Competition Meeting # 3, 13 February 2005

Champion Dragway, Meremere, New Zealand.

Champion Dragway turned on a fine hot one, despite weather predictions to the contrary.

The usual six competition bikes showed for the Super-Bike bracket– the Hays Racing Nitro Harley with Ross Buchanan aboard, Team Hilton’s  A/PCB Buell with “Fast Woman” Trina riding, Ken Stolpman and his A/Pro Suzuki, Chris & Mary Mackrell’s AA/DB Suzuki (after hammering hard all week to repair a major engine blow-up at Masterton the week before),  Ian Wilkins AA/DB Suzuki, and myself on the A/DB Suzuki. 

This will teach me to leave it so long to write this….I can’t remember  the qualifying order!    

I can however remember events, and it wasn’t pretty.  Ken Stolpman made an uneventful first pass, running in the 8s as usual, with a best of 8.562.  I was hoping for good things with brand new electrics, but was disappointed…my engine was misfiring badly in the first burnout, and did not improve for my fist run. My best qualifier was a 9.288.

Chris Mackrell’s Suzuki was the first casualty of the day, the big Suzuki tearing a set of crankcases apart on the first run, ending their day early. Heartbreaking stuff considering all the effort the team put in to rebuild after the previous blow-up only 7 days earlier!   What I can tell you is, this team takes a lot of holding down, and their bike is already well on the way to repair….the new cases are at the machinists as I write, and Chris, Mary, Jenny, Roger and Darrel will certainly be at the NZ Nationals on 5/6 March. 

More bad news of a similar vein was to come though……after lapping in valves until 3am on the Saturday morning, Ross Buchanan burned out the Hays Racing Harley, staged, and after only about 2 seconds into the run the over square engine blew a head gasket, which on Nitro is all bad news, the team out for the day on the first run.  But don’t you worry about Team Hays Racing, it takes more than this to keep them away from racing for their first NZ title on 5/6 March.

Ian Wilkins and Trina Hilton made uneventful qualifiers (and just as well after the previous events of the morning), Ian carding a best of 10.982 & Trina a best of 12.901, 

So the qualifying order was Ken Stolpman # 1, Ian Hilder # 2, Ian Wilkins  # 3 and 

Trina Hilton # 4. 

ELIMINATIONS 

Round 1:

First pair was myself against Ian Wilkins, who had it tough due to factoring. With my misfire still “(miss) firing on all cylinders”, I ran through to a 11.896 @ 109.96, amazingly enough recording the win against Ian Wilkins’ 13.34 @ 72 (although Ian W did cut a 0.477 light). I’m too embarrassed to write down what my reaction time was here…..

Second pair was Trina Hilton up against Ken Stolpman. Ken rocketed away to an 8.575 @ 151.29, beating Trina’s 12.325 @ 108.19. 

Eliminations Round 2 (Finals).

First out was Trina and Ian Wilkins.  Ian cut a 0.497 light, but that was the only light he had, coasting to an engine off double figure e.t. (Ian would kill me if I write any more about that run here!).  Trina was kicking herself, cutting a 12.313 @ 104.96, beating Ian to the finish line by miles but also cutting an automatic loss 0.348 red light.  Don’t worry Trina – we’ve all done it! 

The final was myself up against Ken Stolpmann.  At this time I still had not eaten lunch, so scoffed down a hot dog (no, I didn’t have fries with that) on the start line and a resulting 0.746 reaction time, to Ken’s somewhat better 0.585 RT.       

Ken shot away to record a 8.646 @ 152.02, with me and my hotdog chasing up the rear with a 8.99 @ 143.63.  Ken recording his second competition meeting win for the season, and elevating himself to Champion Dragway Super-Bike points score leader.

All photos by Mal Bain – Sharp Shotz