So a few of us CanberraRiders went up to Eastern Creek for the Annual KSRC Christmas Trackday last Saturday, in particular we had Gos, PC, Me, Scotty14 and Mike riding, Whickle doing PitBitch duties and Mel came up during the day for the party later on that night.

This trackday is always a big one and we had over 40 riders across the 4 different groups. The weather was perfect in the morning, although it warmed up a bit later in the day. Gos was fired up with a new set of slicks to run on the Barge, PC had the Gronk running well, poor old Mike had endless problems trying to get his 6 running so he ended up bringing the R1 instead. The Crim had a fairly stuffed rear tyre on it from 2 days at Phillip Island, but I had a new one that I though I would put on after a couple of sessions.

Well it became obvious in the first session that the rear was actually completely stuffed with it spinning up and sliding everywhere, especially on turn 5 and turn 12. I’d already decided to just go around for the rest of the session at a comfortable pace and change the tyre when I got back in.

That was the plan anyway, but it didn’t work out that way. On my third lap, just coming out of the sharp right hander that is turn 9, I get on the gas and the bike instantly goes into a highside. I got launched into the air for quite some distance as I watched the blue sky and tried to spread myself flat waiting for the ground to hit me….and kept waiting and waiting

The longer it took, the more I knew it was going to hurt when I did hit, but finally I came down and tumbled a little bit. As soon as I stopped I was up on my feet and making sure that I wasn’t in anyone’s way, then over to the bike to get it out of the way too. After picking it up (always easier when fired up with adrenaline) and wheeling it off the track, I couldn’t seem to get it to kick over, so I took a little break and sat on the wall for while to catch my breath.

The rest did my brain some good and let it catch up with everything, enough to realise why the bike wouldn’t start. I flicked the side stand up and down, made sure it was in neutral and it fired up first time. Everything still seemed to be attached to both me and the bike, so I hopped on and rode it back around to the pits.

When I got back and hopped off was when I realised I’d knocked myself around a bit more than I thought. In particular, my left heel was getting pretty sore, so before I knew it I was in sitting in my chair with my foot in a bag of ice. Next thing I knew Mike and Whickle had the cable ties and gaffa tape out and were setting to work patching the bike up. Highside’s are renowned for causing a lot of damage to both the bike and the rider, but somehow the Crim had come out with relatively minor damage. The leftside crash knob was 1/3 worn away, as was the footpeg which also had a bent bracket. The bellpan also had a hole worn in it and there were some scrapes on some of the panels and bar end on the leftside….and that was it

So the boys got to work and also organised for the rear tyre to get swapped over as well, all the while telling me to stay put and keep my foot in the ice. Before I knew it they’d taken it down to be rescrutineered and it was ready to go back out. Farking nice work fella’s and greatly, greatly appreciated :cool1!:  :up

I’d noticed some swelling starting on the foot, so I jammed it back into my boot while I could still get it on. The heel wouldn’t take any weight but I could walk on the ball of my foot with some slight pain in my toes. On the bike it didn’t feel too bad until towards the end of the sessions where the toes started to ache. I sat the second session out but then went out for the next four. It didn’t take long to get back onto pace again, although some sessions felt better than others. I managed to get my fastest lap at Eastern Creek in the last session of 1.52.6 which wasn’t too bad considering I was still a bit nervous about traction. Nothing like Gos on his slicks though, but he can tell that story :ridgy

So not the best day for me, but not all bad either, and the bike is still rideable. Later that night I was brave enough to take my shoe and sock off to have a look and and it wasn’t real pretty (not that it ever is), but funnily enough the bourbon seemed to be making the pain go away. It’s still pretty bruised today and I still can’t take too much weight on the heel but it’s improving.

I’ll leave it up to the other to put up how their days went, in the meantime here’s a couple of pictures of the Crim in action later in the day.

(Article by Mick C)