Broadford Bears

Home again from the National Bears Round. I ended up racing a bit better on Sunday and finished the weekend in 3rd spot in formula 3. I think it was more to do with other people crashing and blowing up than to my riding. I did have a good last race and finished up a little more confident.

I have uploaded a clip of our last race to youtube. Follow the link to take a look

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-4BdNpwoao

National Bears challenge Round 1 Broadford Victoria

This weekend I am away (alone) at Broadford competing in the first round of the national BEARS ( British, European, American Racing) Challenge. The Series is being conducted over seven rounds in four states. Basically your bike has to come from one of he above Countries/Continents. Basically nothing Japanese. I am competing on my new Moto Guzzi MGS01 Factory race bike. There are 5 formulas based on machine type. The Guzzi is in Formula 3. I have reced bears bikes on and off for nearly 2 years. More off than on. In fact its been 14 years since I last raced in the BEARS. I have been back at the track for nearly 12 months but this is my first race meeting. I AM SHITTING MYSELF.

Snowy Trip

This month we did a short run to the Snowy's to spend a few days shaking down the bikes before our Central Australia trip in August. With just 4 starters is was a good opportunity to work through the bikes and identify potential problems. It was also great to be in the bush and away from work. I took the GS1150 adventure. Steve Coates rode his newly acquired KTM 640 Adventure. Steve McMillan was on the Elephant, and Derek rode his GS 1150 Adventure.

Our favourite place

Moto Guzzi MGS-01

--
Mikey from Gmail

Moto Guzzi MGS-01

--
Mikey from Gmail

Moto Guzzi at Oran Park

I took the MGS-01 to Oran Park raceway last weekend for its first race meeting. Private practice on the saturday was a blast. I finished out a set of Bridgestone slicks that had been on for 2 half track days. As they went off, the bike started to move around a fair bit. It was good to get the feel of how slicks let go. It was much more rideable than I thought it would be. In the arvo I put a new set of slicks on for race day and went out for a session to scrub them in.

 

Sunday was race day and I dont mind revealing that I had a few butterflies. There was a 4 lap qualifying session. Hardly enough time to get the tyres warm let alone set a good time. I got 1 clear lap right on the last lap and managed to qualify 6th. I was pretty happy with that as there were 35 bikes in the BEARS ( British European American Racing) class. I got a 1 minute 20 sec's which is an OK time for the conditions.

 

Come race time the rain started coming down. as I was running slicks I decided to sit the first race out and see what happened with the weather. It just got wetter, and there was a fair bit of carnage in the bears field. I packed up and went home.

 

Even though I didnt get to race, it was good to test the bike against the guys I will be racing next year. I think it is going to be pretty compeditive.

--
Mikey from Gmail

Home again

Last day on the ride turned out one of the best. Fine and warm with
not much wind. Fantastic roads and not much drama apart from a hairy
straight ahead on my way through the middle arm road. My bike almost
dissappeared over the bank into a culvert. I managed to drag it back
onto the road and get mobile again. I was by myself at the time so it
was a bit of a silly mistake.

Al told we did nearly 4000 kilometers over 7 days with a bit of every
type of road and conditions you could imagine.

Much better than being at work!!

Regards

Mike

River crossing

This is the river crossing near tharwa. The road was closed because
the river was too high. Silly me missed the sign and rode accross.
Silly Jace and Mick followed me over and then told me that they were
surprised I rode over it when it was closed. It was high enough that
the bow wave was almost at air intake height. Anyway we lived to tell
the tale

The trip home

Monday morning we headed home on wet cold roads. Unfortunately we
stayed on the tar for the first few hundred kilometers. Finally we
started to have fun once we left Buchan. After yet another stop to eat
even more food we headed out onto the Barry way, which is a fantastic
alpine road that follows the snowy river. It is a challenging dirt
road that leaves no room for error. Towards the end it's very fast and
flowing. It's a real hoot. We popped put at jindabyne just in time to
you guessed it eat some more food.

Regards

Mike

Black boy in flower 2

Black boys in flower

On the gas

Here is Mick and Jace having a little race on the Barry way.

Another wildflower

Wildflowers by the snowy river

Talking shit

Doing what we do best - bench racing

Mikey and the beast

Here we are ready for the trip home. I love the beast.

Hey Leanne

Did you know westy could do this?

Boss hog

>

> This bike was parked at cowes. V8 - 500 cubic inches. Fully sick bro
>

Public apology

This mans name is Jace. Aparently it's on his birth certificate. Sorry
Jace

Boss hog V8

Best on track sight

Check this out. It had a go cart sub frame so they were driving it
around. Bath toilet and wash basin on board

Motogp

As is tradition we all returned to sunset hill to watch the race in
comfort. It's better to watch it on the tv than the track

Legends

Dana got this photo of Doohan, Bayliss and Gardener

Vale

Dana got this photo in the pitts today

Motogp bike sound bite

MotoGP

View from the southern loop stand at phillip island

The bike bedroom

Here are the bikes all tucked up for the night at the house at phillip
island.

Day 5

The weather was shit. So no dirt for the boys today. We wandered down
to the ferry at queenscliff. Had a great lunch at carl's house and
headed for the island. The highlite was definately the ferry ride
accross the bay. The other highlite was Hugo falling off his bike on
the bitumen at sorento. After riding all over 2 states in horendous
conditions he decided to block 2 lanes of traffic in yuppieville

Regards

Mike

Westy, Jason, Carl and Hugo