Tim Hastings - update

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Auld Twister
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Tim Hastings - update

Post by Auld Twister »

Things have been a little quite in terms of reports so i thought I'd post an update following on from Knockhill.

Snetterton was next up and Tim took a tumble at the notorious "bombhole" during his qualifying session. That fall, as well as the two almighty highsides at Knockhill, took the edge of the confidence levels - although Tim denies this - either way, starting P32 was far from ideal. Four laps into the race, the red flags brought a premature halt to proceedings and the subsequent re-start was again red flagged after just two racing laps and a result called. Not a great weekend, although Tim did race well and improved his lap times.

Oulton followed and so did our run of bad luck. Tim missed the qualifying session due to his bike, (which had been fine up until the qualy session), refusing to start. Eventually traced to the power commander, yet again Tim was away back on the grid in P27. The race was eventually abandoned due to the heavy rainfall and re-scheduled to be run at Donington Park in September.

Then to Brands Hatch GP and things were looking up as Tim completed the practise session in the top twenty and the first qualy session went well too, except for a small glitch in so far as we went the wrong way with a suspension change during his pit stop, however, Tim completed the session in P13 and we were confident of improving in the second session. Then the mechanical gremlins returned and attacked our gearbox, putting paid to our session.
With no spare gearbox our weekend was effectively over and so it was on Sunday morning, we were packing up ready to leave for home when we got a call from the Gearlink Kawasaki supersport team, to say that they had a spare gearbox for Tim's poorly ZX6R. This was at 08H15. Tim was due out at 09H20 for a 8 minute warm up session.
The gearlink squad got to work on Tim's bike at 08H30 and Tim took to the track at 09H24, with the new gearbox fitted, to complete the remaing 4 miutes of the session.
Starting from P19 was yet again frustrating, but at least we were racing. The race it'self went real well, with Tim taking points from a P13 finish and setting a new personal best lap time.
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Auld Twister
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Re: Tim Hastings - update

Post by Auld Twister »

For the Brands Hatch round we had the opportunity to try a new rear shock and immediately Tim said the bike was more stable, had improved grip at Max (Billy-Ray) lean angle and it also gave him improved front end feel. Result.

As we were not able to fully exploit the shock at Brands, due to the gearbox failure, we entered Tim in the Scottish superstock 600 championship round, held at the East Fortune race circuit in Haddington on the 13th & 14th August.

Tim qualified in pole, (32 riders), and won both his eight lap races by roughly 6 seconds. On Sunday Tim had two races and scored a 3rd and a 1st.
In each of the four races, Tim had the fastest lap and set a new personal best lap time for this circuit.
The best race of the weekend, was the one in which Tim scored his 3rd place, I was boarding for Tim at the hairpin and was timing him on a stopwatch. I couldn't see where he was starting from or had any idea of what was happening, other than what I could see every time the riders came past me.
Now, Tim and I had agreed that he would keep an eye on his lead, shown to him on his pit board, and once up to 3 seconds, he would control the gap and respond accordingly. By lap three, Tim already had gaped the field by 3 seconds but instead of slowing down, he continued to lap faster and faster, to be leading by 9 seconds on lap 7 of eight, at which point he caught of group of back markers who were all engrossed in their own battle. Tim crossed the line with a 7 second lead and I headed back to the awning a little bit bewildered as to why he was on such a mission and never controlled his lead at 3 seconds. Turns out, Timmy had jumped the start and he knew it! He also knew he would be getting a 10 second penalty and was riding as hard as he could to try and get a 10 second lead, in order to win the race on corrected time. As it turned out, Timmy was placed 3rd, three seconds off the win. Not bad in only eight laps. Had it not been for the back markers, who know's, he might just have got the win...

Now to try and replicate this form at the next round of the National Superstock 600 championship.

[img]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/ ... .jpg[/img]

[img]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/ ... .jpg[/img]
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Borntobewild
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Re: Tim Hastings - update

Post by Borntobewild »

Well done Tim - against all odds you seem to be getting back your confidence and scoring some brilliant positions.

Keep up the good work. :worthy

Well done the Kawa guys for helping you out too. :worthy
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