East Fortune April 2010

We set off for East Fortune as usual on Friday afternoon. We had been waiting for a set of Avon wets to arrive and they made in just in time. We hoped the forecast would be fair and we wouldn’t need to try them. Even with all the roadworks and a nasty coach accident we made good progress down the road and arrived before dark. The paddock was quite busy and we squeezed the lorry in behind the grandstand. A breezy night was forecast and we tied the awning off to the railing.

We changed the gearing back from Ireland and checked the outfit over on Friday night ready for scrutineering in the morning. Up early on Saturday and a new scrutineering team arrived to check us over. Everything was in order and we waited to get the last warm up slot. It was quite cold but dry and the sidecar handled badly. Kerr decided to change the front and chair wheel to ones with brand new Avon slicks for qualifying.

Kerr has always struggled with understeer on the Windle but with the new Avons it disappeared. She handled perfectly and we upped the pace. Kerr had a bit of arm pump so spent the time till race to look at the alignment of levers and buttons on his right side with Lee to see if this could be improved and made easier for his hand. Alan Shand suggested that the throttle could be moved so that on pull throttle Kerr’s wrist would be straight and not bent back restricting circulation. This proved trickier than it sounded as there was little room for the shift button and throttle mechanism. Plan B might be to move both quick shifter buttons to the left side.

The race was excellent we got a flying start and passed Gordon Shand and chased James Neil till he started to tire. We then took him into Esses to take third over the line behind Phil Bell in second and Scott Lawrie in first. This wasn’t our fastest lap round the circuit and probably a couple of seconds off our best time but a good result none the less.

Unfortunately problems back at the ranch meant we had to pack up and return home on Sunday morning but we will be back ready for action at Knockhill on 2nd May. Hopefully Rhys will be back with us having missed East Fortune due to having another op on his foot.