I'd already decided to skip the first session as I needed to swap tyres anyway so after a bacon roll and cup of tea I get those off and leave em with the tyre guy and while I 'm waiting I pull apart my end cans and stick some exhaust sealant on the end caps as the rubber gasket thing that was there when I took them apart and repacked them had disentegrated and so I've been sucking in a bit of air since I did it and it's gradually got worse, while I'm doing this a guy comes over and asks me if I have any wadding, apparently they'd just been kicked off for setting off the drive by noise meters despite a static test of 102 and tell me an RC8 was also flagged, so I'm thinking this is going to be a seriously short session for me.
Get me tyres back and the guy has put the tyre on the front the wrong way round, I get it changed just in time to get it fitted back up and gear up ready for my session although he doesn't appear to have balanced it at all.
It's a mist of rain now and the session is pretty sedate, I'm wondering if they know something I don't as everybody seems to be taking it really easy, I'm still getting into it so I overtake a few people but generally don't get up to a very fast pace really, I seem to have gained a stutter at 8000 revs but wierdly in only one gear, usually the one Im in coming out of the hairpin or onto the back straight at this pace we seem to be doing and pick up from low down is a bit lumpy if I pick a higher gear and my exhaust isn't much better either so will have to check the graphite gasket next, I only just replaced it but don't think the pipe pushed all the way home, looked to be a good seal still but maybe it's not quite so.
It's still fookin cold and Luke borrows my all season gloves for his session to warm his hands up a bit, a little while later Schnauzer pulls in, Luke has binned it, shit, you know all those things you start thinking, how bad was it, how bad is the bike and most importantly, is the fooker gonna get back in time with my gloves before my session starts
Luke turns up, bike just went down in the damp conditions, not much feel from the tyres, bike's not come off too badly though, left footrest hanger bent in, bent crash bung, some scuffing to his nice newly painted tank panels but other than that it's pretty much ok apart from the new dirt outfit it's wearing, yet again the Superduke just shrugs the crash off it's shoulders and says pah, try harder next time, wearing it's crash bungs like a set of knuckle dusters, every superduke I've seen crashed now has without a doubt benefitted from a full set of bungs.
His Arlen Ness Leathers held up well too.
I wish I could say the same about my gloves
Luke smashed his hand a bit but not too badly damaged a bit of a chunk out of his little finger I think, carbon protectors are smashed on the glove but obviously did their job, don't really mind about the gloves, just the impending fooking cold with my ventilated track gloves.
Call comes through for my session, I put my gear on and when I get there bikes are already on track, although I'm sure they only just called it, I head out on track and it's dried up a little, I'm warming up my tyres and gradually speeding up through the first couple of laps and thinking, right coming into lap 3, now to start reeling in the guys that were out before me and coming past now, and then I see the chequered flag, WTF again, I've barely warmed up.
I don't know if I missed the first call while talking to Luke or if they were trying to catch up for a late start because of all the signing on/briefing palava but now it's lunch time.
It's started raining again while we're in the cafe and pretty damp when we come out so Schnauzer and Luke decide they're going to call it quits, I'm a bit slower to come around but decide it's just not worth tempting fate just to hobble round a damp track on racetecs for a few laps at nowhere near fun pace so we pack up and hit the road.
I drink a can of Monster and sit quietly in the van the whole way home, not jabbering on at all
