Track day weekend was fast approaching. Just one day more to start our journey to the Kari Motor Speedway Track at Coimbatore, a good 350kms from Bangalore. So, the bike was finally built , to a certain level, which if a dear old man I know were to describe would call it “good to go, some things are never satisfactorily perfect!” Next the bikes had to reach Anand’s house at daybreak or earlier to get onto the transporters that were to transport the 8-9 bikes. So, in the morning I took to the outer ring road for what would be a test of the bike at high speed.

The bike felt definitely a bit lean at the higher speeds holding back a little. There wasn’t much I could do and left the bike at Anand’s place and left after a few more bikes came in. Adrian and Anthony brought in two bikes, one belonging to Anthony and another to CCR. The others must have come in later.

Event: Track weekend.
Motorcycle: thunderDUCK (Royal Enfield Thunderbird)

I decided to leave to the track in Sanju’s Sierra heading out of town late Friday evening. Sanju was to be driving and 4 more of us. We reached the hotel in Coimbatore only in the early hours of the morning and crashed out.

By the time we got up and going, the rest had already reached the track. After Sanju decided to lose his way (:P) around Coimbatore and reached the venue, people were already lapping on the track. Once at the track, I quickly warmed up the bike and after seeing the quality of the leathers that Anand had brought to the track, decided to use that. Mine looked very amateurish, heck it was. So, once I was padded up, I headed out to the track after a briefing by the circuit manager and a sighting lap in his car. I took a few easy laps and came back in. the chain was very loose and one of the engine mounting bolts was forgotten. After a quick set-up of these things with Prashi, the timed sessions were starting. It was very entertaining to watch this from the timing tower. A bunch of guys went out, I do not recollect who all, but Anthony on the RX135 was the fastest of the bunch with a 1:36.something. About 4-5 laps into the run, he pulled over, with a blown piston and due to a timing error all the times from the session were lost.

The next group was ours and luckily we had a great session and pulled into the pits at the end of it. Anand’s timing was the best with a 1.33.something on the RX135. I had a timing of 1.35.something and was actually quite surprised, as I had kept a target of 1.36. For the rest of the day after lunch we ran sessions without timings. Prashi and myself had quite a few laps together and I had a great time. Same with Anand and Arun.

A whole night of partying and up late again! Headed out to the track to see the ambulance on the track. It was for CCR who’d crashed into the pit wall not watching where he was going. He got away with a broken arm and more than a few bruises. Some of the guys headed out to the hospital with the ambulance and the rest were lapping out there on the track. I put in a lot of laps and my best timing for the weekend was 1.32.9. The overall best timing of the weekend was to Unni I guess on the RD with a 1:27.something. Adrian and Anand also put in faster laps than mine.

While heading back we came back in a Bolero belonging to Vodka. I just liked the jeep a lot. A powerful AC, smooth over the broken tarmac, powerful enough to carry 5 of us with luggage over the Sathyamangalam ghat section. I would buy it if I were in the market for an all terrain 4wheeler.

Some of the guys and their bikes:
Anand (ported and piped RX135, with a Pulsar front end), CCR (ported and piped RX135), Vighnesh (ported RXZ), Adrian and Anthony (ported and piped RX135), Arun (ported CBZ), Prashi (stock Jawa350, Yezdi Roadking racer)

Images and Photographs from the event have to be moved to this format. In a while…