change enough bits and it must work?.....

Gary and I left early on the Thursday afternoon to get to Brands and get set up and sorted for what would turn out to be a hectic weekend. The weather forecast wasn't particularly favourable, so were definitely going to be tested. Over the last couple of weeks I had continued to look for answers to the engine troubles and so we were persevering with the electrical side of the bike, thinking that was the problem. Unfortunately as this was problem that only manifested it's self under-load and so could not be tested in the garage. I had changed all the plugs and checked all the air hoses, plus I had brought spares of everything electrical including the ECU to try.
Friday was dry, ideal for testing our theories but to no avail. We had changed everything and by the evening the carbs were on the bench to check that everything was correct within them. In an effort to race the next day, I made a hasty phone call to J who was coming up the next day, to strip the carbs and airbox off the old R6 endurance bike we had. The idea was that this was a totally different set up that was proven to work and if it did would point us in the right direction. The rookie 600 race was late on the days schedule so we had plenty of time to do the swap.

Saturday race 1

After a change of carbs and airbox, I went out for the practise not quite sure of what would happen. The engine felt flat but was not misfiring at all. I had a good race, helped by the confidence a non-misfiring engine was giving me, but it was lacking the performance I require. Still I finished 22nd with a fastest lap of 56.8 secs, faster than I had done before, so I was happy or was it just relieved that I now knew where the problem was.

Saturday race 2

After a decent race 1, compared to recent results, I was looking forward to race 2. Although the R6 was still lacking performance it is amazing how your confidence improves after having a better race. All of a sudden I was able to race others. I finished 24th with a lap of 57.4 secs but that didn't matter, I was racing!
We had proved today that after all the other changes that had been made that it was fuelling that was causing the misfire. The original carbs were stripped again that evening to see if there was any obvious problems, but no it must be the jetting.


Sunday race 1

With a great deal of help from Phil Seton, it was decided we would refit the original carbs again and run the engine up on the circuits dyno to see exactly where the problem was. The rookies were out last again, after lunch in fact, so we had time and didn't need to panic. The forecast was for rain today and they were not wrong as the clouds gathered as the morning went on. The dyno did prove that the jetting was incorrect, too lean, hence the high speed misfire. Over the course of the morning we tried various combinations of airbox and air filters to try and pull the mixture in but with no jets with us all I could do was revert back to the endurance carbs and put up with it - at least they worked!
by now it was pouring with rain and had been for sometime. Wet tyres were the only option but I had never used them before, even in practise, so this was going to add some additional excitement to the race. I had a dreadful race what with the rushing around and stress of trying to get the engine to run before hand and now having to cope with wet tyres on a flooded track, I really wasn't in the best frame of mind and felt absolutely rigid on the bike. I finished 20th with a best lap of 1.05, not great.

Sunday race 2

As we would be the last race of the day, all the rookie 600 riders could watch the conditions change in hope that we could pick the correct tyres for our race. Since the first race it had stopped raining and with the wind had started to dry quite rapidly. About half a hour before our scheduled start I decided that dry tyres would be the ones to go on. i arrived at the holding area slightly calmer and more confident than the last race especially when I noticed that many of the riders around me had chosen to stay on wets. We were sent to form up the grid ready for the warm lap and sat there for a few minutes before two officials made their way down the grid to inform all of us that the had run out of time to run our race. So that was it, then end of a less than easy weekend, next stop Pembrey in Wales.