Thunderball review

Of the 11 entries in comp bike, one never turned up and one had to go home as their race license didn't turn up in time. That left 9 of us and after Monday mornings extra round the qualifying times looked like this:
1 STUART CRANE 7.7663 @ 174.34
2 IVAN BIRCH 7.9753 @ 160.67
3 DAVE PETERS 8.0943 @ 160.10
4 RICHARD GIPP 8.2869 @ 168.49
5 PHILIP LEAMON 8.4740 @ 156.23
6 NICK DANIELS 8.6640 @ 154.09
7 SANDRA CHAPLAIN 8.8344 @ 157.86
8 ALAN YOUNG 8.9425 @ 147.56
DNQ
9 PHIL CROSSLEY 9.0598 @ 152.03

I managed to get some shots from the first 2 rounds.

First pair was Al Young vs Stuart Crane. Stu took it easily with another 7 second run.







Next was the ill fated pairing of Phil Leamon and Richard Gipp. Phil pulled a red light, both riders went 8.2 but Gipp took it but then came off his bike at the top end at over 150mph. This was the first event for his new bike and only 3rd pass of the weekend.

Ivan Birch took on Sandra Chaplain. Ivan took it with a strong 7.7 et










Dave peters went against Nick Daniels. Daves bike had some major changes over the off season and didn't have it's usual 7 second form, however he still took the win with an 8.2




The next round should have seen Ivan take on Dave Peters, but Daves engine cut out and he didn't restart. So Ivan through on a bye run
And Stuart Crane was due to go agains Richard Gipp but Gipp was now in hospital so Stuart also went through on a bye run.

The final then, and Stuart Crane won with an 7.9 against Ivans 8.0
Well done to Stuart.


It's less than 2 weeks now till the Springspeed Festival at Shakespeare County Raceway. The plan is to have a new set of wheely bars by then. A decision has been made and the theory is that now the bike rides the wheely bars for longer and harder then they are a more important part of the bikes handling than before. The new bars will be a bit wider, and symmetrical instead of the staggered setup of the current ones, and new mounting points will be made on one side of the bike.
A fellow racer is also lending me a wideband sensor so i can try and find the fault with the LM-1 unit. It's no longer on my mission critical list ... in fact i almost couldn't care about it now. But it would be nice to have it working seeing as how i paid a fair bit for it!