Labour Day Long Weekend - Cervantes

Last weekend, a few of us headed out to Cervantes for a short road trip, much like the Australia Day Weekender to Dunsborough.

We met up at the local petrol station and headed North via Old Yanchep Road, where we were able to blow some cobwebs out of our bikes; taking extra care on the last right hander. Heading further North, we travelled along some excellent, quiet roads which were open and very flat.

We stayed for a few days, rode up through Jurien Bay, Green Head and to Leeman. There was thought about heading out to Dongara, but noone could really be assed in the extreme heat. Thank god for the Camelbak, if not for that cool fresh water, I would have been cooking with gas in my leathers.

We stopped into the Cervantes Tavern to eat most days; with fresh fish, crays, hot chips, cold beer and Fox Sports. The rest of our time on the bike was chilling in the courtyard of the backpackers ripping into Bacardi and Cola, slagging on the random Canadian (-eh) dude that apparently worked there.

Straye and Rhino

Seandre

Seandre and Straye in Jurien Bay

Good to see the Camelbak on

Standing around in Leeman

No glove, no love

The crew at the lodge with the dodgy Canadian eh?

Another successful (but more low key) trip away. Thanks to all that came along and made it a great weekend. So, when's the next one Seandre?

EOM Drags - February Edition

Ok, so I got the fever for dragging again. The weather was dirt. It was cloudy, winding and was threatening to piss down for the best part of the day. But, I went anyway.

I organised the end-of-month drags on the 28th of February for people to come down and have a go. Unfortunately with the weather, and EOI of about 20 people became a turnout of about 8. Which was no drama, as there were almost no cars present, so I ended up with 13 passes down the quarter mile.

I heart teh dragz

Luckily for me, I ran many more low 13 second passes, and ran another personal best:

12.840 seconds

Out of ALL the pages they could have fed through the printer incorrectly... it HAD to be my pb.
Spewin'

It turned out to be a great night, the track was prepped, it was cool and a small turnout. Due to the weather being shoddy there was also a minimal appearance of spectators; meaning I was finally game enough to try doing a burnout!

Do these leathers make my bum look big?

Do a fkn burnout!

Photos above by Troy Coulthard - www.circlework.com.au
I'll have to buy the one of me backing it into the water for the novelty!

Helmet Hair - Update!

I knew they'd make me look like more of an ass than I already am... but they're still hilarious!

Helmet hair available here!

CNY

Happy Chinese New Year!

Gong Xi Fa Chai!
(Congratulations and prosper)
- Year of the Pig -

Helmet Hair

I just couldn't help myself. Yesterday my helmet hair arrived in the post. "WTF mate?", you may ask. Well, the PSB girls did a group buy on helmet hair and here's what I ordered:

The final product? You'll have to click here to see! :P

A little bit of veggie oil to hold the suction on, a little bit of 100-mile-an-hour tape and off we went. The piggies withheld about 80km/hr quite comfortably, but are apparently rated to somewhere around 170km/hr! I got a few looks in the short time that I had them on, and a few double takes. A hilarious alternative to the cheeky mohawk look:

AHG

Being the secret little squirrel that I am, I managed to sneak out of work at 2pm yesterday to partake in an AHG Tuning Day. It had started raining earlier in the day and I ended up riding in quite a downpour to the track. I was hoping that things would dry up soon as I didn't want to take on a "new" track in the wet.

Weather ain't lookin' too good...

I did the first few laps of the track with my rear tyre all over the shop like barcodes. There was slipping and sliding, but the track was clean and there wasn't too much movement; not like on the roads.

I followed the lines of a few others that were on the track as well, just to get into the swing of things. By the second session, I was taking better lines and got knees down all over the place.

As Boonie would say: "Yep, I'll drink to that"

The last session had reverse track orientation, so everything and every line that I had been practicing went to shit! I hate right handers, and having a predominantly right turn track nearly killed me. It was exhausting to say the least. By the end of it, I had my right knee down too. In all, a top day. Cheers to Andrea from Elite for giving me your expert tips, Ryan for taking photos, and Robin for boating with me :)

Seandre in full frame

TurboR1 showboating

Safety first: 3 points of contact

Cheers to Rhino for taking excellent photos! The rest can be found here: http://sulk.cc/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=3209

BOAT!

Okay, so it's taken me a while to blog about Sunday. Take note, that I am going to exercise bragging rights and carry on a little. You have been warned.

Right. If you're not in the purple circle, you wouldn't have known that the All Bike Drags were held on Sunday at the Perth Motorplex.

The official rundown is here: http://www.motorplex.com.au/news/2007_02_12.html

After the housewarming party on Saturday night, and a serious lack of sleep, I still got up at 7am, washed my bike, foamed up the tyres, plexused her up and headed off to the drags. Gates opened at 10am where Paris was admired (read: scrutineered) and checked in.

The turnout

Such a fine day

Yep, that's me

Lining up

All the usual suspects were there; Gadget and Brooke, Neil and the resident 'busa brigade. Surprising the low PSB turnout though, but not to worry.

The first run was at around 11am, where straight up I ran a PB of 13.1xx seconds. It was going to be a fast day. I then consistently ran 13.0xx and 13.1xx's all day. I even made it into the semi-finals of the eliminations with dial in times of 13.03 seconds!! Last year I got knocked out in the first round!

Yep, I'll drink to that

Anyway, so I was getting painfully close to the 12 second bracket with all the flat 13's I was running. It came down to the last grudge run of the day, and the track was really hot, sticky, well prepped and my fuel had been depleted a little. Here we go, one last run for the 2007 All Bike Drags.

video: My Final Run (19MB)

video: Getting the Time Sheet (25MB)

Final time: 12.922 seconds!

Congratulations also to Alex on his Aprilia RS125 for coming 3rd in the Quick Street class, losing to the guy that eventually won the class. Good on ya! Proves yet again that you don't need a big bore to be a winner at the drags. FYI - he ran a 15.864s pass.

Now why would I call this entry "BOAT!" ??? Well, during the day Lee was bugging me to have a go at getting my knee down on the return road and the entry gate to the waiting bays. So, we raced each other down the quarter mile, he crossed first (on the 750) and I pulled up behind him to follow his line and go around the left hander. I actually got it down. Like proper. And again at the gate. After a few runs I had noticeably wore the slider down. I was showboating towards the end. It started feeling good. Sean even got video. GOLD.

"Dude, guess what? I got my knee down. Yeh, AT THE DRAGS!"

EDIT: oh and thanks for reminding me Robin, I also did my first stoppie! A little one (about 20-30cm off the ground) but a stoppie none the less.

video: Gettin' Mah Knee Down (15MB)

And the final result?

BOAT!
A day of firsts... Did my first stoppie, got my knee down, and ran a new personal best time.