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M and M Racing - News
2009
News
NEWS MARCH 2009
The first Bike trackday of 2009, Mallory Park 20th March.
A small group attended the early season opener, booking early and risking the weather, in the hope that we wouldn’t get wet, a bit of a gamble but this time it worked out in our favour.
The group were:
Colin Grumbt - GSRR750 (1998)
Andy Grumbt- GSXR750 (1998)
Tom Southall - YZF R1 (2007)
Derek Whitley - GSXR600 (2007)
Phil Johnson - SV650(2004)
Mick Garrod (me)- CBR954 (2001/3)
We booked ourselves onto this trackday organised by Focused Events, so that there would be at least 2 of us in a group, to make it more fun out on track, trying to catch your mates is much better than trying to catch anyone else. Andy and Phil were in group 1, this gave them some good fun, Phil hasn’t been on a track day for a couple of years and took a few sessions to get up to speed, but buy the end of the day, Andy who has got much faster over the last year, was finding it a struggle to catch him, and only managed to pass him in the last lap of the last
Colin and Derek were booked into group 2, they had a right old battle, it lasted all day, every session they went head to head, Derek looked like he had the top speed to make a move at the end of the start/finish straight, but Colin just had the edge on the brakes, and managed to hold him at bay, although Colin saw a lot of Derek’s front wheel all day. Eventually Colin had a little spill getting on the gas a bit too early coming out of Edwinas chicane. Only a rear brake lever was broken, thanks to the bloke next to us for his spare. It was just a little low side spill but it was Colins first and hopefully last trackday incident. Good bruise on you butt though COLIN!!!!
Tom and I had our own on track battles, with overtaking from both of us, this was only Tom’s 2nd trackday ever, he is naturally quick, and only on standard suspension that wasn’t even set up for track use, he didn’t even realise that it was set up soft till he tried my bike.
Tom is going to be much quicker than me in time, but at the moment I just have the edge, this is due to do the fact that I have a proper race bike and he has his everyday road bike, this situation will not last for long
The fun of having a proper burn up with someone you know out on track is great, and I look forward to the next time I am out on track.
See you out there.
Mick
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2009, A new year starts, and its going to be the first year in a while that I don’t plan to go racing. I do plan to stay on track, with my race bike having fun days out with my friends and family.
Some new things have happened over the close season, the Garrod family has a new biker! My nephew ‘Spencer’ has passed his full bike test and bought himself a GSXR600 to play with, I am sure it will only be a short time until I / we get him out on a track day….
My future brother in-law ‘Mick’ has got a track bike so he can come and play with us, so there will be two more in the track day gang, we should be able to fill a garage out with just us now, you will know where we are by the noise, bikes and laughing from the continual P*** Taking.
The Winter was long and cold, so much so that Tony (brother) and I got bored and decided to try CAR track days, Tony runs a car garage / repair shop (see the link on sponsors page) and came up with a cheap 21 year old Lotus Excell.
We have had our first experience of trying hard in a car, only to find out that a 21 year old 4 seat leather interior car, needs a little more than a service and replacement brake pads, to make it to and from a race track and see us both around the track. We had smoking brakes, boiling brake fluid and power steering fluid over flowing the reservoir, all these problems are easy to remedy, so says Tony, we had a great day at Brands Hatch, even overtaking some cars that looked a little surprised to see our old time car passing them on the straight. (pictures in 2009 gallery).
I am planning lots of Bike and a few Car track days for 2009, even a foreign, mainland Europe trip, yet to be booked.
See you out there on track.
Mick
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2008
Brands Hatch 12th & 13th April 2008
So, that’s it, the season has started for me. I had minor knee surgery 4 weeks before Brands, so I was not expecting to be at full speed however, Saturday (the first day of the two days racing) turned out to be a belter of a day.
The weather forecast for Saturday was sun and showers, but the day was great, it only rained once and as the club took a lunch break when it happened, it meant that I had 4 DRY RACES.
The usual bad starts for me, I don’t know what to do about it, but whatever I do I somehow get it wrong, inside the pack or around the outside or even trying the normal racing line at the first corner, it makes little difference, blocked in or out!!
I did have some great races, even a duel with number 27 in my last race of the day (power-bike final), I think he passed me twice and I managed to get by him three times, all in one race! GREAT FUN.
My lap times were consistent in the 54 – 55 second bracket, with a new best lap for me of 54.49, so I was quite happy with my day.
I have had a slight change of attitude towards racing, having realised that not everyone can be a front runner, I have accepted that I will only ever be racing for fun, and as such I have relaxed into getting the pleasure out of racing and stopped pressurising myself to finish higher up, I race as fast as I can and just see where that leaves me at the end of each race, I also do not race if I don’t fancy the conditions on the day.
Sunday, turned out to be a wet day, with the frequent showers that were predicted. I tottered around in open qualifying as it went from the dry start to rain/wet during the first 3 laps, and I had Slick tyres on.
The wheels were changed 2 or 3 times more during the day, inter’s, then wets etc, but I didn’t go out for all 4 races, in-fact I only went out for the open class qualifier and race, it was just too wet, I decided, if you are not going to enjoy it, then don’t do it.
Due to my new attitude towards racing and attending race meetings, I was pleased with the weekend, enjoyed Saturday on track a lot and made the right decision about the conditions on Sunday.
Pre Season - March 2008.
We are finally ready to take the bike on track again, it has been 4 X Months since our last race in 2007 (Thruxton), and the repairs to the bike after the massive crash have only just been completed. The list of damage is below: |
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