Knockhill 2 May

Sincere apologies to Colin and John for implicating them in the Scott and James incident. I was misinformed by my sources!! After promising to write nice about them too.... Oops - Jen.

We set off for our first Knockhill of the year on Saturday this time. The costs have gone up considerably so the paddock at Knockhill has shrunk a fair bit. We headed off mid morning and got a clear run down the road arriving just after lunch. There was a poor entry of sidecars as some of the teams were off to do the British Round at Snetterton. Of the seven entered one had subsequently blown up at East Fortune and withdrawn and Steve Charlton had unfortunately fallen out of his lorry and hurt himself so he was out of the running too.

We checked the sidecar over, gave her a clean and updated the stickers to add AGV, who have supplied us with two beautiful new helmets through BRC motorcycles in Muir of Ord who also sponsored us plugs and filters for the sidecar. Normally we could sign on and get scutineered on Saturday evening but the regulations now say that you have to be wearing your leathers. Unless this follows on from a practice on Saturday afternoon is a bit of a palaver for Kerr to get kitted out for five minutes so we left it till the morning.

On Saturday morning we rose bright and early to do the needful and get signed on while Stuart and Lee took the sidecar along to the scrutineering shed. That done Jen had to go to the rider’s briefing to hear the updates. Usually this is the same story about obeying flags on track and turning up to the holding area on time but this time there were changes to the exit route after racing. They also said that there were only 35 entries in by the closing date and if this happened again they would have to cancel the meeting – sign of the times?

We were third qualifying session so got ready for that. On the way down through the paddock Kerr thought the clutch was dragging so made an adjustment at the lever. Unfortunately the drag was due to the nipple on the end of the cable moving and the nip popped it off leaving us stranded in the holding area as everyone else left for the qualifying session. We got a push start out and headed back to the awning. Kerr indicated to Jen that she should jump off and open the awning door while he drove round the paddock to turn back in. Jen thought that he had slowed down enough to step off – maybe not quite -and she ended up on her butt in the paddock laughing! Initially we thought the cable had snapped but only had to solder an end back on. This meant we would have to start the race from the back of the grid – not that it was a big grid!

It seemed ages till the first race and we hadn’t yet set a tyre on track. We got two warm up laps as the track was quite cold. So cold in fact that Kerr took an almighty slide at the hairpin and ended up detouring over the grass. Lining up at the back of the grid we got a good start and levelled with Hamish and Michael Mackay to the first corner. The race was on with Colin Riddell and John McCartney and Hamish and Michael Mackay. Then things started to go wrong the sidecar sounded like it wasn’t running right. It definitely wasn’t pulling right and in the closing laps we fell further and further back. We tried to lap Kenny Andrews and couldn’t even out drag him up the straight. It was dismal. Tagging along behind him a huge lump of something, fibre glass maybe, came flying off and headed like bullet in a slo-mo movie clip towards Jen’s shoulder. Kerr managed to get a finish but something needed drastic attention.

There were several possible problems and with some assistance from Alan Shand we eliminated each from the list. It certainly felt like a fuel problem and the pump was making a bit of noise but so was the servo for the secondary butterflies on the throttle bodies. We had a spare servo, and, after checking that the power commander was working ok, it was next to be swapped for a spare. The spare servo was quiet and we thought we might have found the problem. To be on the safe side spark plug and plug caps were also checked and tightened a little. We also found that the rear brake was binding so Lee and Stuart quickly took the calliper apart and cleaned the pistons. We were all back together and ready to go just in time for the second race. The throttle felt more responsive things were looking up.

Again we had to start from the back of the grid but got another good start. The pack were close together and the sidecar felt far more responsive. It was short lived as Bill Davie and Grant Hunter span at the hairpin and Scott Lawrie and James Neave ran wide to try and avoid them only to get James’ hand got caught in the crossfire and he came out of the chair while Scott headed off without him. With all the calamity at the hairpin we shot up the inside and went over Duffus dip in first place. This was too good to be true, alas yes, it was red flagged so that an ambulance could pick James up. It transpires his hand is quite badly damaged. They had planned to travel down to Snetterton on Sunday night for the British Championship on Monday but that was called off. Looks like he won’t be going to the TT either which is a real shame.

After a short delay the race was restarted and we were back to the back! One more good start and we had a tremendous few laps dicing with Hamish and Colin. Colin and John looked like they were getting a bit hairy and we hoped a wee mistake might help us past. Just when we were getting right into the swing the sidecar started to miss again – disaster! Kerr somehow managed to get a finish but it really felt like we wouldn’t make it round one more lap. A new fuel pump and regulator are on order before we go out again. It must be the season for fuel pumps as Bill said his was packing in as was Kyle’s over in Ireland!!

Even though we had had our technical troubles the boys had managed to get the sidecar out for the second race which was ace and we had at least a few laps of excellent racing with Colin, John, Hamish and Michael so we were quite happy. We got packed away with the help of Lee, Stuart, Mary Dol, Colin, John and party and off up the road. Thanks everyone for all your help.

The lorry is now away to Lesley Anderson to get checked over for her MOT in a couple of weeks – fingers crossed! We’ve got a few things to overhaul on the sidecar too before East Fortune in July. See you there!