Description
At 5pm on Sunday 31st July, a few of the
LB posse met up at the Ace Café. We had arranged to meet there before we rode to Norwich, the home of Snetterton circuit, for a track day on Monday. The ride up there was both fun and effortless. With Jay, myself (Foxy), Westy and R1Fan taking it in turns to lead the way. We were on motorway for most of the journey, then there were a few nice roundabouts and straights closer to our destination.
We arrived at the Breckland Lodge on London Road, our dwellings for the night at around seven. Dumped our luggage in the flat (thanks again guys for that!) and met the others in the restaurant, we were starving. The carvery was very good, we then chilled in the bar with a couple of drinks. Tired, full up and a little pissed we retired to the 3 bedroom flat above the bar. Watched a bit of bike racing on satellite and went to bed.
We were up at 6.30 am, had breakfast and packed up our belongings. Made our way to the circuit, which is only couple of miles away from where we stayed. I was my usual excited self, a little dubious as this was my first time at Snetterton. We all signed in, got our wrist bands and after the prep talk made our way to our garages. The first session out there was for me personally was to purely learn the track. My confidence growing with each lap. I loved coming out of Sear Corner and opening the Blade up to 160mph along Revett Straight, braking like a loony to get ready for the Esses. Flying round the Bomb Hole and onto the mad off camber of Coram Curve. Preparing next for Russell Bend and back onto Senna Straight. The boys were also loving every moment out on track. Wicked!
Second session out, fifth or sixth lap and I was flying round the Bomb Hole. Didn’t follow my line as tightly as I should have and with the off camber at Coram Curve, I drifted out even farther towards the grass. The combination of that and this A-hole coming up too close on the inside, I ran out of track and lost the front end. The Blade and I went grass surfing, I picked myself and the bike up and thought what the F**k happened there? Then waited for the man with the van to rescue us. Coming back into pits I could see the worried looks on the guys faces, I was laughing and joking about that and the crash with the recovery man. The bike looked a little worse for wear and I was a bit battered and bruised. Within an hour, the gang had done an amazing job at straightening, cable tying and gaffer taping my baby back together, whilst also fitting in their sessions. Nice one fellas... Thanks again.
I wanted to go back out after lunch, but had this weird thing going on with my vision (must have banged my head!), so I decided to chill and take some photo’s for a change. Good excuse to play with Jays camera really. The afternoon sessions went smoothly and the boys lap times got much better each time they went out. Jay was doing 01:22.66 by the end of the day. The weather was also good for us all day. We met some really nice guys there and everyone was very helpful.
After loading the bikes up with all our stuff, we headed back towards London. It started to rain. The journey feeling a bit a strange for me as the bike didn’t feel right and then I thought it was my head playing games. When I got back into town and realised that my back tyre was really low with a slow puncture. That explained the bad handling on the way home. Safe and in pieces I was ready for bed. All in all we all had an amazing day. Can't wait to go back there next year and have another go.
Words by Foxy.
