Having Steve Martin on-board with us had been great for me, as he’d proved really good at getting the bike working well with his Superbike experience, and the team harmony was good with him around. Plus it was just nice having another Aussie to hang around with. It was also pretty handy for the team sponsors to have a name like Steve’s on-board. All was looking good for a repeat performance in France until Sebastian phoned and told Mandy he was fully fit again. Suddenly Mandy had a problem. 4 riders, 3 seats.
To cut a long one short, Steve was most important to the sponsors, Igor’s been with the team for 4 years, and Sebastian is French and we were going to France. After being offered a deal to accept Mandy’s decision, and being promised the ride for Qatar, I decided although I’d be disappointed being a reserve rider at the Bol, It’d be the wisest thing for me to do.
This was, for the time being, YART’s plan for the 2007 Bol’Dor. That was until the entry list came out.
I got a call from Christian Bourgeous from TKF asking if I’d be interested in racing at the Bol for them, seeing as I was only entered as a reserve with YART. After talking it over with Christian and hearing what he had to say, I told him I’d think about it and get back to him. Suddenly I had an offer to ride a Factory Bike in the 2007 Bol’Dor, or so I thought…
I told Mandy about the offer and explained that it was a chance to do the RACE which was the most important thing for me. He was good about the whole thing and understood completely, so he gave me the green light to ride the green machine.
After teaching a 2day race school in Hungary, Amy and I caught a red eye flight to Paris followed by a TGV train Nevers which saw us there by 4am. It wasn’t an ideal start to a race weekend, but when you’ve got bills to pay, it’s gotta be done. I was introduced to most of the Kawasaki Team in the morning, before signing my ‘one event’ Kawasaki contract, which to my surprise was completely in French….. Hmmm Ok.
The first practice kicked off at 10am and I went about getting to grips with the ZX10R in the 20 or so minutes I had. My first impression of the bike wasn’t a great one, but I did feel it’s strong points. Acceleration and Braking. It was very hard for me to ride though, and with the suspension where it was I found myself about 2 seconds off the pace. I asked for some changes afterwards but was told that wasn’t going to happen and I was better to just learn to ride it the way it was. This was when the first alarm bells went off in my head. If I couldn’t change my style and ride around this set up, I was in for a hard race…
Practice went on the next day and my times came down bit by bit as I tried to adapt to the bike, but they came down slower than I wanted them to. Next up was Qualifying. This was the time I needed to get my head down and ride the bike the way it was as fast as possible, but whilst getting ready I noticed my tyre list written on the white board in the pit box. I had no qualifiers. I didn’t say anything and just figured that they were more interested in my race pace than one hot qualifying lap. My race pace as it turned out was in the 1.43s. I wasn’t really happy with the result, but it was about what I’d expected, and I was now about 2seconds from the top times on Qs. Not great, but probably good enough for the race, at least I thought so.
Whilst getting changed out of my leathers for the day, I noticed two things that worried me. A missed call from Christian on my mobile phone and someone else’s gearbag in my cabin. I called Christian and he told me to meet him in the hospitality for a talk. Here we go…
Christian sat me down and told me in plain terms that he thought I was going to struggle in the race. He said that he thought 1.43s would be too slow in the race, and that the gearbag in my cabin belonged to Jehan D'Orgiex who would be replacing me. I tried to convince him that I thought he was making a mistake and given more time on the bike, even though it was hard for me to ride the way it was, I was sure I’d be able to adapt further and go faster. But it was no good. He’d made up his mind and that was it. I’d be watching. I was absolutely gutted. That was the last time Amy and I hung out at the Kawasaki hospitality.
Being that I wasn’t racing now I took up the chance to do some Live commentary for Eurosport. I did my best to be ‘diplomatic’ on TV as I watched Jehan ride around in 45s and 46s before crashing… In between commentary stints I’d check on my brother’s Diablo Team and the YART squad. Incidently both of them had a crap race too, as neither bikes made it into the night…
So with almost everyone I liked hanging out with, including Le Roy from Maco Moto (who also retired with engine problems) out of the race, we all headed into the centre of the circuit to watch ‘The Datsuns’ play live. This was without doubt the highlight of my weekend.
It was a real race of attrition as only half of the 57starters made it to the finish. Retirements included both Kawasaki’s, Bolli, YART and Diablo to name just a few.
After the race Amz and I headed home to Austria with the YART crew to begin preparations for our next Endurance race… The Route69 5hour Moped Race!
Earlier in the year I competed in a 4hour Moped Race with Mandy and Igor on an ex army service Puch Ranger, but after getting humiliated on the slowest bike in the field, Igor built a new bike for the event. The 71 model Tomos 50cc engine was housed in a KX85 rolling chassis, complete with disc brakes front and rear. It certainly looked better than the Puch did when he rolled it out of the van on Friday night.
Friday night proved to be my undoing. It was the night before the race and a tradition to have a small end of year bash with the YART crew. Even though it wasn’t the end of the season, the boys were partying like they’d won the championship. It was only fair that Igor and I participate too right?
The next day I woke up to noise of 50cc Mopeds doing Warm Up. Shit, Warm Up! I opened my eyes to find I had made it into the YART bus for the night, “hmmmm can’t remember that” I thought. I then rolled over to find Mandy snoring alongside me…. “Jesus what happened last night!? “
I sprung out of bed feeling better than expected. I quickly threw on some old leathers and fired up the ‘Tomosaki’. Whilst putting on my helmet something strange began to come over me. Uh oh…. feeling increasingly seedy…. Saliva building inside mouth…. Look out! Yep that’s right vomit. Lot’s of it. I began spewing like a Supermodel at Pizza Hut. Much to the laughter of Igor and the gang I was carried to the Moped and roll started down the hill. It was going to be a long race.
The ‘Tomosaki’ wasn’t running real well either and if the revs dropped at all it would instantly stall. The chassis however was awesome and I could fang around the outside of anyone in the turns. It just needed to be running right. Igor took the start while I got a bit of ‘shut eye’ in my leathers. By the time I woke up Mandy was already signalling that the bike was running shitty and that he’d be pitting shortly. Another quick visit to the Men’s room and I was suited up ready to go. Mandy pitted as we cleaned the mud from the cooling fins of the engine. It was running too hot. I jumped on and took off to start the hardest stint I have had this season. Now don’t get me wrong 24hour races are difficult, but having to paddle a shit slow Moped through the mud, whilst trying to hold down the Tequila and Mince meat that’s trying to come out after every burp is harder. I then also proceeded to loose the front big style directly in front of our pit area. Scheisse!
A few laps later the bike really began to loose power. It was still running but I knew it was on it’s way out. I swapped over to Igor and headed back to bed. Thankfully for me the engine let go soon after and it meant our race was over. I vowed after to never party with the YART squad BEFORE a race and to never drink more than ONE type of Igor’s homemade Schnapps. That shit is evil.
Now fully recovered our preparations for Qatar are underway. It’s an important race for us, and has set up and exciting finish to the WEC season. We can still mathematically finish 2nd although a top 3 finish is what we are aiming for. With a descent result in Qatar it should be achievable. I know personally I’ll be aiming to finish this season on a high. We’ll see what happens.
Until next time,
Cheers,
Damo.
