Warm Up
Matty’s warm up session goes well. We make a decision to stay on the tyres that he is currently on – the wear is great and he isn’t losing immediate grip with them – no point in spending the money/wasting the tyre life at this point, especially as we arent running at the sharp end – yet.
The group overall is a little down – the confirmation of #6 loss has unsettled a lot of us. Matty has agreed to control Gordon’s pit board for his first race, so after getting Gordon down off the paddock stands, we all make a sprint for the pit wall. Gordon makes a good start off the line, and heads into Redgate looking well. We await for them to come past the start finish 1 and a half minutes later, and my live timing app is snapshotting as they barrel past the pits. But we haven’t seen #111. Did we miss him? No, he doesn’t seem to be on the timing app either. Oh dear. We get ourselves back to the HQ to see if he had been taken back. We don’t hear anything about it, and Matty realises at this point that this is what his brother, his mother, his father, his girlfriend, his supporters and friends go through everytime there is an incident on track. I believe he fully realises for the first time how much a worry it can be for us.
Finally, Gordon arrives back. He is relatively ok, and explains that he went down going into craner curves. A fast corner. The bike however, is not ok.
Owch. The onboard footage of another rider shows Gordon being missed by another rider barely as he slides across the track. A very near miss. Thankfully he is ok, and that is what matters the most of course. Gordon had changed into his older leathers (known as the cursed crash leathers) just prior to the race, to try to alleviate a forearm pump issue he was experiencing in the new leathers. It seems the curse decided to claim him. Good luck recovering and fixing it Gordon from us at MLR!
A little surprise for Matty, his girlfriend Lizzie turns up on Sunday! This provides a little boost for Matt, and his spirits seem to lift a little.
13:01PM – Race 3
Matty prepares for his first race, but is gutted for Gordon. The damage to the bike is pretty brutal.
The time comes along for Race 3. The bike looks good, we have re-attached his seat unit and secured it further as it was starting to vibrate under some cracking fibre glass. We have re-made his left hand end peg with a rounded head bolt and a few washers – the plastic ends kept spinning off as he increased his lean angle. Due to the bike not having any modification done specific to Matty (other than colour and rear seat unit so far), the bike was discovered on Thursday to be diving heavily onto the forks in the braking areas. This meant the forks were bottoming out, and then trying to rebound while Matty was still trying to brake. This caused the front end to judder heavily, which can be seen on the on board videos. We had a word with Gordon and Adam Shelton, and despite the actual fix being a case of buying the correctly rated springs for Mattys forks, (currently they are set for an 11 stone rider, Matty is currently sitting at 14 stone) – we added more preload, as can be seen below. He was already running a lot of preload, so we are now almost maxed out on the forks – which is no doubt causing an unseen issue in other areas, but the juddering was what was bothering Matt the most.
She is fuelled and ready.
He heads out on to the track, and lines up. We go to watch from the back of Redgate corner rather than the pits, or from Melbourne loop.
A few laps in he is doing well, his timing on the app looks good, 1:50’s in traffic and he is battling very well. It is possibly the strongest he has looked all weekend.
On this lap, or the next (can’t quite tell with the video), Matty smashes his best lap of the weekend out – a 1:49.6 recorded on the 5th lap of his race by the transponder. We all cheer – get in! Personal best!
The very next lap? Engine failure. *cue the Adagio for Strings soundtrack as Matty, in slow motion, falls to his knees amidst the life blood (oil) spilling from his engine*
Absolutely GUTTED. We immediately get the bike up on the stands, and strip her back to the carbs.
We have never really had to deal with mechanical failure before, so this is a new experience. We discover that the left hand rocker cover bolt is loose – assumption is that the lug inside has snapped off with the bolt. As it is a low pressure area of the engine, we decide to metal epoxy the bolt down to the head. The oil leak does seem to originate from here at this point. We allow it all to harden, and silicon fill a few areas for completeness. Multiple people are consulted for this, and the general response seems to be – see if it works.
There is still a small residue of oil appearing when the bike runs…at, or near, the headgasket. Utterly, utterly gutted. With an hour to go until the next race, we are faced with having to give up on Race 4.
Around this time, there is a tribute lap about to be held for Ian Allkins, lead by his wife Jade.
At the same time, our friend, Adam Shelton, is laid face down in the gravel, unconcious, only 30 feet away from us – his front brake had failed going into Redgate. A team of paramedics are tending to him, and the backboard is out. We haven’t seen him move in a while, and we are all heavily worried. Finally, someone is certain they have seen his arm move in response to the paramedics. He is loaded into the back of an ambulance. We still don’t know at this point if he is ok.
This causes all of us to choke a little, and everyone is silent for two minutes once the CB500’s have done their lap of honour for #6.
Gordon’s crash, Matty’s bike failure, a rider death, and Adam’s very visible crash aftermath after a bike failure – a very shit combination of events. The emotions are all over the place. We cannot imagine how hard it must be for others at the event.
We gather our things, and start to pack everything up. This takes a few hours of slog, and is possibly the least enjoyable part of a race weekend, not including any serious issues such as the above. Everything is finally packed away, and we load up into the van. I text James, Adam’s mechanic, asking for an update when they know something. Adam was only briefly knocked out, and is on his way home with James. Some good news at least. Matty and myself have discussions about the weekend – it is clear the stream of events has give him a solid knock in the wrong direction, and he is doubting his choices – who wouldn’t. At the end of the drive home, we leave all the stuff in the van, and chill in the front room with our girlfriends. We start to have a laugh, and I make sure he concentrates on the positive notes from the weekend.
Next challenge? Let’s find out what’s wrong with the race bike. And get her repaired. Then upgraded.
Matty Laws Racing 