Mallory Park, 28th May, image heavy

Originally Posted by rusty76

cool

how about the big fookin hole in gerrards?

If you're on the correct line there is no big fookin hole at Gerards

Originally Posted by Lozzo

Don't wanna brag but... I've done a 59.65 round Mallory on a borrowed 2003 ZX6R B1H that was set up for my 15 stone mate and had a well past its scrap by date rear tyre. It was fine on the right side, but was spinning up down Devils Elbow every lap because it was my other mate's old race tyre that we'd turned around on the rim. I've managed a 1:03 on my 98 model CBR600FW with a 32K mile old rear shock and well worn Rennsports.

If I was on a Gixer 600 K7 racebike I'd be hoping for better than 59 second laps.

Depends if the 59 sec lapt includes the chicane after Gerrards or not!

Originally Posted by lukemillar

Depends if the 59 sec lapt includes the chicane after Gerrards or not!

That only gets used on race days, and even then only for BSB as far as I'm aware. Bemsee tried using it a couple of years ago, and after 16 crashes the top riders ganged up on the organisers and told them straight that if it was ever included in another meeting's schedule they'd all leave that meeting and boycott every Bemsee meeting until it was removed from any further Mallory meetings. Some even said that if Bemsee kept it in the schedule they'd go to race with a club that didn't use it. My mate Danny destroyed his ZX10R there twice in a weekend at that Bemsee meet, it cost him a couple of grand to repair the bike, which is unusual because in five years I've only ever seen him crash four times racing at top level of Bemsee Powerbikes, and they were two of them.

No-one likes it, no-one wants to ride it and trackday organisers refuse to include it. I was at a No-Limits trackday where the owners had put cones in to direct riders into the chicane, and after three crashes Del-Boy from No-Limits himself walked round to the cones and took them all out to open the circuit fully. I'm pretty sure he told the owners he'd stop using the circuit if they insisted that chicane was used.

It has to be one of the worst additions ever made to a UK race circuit.

[Binky]

Originally Posted by Lozzo

If you're on the correct line there is no big fookin hole at Gerards

Not everyone goes in line a stern though. Especially on a race day...

They need to sort it out either way.

Originally Posted by Lozzo

Don't wanna brag but... I've done a 59.65 round Mallory on a borrowed 2003 ZX6R B1H that was set up for my 15 stone mate and had a well past its scrap by date rear tyre. It was fine on the right side, but was spinning up down Devils Elbow every lap because it was my other mate's old race tyre that we'd turned around on the rim. I've managed a 1:03 on my 98 model CBR600FW with a 32K mile old rear shock and well worn Rennsports.

If I was on a Gixer 600 K7 racebike I'd be hoping for better than 59 second laps.

well you my friend must be very quick, but it was very busy all day, must have been easily 30 to 40 bikes on track for each of the fast, inters and novice sessions

Originally Posted by 1210tech

well you my friend must be very quick, but it was very busy all day, must have been easily 30 to 40 bikes on track for each of the fast, inters and novice sessions

Having lots of other riders of mixed ability on track does restrict your chance to put in good times. I ride in fast group usually, somewhere in the middle to top half, but sometimes have off days due to a lack of total concentration so ask to be put back a group until my head is where I need it to be. I'm not keen on being in Inters because you find a lot of incompetent riders who have fast bikes and think that by virtue of that they themselves must be fast riders - not always true, some are scarily slow and clueless ego merchants, usually on fairly new litre bikes with a couple of grand's worth of Italian branded leathers and a race replica painted Arai. To be honest Novice group is safer because they never take the correct line into or out of a corner so that leaves it wide open for someone who can ride well to go through.

When I'm on a mission to get a decent lap time I get the tyre warmers off and to the back of the queue as the first bikes are going out. That way I can be quick from the off and still have heat in the tyres because I haven't been sitting there idle for a few minutes. Everyone else is going steady warming theirs up so I can take advantage and outbrake or go round those who are. If they're warmed up and quick then they aren't a problem until they start blocking you into corners. If you sit at the front from the off your tyres cool down waiting to go out and you waste a lap getting heat into them again. By the time you've got the heat back in you're picking your way through the backmarkers who are just warming up too, and they have a habit of blocking you without realising.

After a while the track thins out and you learn who can and can't be taken easily, so I then wind the pace right up and start sticking good laps in until I think I'm pushing my luck or my mate hangs off the pitwall and makes gestures telling me to back it off. That usually happens when he can see me going in to the first corner way harder than he'd like me to, and as he's one of the country's top club racers I take notice of what he says cos I'm usually on either his racebike or our mate Ratty's ZX6R B1H. Both of them are trackday instructors who I owe a huge debt of gratitude to for teaching me to ride again after my stroke 5 years ago.