This year was a real different experiance for me.
I will admit when I come up to Canada it is already different being I am not working the races also as an official.
My first hurdle to over come was I had made arraingments for two different rigs to join us from the states and I was to passenger for one and we would find a second. For verious reasons neither showed now I was without a ride.
Next I would learn of two potnential rigs in need of passengers, lets cross my fingers. As it worked out I would ride with Frans only because Lorre the starter snagged Mike Wills to be the Assistant Starter.
I would have to earn this ride since it wasn't running quite right. After some tinkering we go out in practice to be embarased by the rigs performace, back to the drawing board. We had solved one of the many problems prior to practice only to find another problem. After chasing the gremlins we head up for our race. The other rigs were already out for thier Hot lap.
we are given the thumbs up and out we go. Cough, cough, sputter but we keep it rolling.
Bu the time we get thru Mosses all but a couple of the rigs in the race have now passed us and we haven't even seen the green flag! We then came in to the Hot Pit and borrowed a screw driver since the points were not opening on one side.
After a quick adjustment we were on our way out again. Again right at the point of no return on Pit Out the rig starts acting up again. On this embarasing lap I would see 3 rigs off th the side of the track, one can always hope.
After a frustrating day we go to work on the rig and work right thru practice on Sunday. Paul would offer advice and lend a part or two, Ralf donated a bunch of time and a little blood & Ian his mastery of the XS engine while teaching two of us more skills. We called it quits as race 7 was getting ready to start. Having done all this work our fingers were crossed and we were feeling pretty good about this race.
The hot lap was, well not so hot but it was a marked difference from Saturdays performance and it was starting to rain.
Even though we were not running the best the final rig to pass us on the start had to do that on the out side in turn 2.
We kept the rig running well enough to complete 4 or 5 laps, be lapped once and loop it exitting turn 10, Turn 1 and Mosses twice. While our motor performance was not thrilling we gave everyone else a thrill including ourselves.
On a side note due to Paul & Marie's frustration with thier power plant in their rig Paul sold his motor to a friend of mine who had broken his main shaft on his dominating Triumph. On behalf of Tim Joyce Thanks Paul and Marie.
