AIPP Round Three 2008 - The Bridge

[Luke]

Hm yeah not sure what happened there with the points, I think they had counted points for D&C and Best Presented and then taken them off, or maybe possibly added the round 1 and 2 scores to round 3 scores and put them in the round 3 colum, and then added them again in the total colum.

[Jenna]

lol Khye, you're not stealing my line are you? ...... Tim =D RACE REPORT!!! We all hang out to read the expats race report....

[The Duckmeister]

My golly, What a race!
More than 24 hours later, I am still feeling a surreal blend of shock, disbelief and euphoria that we actually came out on top of such a tightly-contested race. Big regards to the Blueshift squad for making us work for it every inch of the way.
Can't think of anything to add to what Brenton said right now, so I won't try just yet.

And Khye, ta for the pic; that's going on the favourites page!

[Finno]

In the meantime, you'll just have to make do with mine

In severe contrast to previous years, we were actually rather organised for this event to the point where on Friday, most of the team found the time to laze about on lounge chairs in the pits rather than worry about attempting to get a trike into some sort of race worthy condition. Over the previous few weeks, our team manager David Roberts had agreed upon a deal with Dave Malone of Ballistic which meant that we would race a custom built Ballistic at Murray Bridge. Some long hours were put in to get the vehicles ready (Dave Malone also deciding to build an entirely new bike for his team for the race) but all this included it was the best prepared we’d ever been.

Several changes to the team had also taken place since the 2007 Murray Bridge race as a couple of our old riders were no longer able to race for us this year. Fortunately for us, Heathfield’s Sagero team were no longer competing and we were able to pick up some riders to fill the empty positions in our team. It’s a lot easier to recruit from within the sport and we knew the Sagero boys were quick, dedicated and experienced riders, as they proved during rounds one and two. However we were still a rider short when one of our star riders Mostyn pulled out with short notice due to a knee reconstruction. Malone was able to loan us a SASI rider for the weekend and he completed the line-up. Therefore the Barossa Boys line-up for Murray Bridge 2008 was:

David Roberts
Matt Finlay
Khye Nelson
Michael Johnstone
Phil Wilson
Michael Webber
Simon Nankervis
Scott McPhee

The vehicle had shown good speed in the days leading into the event with some positive tests at Victoria park and a night run at the velodrome, but come the Friday practice session the vehicle seemed to lack speed. We discovered the wheel alignment hadn’t been set properly and was out by a whopping 30mm. Once that was corrected we were able to qualify the bike 16th, which was a reasonable effort. The good thing was we were able to get through our program with no hitches and we were able to look forward to the actual race.

It was decided that Matt would take the race start and he was able to complete a trouble free 45 minutes with lap times around the three minute mark, and keeping Old Bearded Mate at bay for most of the stint before getting baulked in traffic and losing touch with their vehicle. Khye was the next rider in but unfortunately he hadn’t done enough preparation and was back after 20 minutes with severe cramp in both legs. We managed to run through Michael Johnstone, Webber, Phil, David and Simon with minimal issues and were holding a competitive ninth overall until Scott went in for his stint. Unfortunately he had next to no experience in these races, so while he was super quick with times averaging around the three minute barrier, he did roll it at the chicane once, which damaged his leg slightly. During his stint the front tyre blew out which held us up for ten minutes while it was repaired, so it was an inauspicious introduction to the sport for him! He did redeem himself later with another quick stint which helped bring our race back onto even keel and things were looking positive.

At around one in the morning, Phil went in for his stint and had done 50 minutes before crashing heavily just after the bridge at the first corner. Details are a little sketchy as he doesn’t remember the crash (he didn’t even remember where our pit tent was, as he took out a bin and nearly ended up taking out the neighbouring Windsor pit tent as well!) He was in considerable pain and was sent to bed in the hope that he could recover somewhat by morning. Khye managed to redress the balance by putting in a couple of hour long stints, and the night passed relatively uneventfully until around 5am when during David’s stint he was hit a crack amidships and pushed into the fence, destroying the right front wheel and even bending the chassis. We don’t have exact confirmation on who it was (but we do strongly suspect), and we can only hope it wasn’t a deliberate manoeuvre on their part (pray we don’t find out that it was intentional or the repair bill will be coming your way).

That incident basically put paid to any chance of a top ten result (we were probably on for eighth place before the accident) as extensive repairs had to be carried out which took up an unrecoverable amount of time. Not long after due to a lack of visibility caused by some fogging, Michael crashed into a stationary vehicle just after the spoon drains which wrecked the front end. The first we knew of this was when a HPR team member came running down the pit lane holding our front screen! A few strips of gaffa tape and 15 minutes later the vehicle was back on the track looking rather sorry for itself, and loudly making its plight known to anyone within earshot!

By 10am the gap to DAS Racing was two laps and we knew we had a lot of work to do if we were to get ahead of them. Phil was back in the vehicle and was told to last until 10:30 when we could put Scott back in. We had a slight communications issue though which meant Phil only went until 10:20. Scott jumped in and lapped competitively until 10:50 when he pitted prematurely to hand over to Matt to finish off the race. We suspect by this stage we were on the same lap as DAS and as Matt went past the end of the pitlane he saw the DAS vehicle just exiting the pits. The race was on! For about an hour Matt managed to contain the DAS threat and pulled out a lead of approximately half a lap until DAS pitted and threw in their quickest rider to bridge the gap. Unfortunately we simply didn’t have an answer as we didn’t have any riders left who were capable of matching the awesome pace of the DAS rider. With two laps left of the race to run, DAS caught and passed us and that was the end of that idea! Still, 12th overall isn’t a bad result all things considered and with a bit of stability in the team, we can look forward to a competitive 2009!

Thanks to the boys who all did a great effort through-out the year, Ballistic for providing a quick and bomb proof vehicle, Simon’s parents for running the pit tent and doing an exemplary job ensuring we were all well fed and supported, Ruth Roberts and Joe Roberts, and our primary sponsor Aurora Resorts, providing very welcome support. Thanks also to Justin from Westminster, Geoff from Mount Gambier, my dad who wasnt there and didnt help out in any way but deserves a mention all the same, Phil's dad, Hannah, the Bluebird team, York Shark, Sandisk mp3 players, zipties, Powerbars, God, Jesus...

Hi Jenna!

[Khye]

Yeah, Always have 4567575676576 photos to look at which is great.

[Jenna]

Finny, im dissapointed!!! i helped you guys out stacks!!!!! and i dont even get a mention!!!

[Jenna]

Ah LAME! i'll go help bluebird next time then!!!

[Luke]

Yeah, we have a heater!

[Luke]

While were not on the topic, I know the guys in the welding tent are there to help and they're volunteers but they need to understand its a race, and listen to what the team wants from them, not what they think is best.after 20 mins in the welding tent with them carefully draw filling the paint off our aluminium roll bar so they could weld it, we dicided it would be quicker to take it back and bolt/tape it back on.

[geoff]

we had teh same issue last year when weldign our steering back together out horn cable ran thru the handle one guy wanted to cut it an pull it out an rejoin it after it had been welded, but the guy welding didnt want to them burnt the cable and once back to pits realised we had no cable so jsut ran with out a horn

While thats being said that was 1am in the morning an if it wasnt for them we would have jsut stopped racing, overall they do a great job and this year my school had 2 of their cars in their at the same time

[Khye]

Learn how to weld, and do it yourself.

[Tristan]

lol, well they wouldnt even let ben weld we our bike broke. its to do with insurance reasons etc. Im sure they are giving up their time just to help us, so lets not get critical!

[Khye]

True, they do put alot of teams back on track!

[brenton]

We broke our left and right fairing supports at different times during the race and the welding guys did a magnificent
job of fixing them up for us quickly. Luckily we had spares to go straight in but we would've been out of the race if
we had've broken one of the replacements and not had a repaired one to go back in.
Note to self: Build stronger support arms next time.

[geoff]

Note to self: Build stronger support arms next time.

ducky showed me the arms and they seemed pretty damm strong already!!! must have gone over hard to break them