Actrix Winter Series Round 4

This round had a track day on the Saturday before the racing commenced on the Sunday. Both days started out cold but excellent weather otherwise.

Saturday track day

The track day was a good opportunity for me to make sure the bike was running all good. I used a  Pirelli 180 SC1 rear tyre for the whole day and it had already come as a used tyre so god knows how many laps it had done. It was getting a bit ripped up again with the cold track temperature only getting up to 24C at it's peak.

Sunday

Qualifying
I put on a new SC2 190 tyre for the day. Went out for qualifying and set a time (1:13.1) not far off my PB to get 2nd on the F2 grid.

Race 1
I got a mega start to lead out of turn one for the first lap and a half before Jaden Hassen came past. I was having major problems trying to get the bike stopped and also wheel spinning out of every single corner. Eventually I got picked off to finish 4th.

When I got back to the pits I checked out the tyre and it looked like it was wearing well but had a greyish colour instead of a nice black colour. I took the rear tyre pressure down to 24 PSI (hot) to try and get some temperature into it for the next race.

Race 2
Not such a great start but still in the lead bunch over the first lap only to have the same problems as race one - excessive wheel spin and no grip on the left side of the tyre. I ended up getting swamped and finishing 6th.

Again I had to put it down to the tyre as it was only 40C on the left side right after the race. I decided to put the 180 SC1 back on for the last race just to see if it would make a difference. By this stage the SC1 had done two test days and two races since I was given it as a second hand tyre. It had been ripped up by a cold track and flipped over three times!

Race 3
I got an OK start to end the first lap in 3rd but I could finally wind on the throttle with some confidence. I moved into 2nd and set the fastest lap of the race before it was red flagged. As we pulled into pit lane I took stock of the situation and was just happy to have found the cause of the problems I had been having that day.

We managed to restart the race and I got another good start before a false neutral ran me wide at turn one. I was expecting a bunch of riders to come past at that point but I must have blocked them all when I ran wide. Jaden had made a gap by that stage and so for the rest of the race I had to concentrate on holding off Travis Merkel for 2nd. I ended up crossing the line 2nd just ahead of Travis and reduced the gap to Jaden from 25 seconds in race two to 4 seconds in this race. I set a new PB of 1:11.0 about 3 seconds per lap quicker than what I had been doing on the 190.

I am now looking forward to seeing what I can do with a new set of tyres and I also have another couple of tricks up my sleeve that should allow me to find some more speed.