Castle Combe Trackday, 18 April 2005
So after the last of the Under 9s' football season, I made Amy and Jack some lunch and then disappeared to Halfords to get the 20L jerry can, footpump and some Finilec.I then had a bit of a struggle trying to find the pub I'd be staying at on the PDA so I could set up the satnav. {sigh}
I also loaded Blue Rex onto the trailer and set about it with the tie-downs, nice heavy duty 5m long ones. Yes, 5m. That'd be about 4m too long to be useful... I secured the bike after a fashion, relying mainly on the rather good R&G Racing handlebar straps. After all that faffing about, I left somewhat later than planned - 5.00pm instead of 3.30pm latest.
The drive down to Wiltshire went fine, if slower than I'm used to, despite it starting to rain shortly after I'd left South Mimms services. The Fiesta was happy enough to tow at up to 80mph which was nice, but I still didn't get to the Jolly Huntsman until 8.45pm. As the rest of the people were meeting at the other hotel to eat at 8.00pm and as I didn't fancy unhitching the trailer and leaving it there, I decided to eat at the pub. I had a nice pint of Guinness and a steak (slightly too rare for my liking but nice nonetheless) and then decided to get an early night ... except there was that 100 Greatest Albums thing on Channel 4 so I sat up and watched that until midnight. Weather forecasts were bad for the Monday with showers and/or heavy rain forecast.
After a night's sleep punctuated by being woken by rain, another rider arriving late with his girlfriend and two guys from Cardiff coming back from the other hotel, I went for a full breakfast at 7.30am and then checked out and left for the circuit. My bill? £70 for a very comfortable double room with bath and shower, full breakfast and the meal from the night before. Bargain!
Some of the roads to the circuit were flooded which didn't bode well. Got to the circuit and parked up next to Purge's van - he'd driven up from Fleet that morning. As it was Castle Combe, the bike had to be noise checked: it passed at 102db.
Got introduced at the riders' briefing and then went out on track for the first Fast Intermediate session wearing a yellow bib as an Officer. A bit wet in places, so I was cautious at first, but the track dried up by the next session and I managed to christen both kneesliders properly!
Photos here and here. Yes, that bib was way too small so the velcro would come undone and it'd billow out behind me like some superhero cape!
Another ZRX1200R turned up so Purge and I introduced ourselves to Ian who's now joined our owners' club and spent the rest of the day with us ~:0)
I think I got four sessions in before grabbing an early lunch of some rather nice lasagne - I always have pasta for lunch on a trackday. Then I bolted up the camera mount and took some footage in the first session of the afternoon: 33.9MB 13½ minute WMV.
Towards the end of the afternoon, I decided that it looked like rain was finally on the way after being dry and generally sunny all day, so I did my last session of the day and got into a bit of trouble for a quick wheelie in the paddock - oops!
Loaded Blue Rex onto the trailer again and went and got the handlebar straps, but then I managed to trip over the trailer wheel and onto Blue Rex, knocking it over onto its side - gah! Purge and Ian lifted it back up and we inspected the damage - a scratch on the airbox cover, but the tank and pipe were unmarked. Something I didn't check until I got home was that one of the front discs had pushed into the wheel hoop on the trailer and in so doing got bent, so I can't ride the bike until I get it changed. Not cheap...
Slashed the tie-downs with a Stanley knife I'd taken (along with all my tools - trailering is the way to do trackdays) to make them usable, then changed out of my leathers in the paddock and drove home.
Roll on Mallory Park!
