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| #1  25-Apr-2006, 19:30 | ||||
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| Le mann 24h edurance race. write up Le Mans write up I woke up at 7am on Tuesday morning thinking to myself just 8 hours of work then home quick change then it’s off to Dover to go the longish way around to Dunkerque. I got to Dover a lot quicker than I thought so instead of catching the 2 am I managed to catch the 12 midnight. I thought it would be a good idea to catch a bit of sleep in the lounge but no such luck as the 2 fat slobs sat behind me a snored all the way over. My trip to Le mans was quite uneventful apart from getting lost in Rouen and I arrived at the circuit at 7:30 am on the Wednesday. Just in time to see the rest of the team who had came down from Assen the day before and having worked to 1am setting the pit up, waking up to start their day off. wednesday was just a free session on track for all the teams, our senior team consisted of Warrick Nowland(Aus), Damien Cudlin (Aus) and Christer Miinin (Swe). The junior team was made up of Alec Dubelski (Pol), Leeroy Verboven (Belg) and Damian Rowley (Gbr). Thursday was made up of free practice, first qualifing and night practice all of which went well. The Juniors managed 44th place but with ony 52 bikes and 4 extras we needed to improve on day 2. the senior bike was up around the top 10. Then after more bike prep we ended our day at 12 midnight. Friday was also a free morning practice followed by 2nd qualifing the senior team managed to get a good 10th place which was good enough for a good start. The junior team were given great help from Steve Male our Dunlop tyre man who also happened to be the head of motorsports Europe, he gave Alec 2 qualifing tyres he got his times down enough to get his times down enough to get 35th spot. After this both bikes were fully stripped and new Engines went in and at 11:30pm our day was done. Saturday was a warm up session in the morning and the race would start at 3pm. The juniors again had no problems but Cudlin crashed the senior bike with about 1 min to go in the session. So the senior mechanics had a lot of work to do to get it ready by pit lane closure at 2:35pm Race start 3 pm Both bikes had good starts but Warrick came in from his first 55mins saying he had no brakes! Cudlin was already back out on it so after 2 laps he pulled in by which time we had a new braking system ready to go on this took 5 ½ mins and he was back out on track down in 44th place. The junior team were up in the top 30. As the day went on into the evening the senior bike was climbing back into the top 10 but there seemed to be a problem starting to surface, the temperature kept climbing (from the recommended 75-80) it got to 103 at one stage so it was decided we had to change the radiator. So in the bike came in and a larger rad went on but we had to keep water circulating around the engine so as not to damage the motor, so we had a hose pipe in one side and buckets catching the water as it came out of the engine but the pit was slowly getting flooded. Another problem with fitting the new rad was clearance between front wheel and rad under heavy braking so the ride height front and rear had to be made higher, all this including fitting a fresh set of rubber and topping up the tank took 19 minutes. All seemed ok for about another hour until around 4:30 am when the temp suddenly hit 130 and the race was over. In the other side of the garage the junior team only had one problem when a bolt dropped out of the cluch cable which was fixed in seconds they carried on to cross the line at 3pm in 19th place, which was a fantastic result. Away from the track our hospitality department (catering) had caught the eye of eurosport and the chef Lesley Retallack (my Wife) had to go to the TV studio and be interviewed live on Air. So despite the number 3 bike not finishing Phase one had a good 24hr race, and were very grateful to all the sponsors and volunteers for making it all possible. As for me I am now trying to get time off to do the Bol Dor 24hr in September. Age   |
| #2 25-Apr-2006, 21:06 | ||||
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| Glad you had a good time Age  |
| #4 27-Apr-2006, 21:43 | ||||
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