Tandragee & Cookstown Race Reports

Hi all

As always apologies for delay in an update only the last few weeks have been flat out rebuilding my supertwin, which has been a nightmare, but am getting there.

So before I knew it I was loading the van for my first races of the season.

Tandragee

We arrived at Tandragee and had to be towed into the very wet paddock, not a great start. Once we set up the bikes were of to be checked over before getting the all clear to race.

Sadly the 400 had to have an engine case protector made, luckily I keep all sorts of odds and ends in my 'come in' pile in the van, and a it wasn't long before we had one made.

Practice went ok, with a few teething problems, mainly due to the bikes having been laid up since Killalane, some 7 months earlier.

I did get black flagged in one 400 session as oil was leaking onto the exhaust, a case of a bolt coming loose and nothing more serious, or expensive.

Saturday arrived nice and dry, so was looking forward to the racing.

I was out first in the Junior Support race on my 400. I usually race my 650, but as it's still in bits took the 400 out instead. Which made the fact that I was keeping up with a couple of 650's even better. I also found out later that I'd beaten my personal best lap time by 7 seconds, which is some doing.

600 race didn't go so well and I pulled in as the bike was spluttering and wasn't pulling full revs, but I still got some valuable miles under my belt.

I had another good dice in the 400 race and then it was time to pack up and head to Cookstown for racing the following weekend. 

We had a week between races so we had a good look over the bikes, which resulted in both bikes running a lot better the following weekend.

Cookstown

The weekend didn't start of great as the fork seal on the 600 started leaking, so she was put back in the van where she sat for the weekend as I didn't have any spare seals with me, that and I hate changing fork seals in my garage, so didn't fancy doing it in a field in Northern Ireland.

Still the 400 sailed through, but we had to wait until late in the day to actually practice. We got out once and then waited until last knockings only to be told our practice would be held on Saturday morning.

Saturday started off wet at some places around the circuit, which wasn't very confidence inspiring, still we had been told weather would improve, so fingers crossed for that.

Had two really good races and once again improved my fastest time around the circuit on my 400 by 5 seconds, so still improving, and more importantly enjoying it.

Am back home now and once the SV is sorted I'll be getting ready for Skerries in early July, can't wait as missing it already.

So until next time, take care

Cheers

Stuart