This time it was being held at the pleasant little Castle Coombe circuit near Bath. As I live near Peterborough and the Track Day was billed as having a 9.00am start, I almost cut my losses and didn't bother going to bed the night before..... however I managed to drag myself from my pit and after fighting the commuter traffic around Oxford and navigating a convoluted cross country route I arrived the circuit at about 9.20 (late again!)

Once again I wasn't the last to arrive (lazy buggers these MAG people; never seem to want to get out of bed) and I soon tracked down Warren Pickels and signed on.

Castle Coombe apparently have noise problems (or rather their neighbors do) so they limited the number of bikes on track to ten at any one time and were very keen on the old Db meter tests (one rider with a loud race-can spent the whole morning stuffing brillo pads, sanitary towels and dead pigeons down his zorst until it eventually reached the required level - silly bugger for having an outragiously loud zorst in the first place I say).

Anyway, being a late-but-not-that-late arrival I ended up in group two. The sessions were lead out by one of the racer types from GT motorcycles 'Superbike Racing Team' and the pace of the first few laps kept nice and slow so everyone could find out which way the track went - errr right mostly with only a couple of left hand kinks.

Thereafter, the sessions got faster and more spread out. Little clumps of two or three bikes circulated together and (with the exception of the GT Motorcycles race chappies who were doing some warp factor nine overtakes) the track behaviour was very well mannered.

With the limit of just ten bikes on the circuit at any one time, you could find yourself in a fairly lonely position without anyone ahead to chase. Strange that when this happens, you automatically slow down and end up being caught from behind - I guess that learning to pace oneself is an important skill for racers.

Speaking of racers, I tried following one of the GT Motorcycles race team chaps on a ZX9R thinking that I could watch his breaking and peel in points.... trouble is the bike was race prepared and the realistic looking rear light was a fake..... cor he's leaving his braking late.... wonder when that lights going to come on..... this is *really* late.... oh Shiiiiiitttt!

Not the best of plans :-(

The chap on the Aprillia who featured at the Mallory track day was in attendance and looking just as smooth. His missus (pit slave more like.. she cleaned his visor, fueled the bike, warmed the engine.... sheesh) timed him at 1.08. Seeing as it's a power circuit with a lot of straights and the track record was set by one John Reynolds on a ZXR750 at 1.01.8 that's very impressive for a little stroker. I could seriously go for one of those lovely little RS250's.

One of the people I know from the Internet's Ixion mailing list, Ross McLean, race prepared his FJ1200 Yamahaha (took off his center stand and top box) and utilising his newly power tuned engine (he's replaced the rings after 60,000 miles) and his special racers riding position (bolt upright) did his normal trick of blitzing almost everyone. Did I mention he's a git? no? he's a git (but a very fast and smooth one and proves the point that it's not what you've got but how you use it)

I thrashed the nuts off my poor little ZX9R and still didn't better his times. Bugger, tyres on the edge, brain overheating, sweaty leathers and Mr Cool just cruises round in his irridium shades. Err hello? Mr Code? yeah, can you teach me to ride a motorcycle?

Still, he didn't get out of bed as early as me.... that's my excuse (and anyone who's seen Russell stirring from the pit will agree it's a good one).

There was one casualty, one of the racers dad fell off his ZX6R. By all accounts (including two eye witnesses who almost ran him over) it was his fault, going for a gap that didn't exist and then locking up the front end in a panic braking maneuver. Normal plastic damage to the bike and a suspected broken collarbone for the rider - silly bugger.

Seriously, track days are *not* for do-or-die stuff the bugger up the inside type tricks so IMNSHO he reaped his reward for inappropriate behaviour. Natural Justice.

Lunch was served in the paddock cafe and involved Chips/beans and/or sausages. They sold out of 4* leaded, full strength Coke but I fortunately found a reserve supply in a nice cooled dispensing machine round the corner. Think I spent more on Coke than Petrol! Cor it were 'ot - MAG Sport does it again, scorching weather for their track day.

The afternoon sessions went well. Joe Smith had obviously paid attention to Reg Ford's 'you always crash in the last session' message (or was that 'your last session is when you crash'?) and went off to see his granny at the end of the last-but-one. Everyone else ignored this good advice but took things fairly easy for the final fling round the circuit.

Play time over, happy little MAG Sport track fiends dissipated all over the country. Once again the event has been truly stonking.

So, listen up at the back, next time MAG Sport have a track day come along. The weather is guarenteed to be blazing, the company top notch and the whole event triffic. Course if you want to be a sad loser type and spend the day in front of a keyboard.....

....to the Trackdays Homepage