With the sad demise of Hotrax some of the MotoE championship rounds lost a host and the series promoter faced a massive task at the eleventh hour to replace the rounds that were originally to be run with with them. The first round originally scheduled to be run at Schleiz with the IDM championships was also lost due to issues again with the host. Happily the MotoE promoter was able to reschedule a round at the Nurburgring, split over the weekend with a GT car race on the historic Nordschleife and the Dortmunder Motorsport club using the GP circuit.. complicated but guess what? We still get to race motorbikes! :)
More than ever we have to manage an excruciatingly tight budget this year but with Insight 2 Value stepping up with a round by round package as our headline sponsor for the series we could just about manage a drive down to Germany with 2 team members (me and the indomitable Liz 'Half Pint' Warden) unfortunately leaving the the very twitchy boss Alex Aitchison back at home like a pacing, expectant father.. When we arrived at the historic Nurburgring it was clear that wasn't going to be anywhere we could pitch a tent so the contents of the car were squeezed over and that became the accomodation.. :)
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| Factory accommodation! |
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| Zongshen satellite bike |
After Sticker-ing up the bike with our own sponsor's decals we were ready to roll for the guided sighting laps. These were guided (marshal car in front and behind) as there had been GT cars racing all day on the circuit and it was very dirty and the circuit weren't comfortable letting us out at full speed without it being swept first so we had guided sighting laps due to the amount of time it takes to sweep the full circuit. the fact that the circuit we were using was only half of the circuit we'd be racing on tomorrow didn't seem to compute with the organisers but we were at least able to shake-down and test the bikes...Which just happened to be full speed for me.. ;)
Sunday's race day was a hot day and we were sharing the venue with The Dortmunder Motorsport Club who were running a 'tag' endurance race and a few lightweight club races..Which gave us plenty of time to recharge the bikes between the first 'sprint' race and the second longer race.
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| Qualifying sheet |
Qualifying in the morning on the full 5.2km GP circuit was a short session and I put the little Zongshen number three bike on the front row in third place, fastest of the three Zongshen bikes racing this weekend..A suprise to me... (and the rest of the team I think..) I noticed that the pick-up of the motor was slow but had good 'top-end' speed so I asked for shorter gearing and 'Eddie' (not his real name I think) the Chinese team's crew chief suspected a 'reluctant' controller so he changed it for one from the spare bike. And I was confident of a good result in the first race.
I fluffed the start but managed to get away right on the tail of the other two Zongshen bikes. The University of Nottingham 'ground up' prototype shot off like a stabbed rat, piloted by Daley 'Daisy' Matheson, a newcomer to MotoE and probable legend-in-the-making..Followed closely by Mark Miller on the Vercarmoto Yamaha R6 based prototype..It was apparent immediately that the changes we made didn't have a positive effect and I watched helplessly as all the other bikes pulled away from me..Unfortunately the incredibly engineered prototypes from Vercarmoto and University of Nottingham had mechanical issues on the first lap and had to retire leaving the three Zongshen bikes to duke it out for he podium slots..I took some ridiculous risks to reel in the other two which worked initially and helped massively by the soft sticky Continental slicks but the performance of the number three bike was clearly 'going off' and I had to settle for the bottom step as I watched the battle for the lead develop and leave me behind..The race sheets from race one showed my lap times a rather chunky 4 seconds off my qualifying times but the number one Zongshen bike 4 seconds faster than it's qualifying time...curiouser and curiouser.. ;)
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| Sticky-icky Ooohwee! |
I fed back the information on wattage and temperature for each motor during the race and suggested a few changes to mitigate for the apparent deficit...Eddie took the decision to check the carbon brushes on the right hand motor (from my feedback) and change some of them for new ones...Ready for race two!
There was a vast improvement in the performance and I got away slightly ahead of the other two Zongshens but frustratingly watched as they both out accelerated me into the first turn.. The improved performance meant that I could stay with the other two Zongshen bikes as the much faster Nottingham prototype disappeared into the distance..We diced hard for the P2 for two laps with proper multi-line attacks from all three riders using as much of the fabulous Nururgring GP curves and inclines as we could and a little more...later I checked my times and those early laps were on a par with my qualifying times..however as the race developed my right hannd motor began to heat up and loose wattage and the upper battery pack began to overheat...I had to slow slightly to manage the temperature differential and hope that the longer race would give me chance to reel in the the others if they overdid their energy use... Unfortunately (for me!) both riders professionally managed the dice and energy consumption and were able to maintain their podium positions..
I'm spectacularly happy with how the bike handles (based on a GP 250) and only a little frustrated with my management of the challenges of electric racing but we did get on the podium and we did get to taste the champagne! And I'm head over heals in love with the Nurburgring... Bring on round 2 in Anglesey! (15th and 16th Aug 2015)
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