I start the stint – and as we are mixed with the 6 hour teams as well I stick with the lead boys and am getting good pit signals telling me we are gapping the others in out class so I don’t pass and sit behind the leader on track and get into a rhythm, unfortunately towards the end of the stint just as I have passed the leader on track and with a 50 sec lead the pace car is out and we lose everything – to make it worse my fuel light is on and bike is spluttering – I just crawl down pit lane and it stops and Bill is out.
Bill is riding well and setting his personal best times but the team in second place (Ashley Joice a handy rider and the Michelin man) are lapping consistently and pull away to a good lead, out again for my stint and again I close the gap and pull a lead with no drama. This rocks forward and backwards with change overs but we can see that our change overs will not work quite right and we will need an extra change over - so 1st place is out unless they have made a similar error.
In the final stint I am 40 secs down and get my head down to pull in Ash, the pit board is showing the gap closing and I am praying for more time! Towards the end of the stint I am right behind him and looks over his shoulder and shakes his head – he doesn’t know we have another rider change to do yet! I pass him as his gets a wobble coming out of sears and flick him the bird on the way past – LOL – as you would expect I then make my only mistake of the race into the esses miss a gear and run wide – as he comes past I can hear the laughter in his helmet as I get the bird back again – so I tuck under him at the bombhole both hands firmly on the bars and pull away. Excellent.
