Race Meeting - 16th and 17th June 2007 Race Meeting - 16th and 17th June 2007
A frantic weekend lay ahead with 2 enduros, one the Saturday and one on the Sunday. We set of after loading the van at about 6pm and headed for Pulham, a village 12miles north of Dorchester. After getting the tent set up and having something to eat it was time to turn in for the night.
Thinking that it would mean a good nights sleep so that Liam would be wide awake in the morning. How wrong we were, at 11pm vans were still arriving, headlights blazing trying to find a spot to park, generators running to keep the lights on and compressors running to inflate air beds. At about 12.30am things went quiet.
The morning soon came around on it was all go, scrutenering was at 7.30am with the ritual signing in, and a quick look at the stream to decide how to run the position of the air filter. Sighting lap was at 8.45am and then it was a wait for the blasters to run before it was our turn.
The track was flat and very fast with field, woods and even a short strip of concrete lane. The exit from the stream was getting slippery and was going to get worse. 10.30am and it was Liam’s turn, thankfully even with the bad night we had the bike was at scrutinizing early enough for a front row on the start. When the flag dropped Liam was a bit slow to get away and hit the first corner in 12th position, by the end of the first lap he was up to 6th and the end of the 2nd lap was up into 3rd place and only 32 seconds from the leader. By lap 6 this was down to 24seconds. I had decided to pull him in on the next lap for the pit stop, of which I must admit we made a bit of a mess, when he got back out he was 1min 42 seconds behind the lead. By the end of the race he had pulled it back to 47seconds and a respectable 3rd spot for the day.
A quick clean up of the bike and Liam, it was packing up and ready for the drive up to Clapton, Mid-Summer Norton. We parked up, had some food and walked the track; there were some tight woods and open fields, a good variation. A better and quieter night was had, and all was well in the morning. This time all the youth were in together, but setting of in their own groups, with a slight time gap between. This time Liam had a cracking start and by the second corner was in the lead, stuck behind one of the blasters. He held the lead for 2 of the 8 laps but a partly blocked filter skin meant the bike was loosing power on the long straights, by the time he got to the pits he was in 2nd place. Unfortunately the flag come down just after 1st place had gone through and just in front of Liam, which meant that he had no chance of catching 1st.
Still, not a bad weekend in total, a 3rd and 2nd roll on the 7th July.
Stuart