip to the Grampian Motorcycle Convention at Alford next Sunday 6th September.
Thanks once again to Carol for catering and Rhys, Lee, Stewart and Lee for their mechanical assistance. Your help is much appreciated.
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