B.A.D.D 3 Hour Endurance Race -Taupo Raceway
2010-01-03

B.A.D.D 3 Hour Endurance Race – Taupo Raceway

The day after Wanganui Street race and we are straight into a 3 hour endurance race! Talk about keeping busy.

Unfortunately due to my crash at Wanganui the bike that Sam Smith and I were going to race in the endurance race needed some repairs before the race. This made things quite stressful in the pits as we were rapidly running out of time.

We made it out in the nick of time for the endurance race after having to rush to get the tyres fitted for the race. I feel I dropped the ball with organisation here and it had a costly effect to the team, so my apologies for that.

I was to do the first 45 minute leg. I got a good start and was quickly leading the race. Shortly after a GSX-R1000 passed me, only to fall off at the sweeper right in front of me. I put my head down and tried to make sure that I kept my times as fast and consistent as possible. It was going well and we were leading the race by quite a margin. The 45 minutes went very fast and it was time for me to come in for my pit stop.

This is where the excitement starts. Our pit stops didn't exactly go to plan with the quick fueler we were using deciding not to work, instead we lost a lot of fuel on the ground. To top that off the motor had over heated and lost all it's water, which would mean we would have to take the fairing off and top the water up every pit stop. After a considerable time in the pit, Sam got on the bike and headed off for his stint. I took my leathers off and tried to relax and get ready for my next and final run. I knew that with the overheating problem we would struggle with time in the pits but I was hoping we would have the pace on the track to make up for it.

Another 45 minutes up and it was my turn to get back on the bike. Again we had the same dramas in the pits and lost a lot of time. I got out on the track and again started trying to keep quick times to claw back some of the time we lost. It was pretty difficult to keep times up as lap traffic was starting to get pretty bad by this stage. Again the motor had started to overheat so I signaled to the team that I would be pitting soon. I ended up pitting sooner than I had planned though! On the final turn I started to go around the outside of someone, I think they must have panicked as they stood the bike up and put it into the side of me which pushed me over and we both slid off the track! Fortunately we were both ok and the bike was undamaged so I could pick it up and head straight for the pits. That certainly didn't help our situation as we lost a lot of time with that.

Sam went out for the final session with a fresh rear tyre on, hoping a fresh tyre would help lap times to a point where we could get some time back but it was to nil effect we were too far behind at this stage to make it up. We finished 6th overall.

The overheating problem was traced to a failed radiator cap.

So not the most successful race ever, but I did have a lot of fun and it was good to get that much time on the bike. It was pretty exciting racing out there and there were a few guys going really well out there. A big well done to Sloan Frost, winning the endurance race Iron man which is very impressive.


A huge thank you to my brother Adam and his friend Andrew for all their help in the pit and everyone else that helped us out in the pits. Also a big thank you to the the guys at the RCM Suzuki team who helped out!

Also thank you to Sam Smith for partnering me for the endurance race. Sorry it didn't work out as well as it should have!

As usual a big thank you to my sponsors and supporters for making all this possible:


Museum Hotel Wellington

Suzuki NZ

Ozzy Performance

Continental Motorcycle Tyres

CKT and Ohlins

Skunkworks

And all my product and services sponsors:

Wynns Performance Products
Spectro Oils
HJC Helmets
Berik Leathers
Wellington Motorcycles
DID Chains
Sidi Motorcycle Gear
Vesrah Brakes
Autocycle Refinishers

Cheers,

-Glen Skachill #47