Mallory Park: 17th March 2002 - New ERA Championship

Saturday 16th

Had the van all loaded on the Friday and was on the Soooper Seacat three to Liverpool on the 0700hrs sailing…… after picking up my help for the weekend, Scotty Boy, on route. The ferry journey again, was uneventful, bumped into Milky Quayle and a few other of the Manxies on board and he said they were going to Anglesey to do the Ty Croes Circuit.

Got to Liverpool and headed off down the M6 and made great time again in the old M.Benz and arrived at Mallory Park at About 12-45pm, the gates were locked, like they were last time I was here early, they weren't going to open the Paddock till 4pm, so to kill some time we had a bite to eat and went visiting (Scotty's mum).

Got back to the track just after 4pm and as we arrived, caught up with a Manx registered van that belonged to Dave and Rob Sells……… Phil Bell-Scott was riding shotgun. Picked a spot in the paddock and started to erect my awning……… and once we had everything in it and the strip light up, it was starting to look pretty 'factory' if you ask me……… A bloke called Dave pulled up and asked if it was ok to park alongside us and mentioned he was Sammo's mate……… Sammo had told him to look out for the Manx Flag……… and sure enough, we had it flying in the breeze…… Sammo turned up not long after, as he had prepared the Suzuki 600 that Dave would be riding tomorrow, so he was there, to help out etc… Went to the pub for a few Shandies then went and got our heads down, Scotty moaned how cold it was but it was nothing like it had been the previous year when snow lined the track…… didn't have a bad night's sleep considering…

Sunday 17th

Was awake before my alarm went off, and after a while decided to get an early start rather than just lie there doing nowt, so got up and made some coffee…… Phil was already up as well and it was still only just after 7am, the weather wasn't too clever, the ground was wet and there was mist in the air, so unless the sun came through it looked like it was going to stay that way, it was one of those days where if it stayed like it was, I would be at a disadvantage, it was too dry for full wets and too damp for the Super Corsas that I'm using……… so I was really hoping that the sun would come out and dry the track…… half an hour later, pushed No1 bike to scrutineering, after bollocking Scotty, the lazy bastard, to get up…… got both bikes through, signed on, then did the usual fettling that you have to do, check petrol, tyre pressures etc etc. Also for the first time, as I had changed my gearing to suit the track, Sammo had recommended that I check and change (if necessary) the ride height, to try and keep a base setting…… so I did that, but as there was only a 1mm difference I thought I'd go out and see if it felt different before I changed anything.

I was only in two races today, a bit of a hike for that I know, but had entered another, but it was over subscribed…… so got knocked back for that…… Got the programme and I was in races 1 & 10……… so, in the first race then, and was allocated 26th spot (7th row) on the grid…… which was a bit shit, but was happy that I was on 6th spot (2nd row) for the second race…… Because there were that many 600's entered, there was two divisions and I had drawn Division 1, Rob was in races 2 & 9 (Division2)……

Because I had put two bikes through scrutineering they gave me two practise passes, which I thought was quite handy…… needed the practise, because I don't rate myself much round this track……… and I definitely wasn't going to push it if the conditions didn't improve. Practise started at 9-30am, but I didn't go out in the first one, wanted to see if the bikes that went out first would start to dry the track, and this they duly did, a dry line appeared, but it wasn't much of one…… decided to go out in the second 8 minute session, in case I needed to alter something, I'd have plenty of time to do it for the second practise session. Was second out on the track and it was pretty cold and slippy, my 'Foggy mask' was directing my breath straight into my eyes and steaming my visor up, and I had forgotten to put my earplugs in, really weird when you're not used to that………… managed about seven laps with a best time of 1'03.3……… never going to win at that pace, but I did a lot of overtaking, with the arse end spinning up once or twice when I ventured off the dry line to get past people. Got back in the pits and sorted my visor problem out and checked how much fuel I had used etc…… and got ready to go out again…… left it a half hour before I went back out, and was in the same session that Rob had picked on his new bike (ex Moto Power Honda CBR600FS that Glen Richards used last year)…… Conditions were slightly better, but was still pretty much wobbling round and after 6 laps had a best time of 1'00.04, so decided to pull my finger out for one last flying lap and at the end of that, my lap timer indicated 55.70…………… that was more like it.
Race one was supposed to start at 10-50am, so as I couldn't hear the tannoy from where I was in the paddock, I had to use the timetable that was in the programme, so left my tyre warmers on till the last minute (as you do), and arrived in the holding area at 10-45am …… the geezer on the entrance wouldn't let me in, said I was too late…… he wouldn't even let me start from pit lane……… I wasn't happy, told him I was going to fucking well sort this right out…… Went to the race office, and complained…… she told me I should have used the programme to tell me what time the race was, I said that I had and was there in plenty of time, it was them that started it early…… she gave me permission to start in Race 2 (if there was room)…… Went back to the geezer on the gate and he allocated me a spot in 22nd as somebody had failed to turn up, but to remember to go back to my own division for the second race…… too right mate, I'm on the second row for that one.

Anyway, lined up on the grid, the race had been declared a 'damp' one, but it was pretty much dry most of the way round, as long as you stayed in the racing line…… practiced a start on the warm up lap and was shite, going to have to get those right soon……… Lined up in my spot and waited for the lights…… Red came on, quickly followed by green and we were off, made up a few places by being late on the brakes, but as I was in the middle of the pack, I got blocked, went around the outside of a few more at Gerrards and had the knee scraping, first time that had happened today…… after the first lap, I was up to about 10th and could see that the leader was starting to pull a bit of a gap on his yellow bike…… around Gerrard's passed a couple more and could have been a bit more aggressive into the Esses, but wanted to stay on the dry line so I stayed where I was, passed somebody else on the brakes into the hairpin, and then got held up at the Bus Stop Chicane, went up the inside of somebody else at Devil's Elbow, and by doing so went wide on the exit into the damp on the start/finish straight, the bike skipped a bit and I got a bit of a tank slapper, which pushed the front brake pistons back into the calipers, found this out when there was hardly any brakes when I got to Gerrard's…… had to pump them as quick as I could, and got great drive out of Gerrard's and passed about three blokes in the one move to go third…… got another bloke on the brakes at the hairpin to go second and by the time I got to Gerrard's corner again I was on the leaders tail…… Sat behind him, then I made my move mid corner and went around the outside of him to take the lead…… yeee haaarrr…… on the back straight, saw that I was approaching back markers and as I thundered up to the hairpin, there was blue flags waving everywhere……… I thought ' what the f**ks up now?'…… until I realised it was for my benefit…… it was to warn them to move out of my way…… had to laugh about that one…… Led for another lap, and up to the hairpin approached some more back markers and they held me up through the Bus Stop and not wanting to be pushed wide by going around the outside of them, I went up the inside and short shifted a couple of gears and started to drift a tad wide, went to hook up another gear as I was on the rev limiter, but couldn't get my foot underneath it so had to straighten the bike a bit to do so…… managed it and then nailed it again, but by this time I was wider than I wanted to be and the back wheel spun on the damp bit, put me on to the painted kerb and the front tucked……… and down I went…… I skated down the start/finish straight for three or four hundred yards, still with my hands on the bars…… I wasn't going to let the bastard go…… I've had bikes flip on me before and it costs about two grand a bounce…… so I held on to the bugger…… (Scotty told me later that everyone on the pit wall were shouting at me to let go) had to eventually let go when I felt my skin burning…… at that point I knew I had worn through my leathers and gloves so rolled over on to my back protector to save the rest of my arse…… wondered if I was ever going to stop sliding, but eventually did…… and I got straight up, bikes were whizzing past, so I walked off the track…… I was F******g mad with myself…… Jumping off while leading…… what a stupid twat! Saw that all the bikes had slowed enough, so went and picked my bike up and wheeled that off as well, gave it a quick check over and couldn't believe it was hardly damaged…… it must have been a 120mph get off, I'd held it down on it's crash protectors…… started to feel a little sore and my hand was bleeding through my wrecked glove…… and my shoulder was hurting…… double bollocks.

Went to the Medical Center and was still mad at myself and wasn't very pleasant to the Doc that was there, which wasn't big or clever…… but I wasn't really in the mood to be sociable…… all I wanted to do was batter myself…… but, 'That's racing', as they say. The doc told me it wouldn't be a good idea to do the other race, and I agreed it wouldn't although I never want to admit defeat, my leathers were wrecked anyway, but they had stood up to a fair old pounding (Cheers Sam, hope my new set are ready)…… Phil got my bike back to my Awning and I walked back, still couldn't believe what had happened, but had to be thankful that it could have been a lot worse, as I never hit anything…… but it could also have been better…… I would have bagged two races wins…… no doubt about it…… But as some other clever bastard once said…… ' To finish first……' ……….yeah, shut up. Checked the old lap timer and I had managed to better my previous personal best by 1.3 seconds and the conditions were far from ideal, and I wasn't trying as hard as I could have done (but still managed to yee-ha)…… so that was the only plus point from it all. Was gutted that I felt that things were starting to click at long last, then something like this happens…… I was 'on it' and then I was 'off it'.

Decided on packing the van up, before I stiffened up too much and did so with everyone's help, and then went to watch the other races…… wasn't too much fun to be honest. The Clerk of the course let us out before the end of the meeting (Mallory's Paddock is in the middle of the course) as I had changed my boat ticket to the Liverpool sailing (cost an extra £70…… robbing Bastards)…… I wanted to go to Nobles Hospital so that I could get half of Mallory Park out of my arse, hand and elbow…… Scotty drove the M.Benz and moaned all the way…… and got to Liverpool with 10 minutes to spare…… Met Milky on the boat again, and he had come off as well, but didn't have a scratch…… I had enough for both of us anyway……

Got to Nobles for about midnight and got x-rayed and had a scrubbing brush on my cuts (I'm not joking!)…… Glad to say, nothing broken, just strained my ligaments and soft tissue damage, as well as multiple abrasions…… slumped into bed at around 3 0'clock…… not expecting a very good nights sleep funnily enough…… Another 360 miles on the ol' bus as well………

So, tune in next time for another very exciting, arse skinning, race leading episode of……………… Tommy Clucas Racing.