Castle Combe report - my first one! Here goes, my first attempt at a race report. Well what can I say about last Saturday? It was brilliant! To my surprise the track at Castle Combe was great, here was me under the impression it was a thrown together, pokey little chunk of bumpy concrete filling a gap in our calendar representing the southy-middleish part of the country. How very wrong I was. Given the number of people asking for extra tickets on DSC I should’ve know better. On the day I was a bit miffed at not being able to enter the allcomers race and this made me very nervous, however upon seeing Cleggy I was informed I could enter the allsorts race, which I promptly set off to do. Very luckily I got the 40th and final place in it as I‘d not been to CC before. After following an extremely ballsy young fellow on an 80cc machine for a couple of sighting laps I set off in search of a decent qualifying time. I failed this miserably and ended up 36th on the grid with only the youngster behind me, what happened to the other 3 entrants I don’t know and had sympathy for my fellow DDers who were refused entry due to a ‘full’ grid. Next was the DD qualifying, feeling slightly more confident and following like minded chaps I got a season’s best of 22nd on the grid (lol), exactly 1 row in front of Shane Kenny which narked me no-end as he always leaves me standing when the lights go off but that’s the price you pay for too much lager and pies. The 1st allsorts race went ok with my fastest lap time coming down although I still managed to end up last of the finishers (which didn‘t bother me as I actually finished, on my home-made rear sets and levers too). Now to the good bit, the 1st DD race was an absolute joy to be part of. There were 5 of us (myself, Shane Kenny, Paul Cox, Dave Jenkins adn David Nicholson) at the back having a total whale of a time all finishing within 3 seconds, just about every corner of every lap had someone trying to get past someone else and resulting in the best 12 or so minutes of track time I’ve ever had, no silly manouvre’s, nothing dangerous and a constant grin. I was having problems with not changing up the gears due to making the classic error of using screwed rod for a gear shift linkage which kept bending rather than changing my gear. This probably cost me a place or 3, certainly 1 on the last corner, as I kicked and searched for 3rd Paul crept past, I thought I’d just about held on but his punch in the air told me he’d taken 13th of me by 0.15 of a second. Never mind I’d got my first points on the scoreboard, or had I? A tyre inspection in the holding area revealed I was on ZRs, gutted I had a vision of my only points being stripped away but I just got a warning and told to change them for the next meet. The 2nd allsorts race had me with a newly designed gear linkage and it lasted almost a full lap! The bolt I had used was catching and preventing me from making more than one gear change in one direction at a time, another redesign required! DD race 2 was better, I had a fully functional bike for the first time but that didn’t stop Shane buggering off past me when the lights went out (again!), the 5 bike tussle began once more. It was a bit more spaced out this time with the badger having it’s usual forage onto the green stuff after getting past Mr Kenny and running a little bit too wide, but the place swapping continued all the way to the end and I claimed 13th for myself this time out. 5 points on the board from the day, result!!! Once more I had a twinge of pride about being a DD racer because of the atmosphere in the paddock, the information/advice shared and overall encouragement given to everyone by everyone. Cheers to Cleggy for the help and pointing out a legal tyre set for sale which are now fitted and ready for my next meet, it was also great to see James hobbling about still with a big smile on his face despite the injury. I can’t make Pembrey but my bike’s there for someone to use if needed, see you all at Cadwell. It's not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, but the size of the fight in the dog. Scott #50 |