I know it's not that interesting but just thought that I'd post the happenins of our weekend that went pear shaped aswell and put us well down the order,
Wow what an eventful race!!!! With the SlipStream Racing crew all off racing with their normal teams it looked like we wouldn’t actually be there as such. Webber and Khye with Barossa boys, Jenna walking around avoiding Geoff, one timer Ducky off with Trublu and Geoff and Daniel with Mount Gambier High School. For team manager Geoff it was all looking good and it seemed he wouldn’t have to do much just rock up and race, easy simple. However when the school team realised that they wouldn’t have 3 vehicles ready in time Geoff was asked to loan Hurricane and take the best riders and go for it. After the generous support MGHS had provided with loaning facilities and spares and hopefully continuous support in the future
it was agreed the Hurricane would be raced and would hopefully inspire the school to its best finish ever.
As time dwindled away and with modifications needed after Maroondah the boys set to work, and after a few weekends and many nights Hurricane was set to go, and even with some fancy lighting work. With the trike sorted all we needed was riders… Unfortunately pedal prix is run as topic at school and the available students aren’t up to our scratch, which meant the decision was made to run with six riders instead of having weak links within the team. While six is nowhere near the preferred eight when we knew other teams in our category would be having ten, we knew we had the best six riders in school and we were expecting to do well. One week out this all changed, after a good race stint at Maroondah Geoff was looking in a good position but with trike preparations and year 12, training quickly slipped away from him - something which hit him hard when it mattered the most. Two riders Daniel and Dale were sick and were away for the week, Daniel with tonsillitis, and Dale with the flu, another Joe was coming down with the flu, Simon hadn’t done much training other than on his bmx, and Sam the 6th rider has a history of bad knees, it wasn’t looking good at all.
After a nice cruisy five hour drive that included turning around and going home 30 kilometres after forgetting the paper work, the team eventually arrived at Sturt Reserve in Murray Bridge. With scrutineering not for another few hours Geoff decided he’d better bolt the roll cage on doah!!! Also at the same time he decided to tape sharp bits, whereupon to his frustration he ripped his arm open on an overlooked spur
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As Geoff went about maiming himself on the trike, the remainder of the team went about setting up the pits. MGHS in the past has always prided itself on being a team who all support each other, and that was what was expected to happen once again. However to Hurricane's team bewilderment along with the teacher, and a few parents, once particular team had decided that it was to be independent and had set up its own pit tent and taken the team tool box and ‘locked it’ preventing use by others. After a few nasty words were said from this team to others, the weekend appeared to be heading down hill and we were certainly getting annoyed and frustrated.
The boys headed off to scrutineering, and after what seemed to be like a fairly lenient checking process we were through although we had to remove a washing from the seatbelt mounts to ensure enough nylock thread on the bolt. With the appropriate paper work done, new stickers, and the picking up of our new Kojak tyres from Trisled we headed back to base.
With the tyres changed and the pit set up completely, the team were ready for practice. After doing his three laps, Geoff pitted and knew something was up, it wasn’t running how he liked it, as the rest of the team cycled through Geoff went for walk down to his mates the Barossa Boys. Geoff has a great relationship with these guys as they race with him as SlipStream Racing and he'd helped them prepare their vehicle for Round two. As their new Ballistic trike pitted and the team’s test program completed, they offered him the chance to ride, and after a nice quick lap that saw him blitz his school teams he was back into the pits praising to everyone the speed of the machine.
Further smartarse remarks from the other Mount Gambier team ensured tensions within the entire team were getting increasingly strained to the point where the team coordinator Mr Robert Whittaker gave all the teams a few sharp words to pull them back into line. With the rogue team taking a hard hit they retreated like wounded dogs with the tail between their legs. Team interaction increased with the wall between the pits removed and relations were set to be slightly fixed, although certain comments were still driving Hurricane to beat the other team.
During the morning the boys awoke to find a drunk asleep in one of the pit tents!!! With an accompanying parent being a cop he quickly woke the man and sent him on his way although not before reminding him that we were in a drink free zone to which he replied “oh its ok I'm not riding”????
The start of the race was approaching, and the final preparations were concluded. With only an hour to go before the grid form-up it was noticed that an important bit of the drive line to prevent rubbing was gone. With space bits available a replacement was quickly made and the team set off for the start line. As we sat on the grid in our nice position of 100th, Geoff as the first rider was quickly beginning to feel the heat of the sun and as the guys left they emptied a litre of water into the cockpit to try and alleviate some of Geoff’s discomfort.
As the field started to move off the line the onboard camera was started to film the action. As the field moved its way around the track the riders quickly began to get toey which resulted in some nasty ramming incidents. As the cars crossed the line the bumping even got worse and at one stage after coming through the chicane Hurricane was seen to be sliding sideways down the track!!!! With the heat quickly taking the toll on him and running out of water (which he later found someone had pulled the hose up and there was still half a litre of water left) and due to the water being emptied in the trike which after a while actually began to steam, Geoff was in after seven laps and our rider order began to filter through. The aim was to get a top 50 result and while we realised this was not possible, our goals were then realigned as we set our sights on beating the rogue team and getting the team’s best result. Upon exiting the vehicle Geoff was informed that they had been so happy they had caught up to him and were slipstreaming him despite the onboard footage revealing the other team were actually further away than they realised. Sure they caught up 10 seconds, but by time Geoff had completed his opening stint they were already on their third rider!!!! They later revealed that they were having their riders do quick 2-3 lap sprints to conserve themselves for the whole race, and said that this is the best way to do it, when asked why the top category 4 teams don’t, they replied that they don’t know that their doing. So hey TruBlu and BYR, etc - guys you’re doing it wrong
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The race wore on and we were going through our riders much quicker than planned, after two far from exciting stints Geoff went out to redeem himself and was finding the four weeks of no training hitting him hard, and out he went to do his best. As he came past the cat four pits he encountered two slower trikes to the left and with a clear path behind him made a move to the right and took that line through the chicane, and onto the back straight. Taking the corner wide somehow, Geoff was tapped in the tail and rolled onto his side, experiencing the only roll over for the team. Unfortunately for him the corner could be seen from the pit lane and all could be seen, and due to being on the far side of the track took a while to tipped back up, with a quick nod of the head he was off, although his stint was curtailed six laps later due to cramp – possibly as a result of the accident. With night falling, the team were waiting for Sam to go past when all of a sudden he appeared in our pits, trike nowhere to be seen! We grabbed a spare tyre and set off to repair the damage. 10 minutes later the trike was off again although now running a Tioga comp pool instead of a Kojak on the rear, and unknown to us at that stage the brake was now running on the tyre.
Another rider rotation through and it was time for Geoff’s final ride before bed. Out he went and after finding his groove completed one of the longer stints of the team’s race at 12laps. He later said that he was down the back straight when a trike just a tad faster him passed him ridden by a fairly attractive girl. Knowing he could push himself and keep up he did just that, and for the next seven laps worked his arse off to keep in contact with her! Currently sitting in a comfortable 75th half the team headed of the bed hoping for five hours sleep while Dale, Joe and Daniel stayed up.
As the night wore on the team began to do its usual thing and slowly pick up a few positions during the night. While Hurricane was travelling smoothly the same couldn’t be said for the High Schools two other teams, with at one stage having both Monster and Saturn in the welding tent. Monster having Snapped a kingpin off, and Saturn snapping the chain roller bolt off.
Four hours later and the two groups swapped and Geoff, Simon and Sam were up and ready to roll now sitting in 73rd things were looking better. As it came Geoff’s time to ride, out he went, but unfortunately Geoff has a curse where if something's gonna break it happens to him and this time it was no different. As he approached the right hander before the hairpin, he threw the car into the corner and snapped the steering levers clean off!!!! After picking up the bolt, he quickly decided that nothing could be done or was worth being done and just kept riding. Getting out and inspecting the bolt fractures points were seen in the metal in 2 clearly defined places. By this stage it was 2am with 10 hours still remaining.
By 6am the entire team was up. We were still 76th at this stage and looking happy, but as the next riders took over, it was neglected to mention the issues with the steering lever. Joe later commented “I was riding out of the pits when I went to grab the steering lever and couldn’t find it after a quick inspection I found it lying on the floor of the trike.” Later on after the event, the team was approached and asked when we were holding on the roll bar “we had nothing else to hold on to” they replied.
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With the team quickly losing energy and motivation following an extended pit stop to fix the horn, the last 4hours were quickly becoming a drag. This all changed at around 9am when Dale was out. Thinking we’d made gestures at him as he went past the pits, he turned to look at us and going at a pace much quicker than the slower trike in front, he hit it with great force which thrusted him up and to the rear of the trike. Jumping the fence the trikes were pulled apart and Dale told to pit next lap when damage was noticed. Five minutes later and he was back in, when the damage was quite noticeable, the front end was smashed off from the frame, and the rollbar support bar wasn’t attached to anything, with only hours left the damage was taped and cable tied back together and we were back racing.
Later Dale commented on how he felt after the crash, as the younger trike was riding by a young girl who was crying as they were separated. He understood the implications of losing concentration for only seconds and felt bad. The resulting hit was quite large and would have probably been quite scary had it been a top cat 4 team and it even shows that with a relatively clear track, incidents are going to happen.
With the front rollbar and front end unsupported, the last three hours were very bumpy down the back straight as the frame kept shaking. Yet we were still holding position sitting 78th by this stage. Soon after the crash Joe was in and as he exited the trike he was carrying the chain guard!! It had got jammed and required forceful removation. With some nice fast stints we were able to pull in another position, although by this stage the sickness, trike condition, rider numbers and heat had hit us all hard.
At the conclusion of the race we’d come a commendable 77th on 303laps. Considering the incidents and conditions we were racing in we were extremely happy for 3 reasons.
1. We’d done close to 70% of the race leaders laps, a pre race target
2. We’d beaten the schools previous best of 81st and done 26more laps
3. And beaten the rogue team from school who had caused much grief and turmoil with in the team. Not only had we beaten them by 62laps wed beaten them by 90 positions.
With the trike at home we investigated and found reasons for slowness, a rubbing brake hard on the tyre and a steering lever that had rubbed so much on the ground that the brake lever was a complete mess and was destroyed.
Overall the Hurricane team had a fantastic weekend although we were very disappointed at the fact that we had the riders but not the trike on the day. We would like to congratulate the winners TruBlu and all the other teams up there on what was an awesome race to be apart of and watch!!
Photo Credits, Moz, Myself, Blueshift and Expats Racing
by Jenna » Mon Oct 06, 2008 11:21 pm November 20 - 23 this year.
Ring any bells?
