21/02/2023
Hartwell round 1.
It was an early start to the Hartwell season which has been shortened to a 3 round series this year. The first round was at Phillip Island and being the middle of summer everyone was expecting some glorious weather but Phillip island being Phillip island welcomed us with rain.
Warm ups were changed to Qualifying 1 and then qualifying was Q2. I’m not sure why but possibly to give people the chance to change tires or just wait for things to dry out.
As I hadn’t ridden in the wet since my big crash at Phillip island in 2019 whilst leading in the wet, I went out trying to build up my confidence again, misjudged the speed that you can do around Turn 4 and slide off. I spent the next 45 minutes changing a handle bar, front brake lever and repairing the fairings with Gaffer tape just in time for Q2. It had now stopped raining so nervously ventured out on slicks and managed to get a couple of laps in before a little slide through Stoner at around 180 had me puckering a bit so slowed me down so I qualified near the rear of the grid for the Formula 400’s. Just as we went out for the Thunder bike / Historic Q2 it started to drizzle so quite a few didn’t qualify and started at the back of the grid. I managed a to qualify 23rd with around 6 Thunder bikes and large P5 and P6 bikes starting behind me so turn 1 on the first lap was going to be interesting.
The Formula 400 races are shared with the George Carrick riders which are GP based 125 and 250’s. They are set off 10 to 15 seconds or so before us and it makes it interesting when you catch some of the slower bikes, it is normally just as you enter a corner and have to ride around them as well as not loose time when chasing another F400 rider who luckily passed them on the straight. I had 3 good races against Geoff Sanders, Jason Dowell and Scott Emanuelsson on their ZXRs and finished 6th overall in the 400’s and First in the Non Experienced championship. (Does help when 2 of the top riders in the class are not racing due to one being injured and the other in NZ on his honeymoon).
In the Thunder bikes and Historic's I managed not to get run over at the start by the ones starting at the back and had a good duel in race 1 with a Period 5 Harris Kawasaki 1200 which I somehow managed to stay ahead of in the race for the line. Race 2 he got the better of me when we caught up to a Ducati 999 which I also managed to beat to the line. Overall I finished 22nd out of 31 starters and 3rd in the Period 6 Historics, so more silverware for my long suffering wife Audrey to dust.
