Season starts at Croft

The first meeting of the season is upon us, starting with the North East meeting at the fabulous Croft circuit in Yorkshire.

For Dave this was the first meeting under the FatSpanner team, first race meeting with this bike and first visit to Croft, so a lot to take in over the weekend. Derek was looking forward to the weekend and aiming at knocking time off last years visit. And for Robbie this was to be the proving ground for the R6. The weather couldn't have been better for us. Dry, warm and just the slightest breeze.

Dave used the weekend to get used to the new 400 and get his times down. Starting of with free practice and getting 1.50:182, over the course of the weekend getting down to 1.43:090 during racing and finishing consistently in 7th place each race. The 7th place's may not sound like much of an achievement but read on, finishing all four races is an achievment in its self as it turns out.

Derek's turn and after running in the new engine at Anglesay (and disproving the traction of the super corsa on grass at highspeed) this was the first time out. Starting off at 1.42:494 during qualifying (knocking off three seconds from last years personal best at this circuit) and getting times down to 1.38:214 but having a few techinal issues along the way. Practice went ok but after this the engine sounded like it had dropped a valve. Thankfully this turned out to be loose header bolts. Once tightened the bike sounded fine again and qualifying and race one went good (fifth 400). Went to go out for race two but clicking in to gear to get to the holding area the bike dropped down to three cylinders. Wiggling a few wires got it firing on all four but missed the sighting lap so the number 38 rider had to start from the back of the grid but finished fourth 400. For the sighting lap the ZXR died on every right hander which caused the end of the race for Derek. After checking over the wiring loom, soldering, cleaning connections and swapping the CDI the bike was sorted but down on power resulting in sixth 400 in race four.

Robbie qualified fifteenth on his first time out on the R6 with a time of 1:33.623. But after a decent start the newest bike to the FatSpanner team expired after the first lap and the Yamaha was turned to an aircooled model when a con rod saw daylight. The 161 R6 was packed up early doors which meant Saturday was over for Robbie. Tom Robinson (honorary FatSpanner rider) had a spare RVF 400 which he offered Robbie for the Sunday which meant another competitor for Dave and Derek. Sundays results completed with two fourth places on the borrowed Honda.

Mixed results for the team this time but many thanks to Cammy, Cara, Scotty, Leon Murphy for his help with ZXR electrics and Tom Robinson who was generous enough to lend a 400 to Robbie.