After a long drive down, we arrived at Eastern Creek International Raceway on Thursday Afternoon at about 5PM. We quickly unloaded the bikes and shot off to scrutineering. Got that out of the way and was all set for a weekend of racing.
Friday was a practice day and we got 2 sessions on the track. After session 1, I found turn 2 was very difficult and the line I was taking was carrying much mid corner speed, so I would have to sacrifice a little exit speed causing me to have a bad run up the hill around turn 3. In session 2 I worked hard on getting the right line out of Turn 2. I was really enjoying the track time on Eastern Creek because it was a great track to ride but very difficult to learn. It really has a bit of everything, fast sweepers, tight turns, double apex turns and a long downhill run straight on to the very fast Turn 1.
In the qualifying sessions I qualified 16th out of 23 but I was satisfied that in each session I improved my times and I felt that I was slowly working out the right lines by splitting the track in to sections and concentrating on one or two sections at a time.
During the racing over the weekend I averaged my qualifying position but I had a ten second penalty imposed for a jump start in the last race. That is the first time I have ever been penalised for a jump start. I clicked my bike into gear just after the Marshall had left the grid after the lights turned on I opened the throttle and began releasing the clutch because it only grips for the last ½ of opening it. So I must have rolled forward a couple of centimetres and copped the penalty for it. This was my 3rd ever race start on the 125.
Overall I was happy with my performance for the weekend. It was only my third outing on the 125 and I was only a few seconds off the lead riders.
On the Monday I stayed at the track for the Circuit Breakers Race School and was fortunate to have Glen Allerton and Shawn Giles as the coaches for my group. I got 6 full sessions on the track and a lot of helpful assistance from Shawn and Glen. I ended up with a 1: 44. 02 as my best time around Eastern Creek.
The next round is at Malalla in South Australia next month and I will be working towards improving my placing in the field. Dad and I will probably be attending round 1 of the MRRDA series at Oran Park.
Catch ya next time.
Cam & Mike
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