23rd September 2004 - Snetterton

I could tell Snetterton was going to be one of those days when I woke up to the sound of pounding rain. Another one of those circuits I really like I have been caught out on a number of occasions at Sear corner which becomes notoriously slippery if you aren't careful.

In this instance I didn't have to worry as the bike refused to start. The ignition seemed to work but on pressing the starter button absolutely nothing happened. After a bit of head scratching and lots of input from various people we found that shorting out the main starter relay and fuse box caused the bike to turn over but not fire.

As the morning ticked away I had resolved myself to not getting out at all. A bit embarrassing when I was supposed to be instructing but a couple of guys weren't giving up so easily and set about investigating the electrics some more. We eventually found a relay that was safely sealed in a protective waterproof case only somehow the water had got in and hadn't been able to get out again.

Turned out that the innards of the relay were now a rusty mess but with plenty of WD40, the use of some wet and dry paper plus the odd cut finger or two we finally cleaned it up enough to get the bike to start. Hooray! Of course by this time is was lunch but at least I hadn't had to go out in the wet :-)

I went out for a few laps at the end of the novice session to make sure everything worked and then had to go out to give Susie Grayson some tips on how to get round the circuit on a MiniTwin. Only problem was that I was a bit rusty and it was the best I could do to keep her in sight yet alone catch up with her. Not helped by the traffic but still frustrating none the less.

The next session was better as I gradually got my head together and was able to keep with Susie although it was proving quite hard work. Strangely enough the next session was much easier as I found my mojo and I kept having to wait for her down the back straight. We gradually improved the places where she was slow and by the end I think we were probably lapping at around the pace of the middle of the MiniTwins pack which was encouraging for both of us.

It turns out that was enough to convince Susie to enter the Rookie MiniTwins series in 2005. Watch out guys this is going to be an interesting one!