Category:
Trackdays
Created: 09 September 2005
Ah, what a mish-mash of events this Trackday was. B and I (Jay) had decided to drive our bikes up in a borrowed van the night before, well after 20 miles of leaving London and traveling along the M1, the van suddenly gave up the ghost and exploded with a stream of steam up the outside of the windscreen! This came as a bit of a shock, as you might imagine, and the realisation that our plans were quickly being eroded away was dawning on us.
Rather unfortunately, neither of us had recovery cover, and so with no chance of getting a replacement thingy-mabob for the engine, we had to drive the van a mile down a slip-road with no coolant, get the bikes out the back, fit as much as we could of our gear into our rucksacks, and did the remaining 120 or so miles to the Melbourne View hotel at Donnington. The trouble was, our bikes weren't setup for the road and I had no numberplate, oops. Still, we had no trouble, thankfully.
We woke up the next day to a nice breakfast, in the nice hotel, then rode to the circuit, where we were greeted by the sight of a rather grey looking sky, damp track and run-down facilities. I'm still bemused how this circuit attracts the likes of MotoGP, but there you go, it does and it's very popular. After the first sessions went out, the sun came out and blasted the damp sections of the track dry, and I was allowed to explore the track (I hadn't been there before), feeling somewhat in awe of it's roller-coaster feeling.
B was putting in a stirling effort, hammering round on his brand-new K5 750, with one broken fork-seal and no fork-oil in it, still beating anyone that dared to have a play, the bugger. A great day was had, with no incidents, apart from Rhalf nearly highsiding his R1 in front of me as he gave it a few too many berries coming out of the Foggy Esses. Amazing circuit, can't wait to get back there and have another crack! Definately the hardest track I've ridden, those Craner Curves... wow! Something else! I can see why Valentino Rossi rates this circuit so much!
