2009 6 Hour – Race Report from Hogs Breath Heroes

Nine years since my last road race at Bathurst 2000 and in a last minute decision I decided not to ride the SS down to Oran Park to watch the 6 hour but to have a go at riding it.

After a massive amount of phone calls (I’m not looking forward to my next bill), I had secured a bike from mad keen BEARS stalwart Russell Phillips from Adelaide, it wasn’t a Ducati but it was a bike, a well prepared 2002 R6 Yamaha. At one stage there was a chance of an 848 Duke but the initial outlay was going to nip that idea in the bud real quick although it would have been nice.

Mick Johnston from Port Macquarie was in as soon as it was mentioned, Mick and I raced against each other for years in the BEARS class and he still punts around the twins races with regular places. We were allowed to have up to 4 riders in a team so to reduce fitness requirements and cost ($ again) we decided it would be good to have another two riders. This became the hard part, trying to find old bastard riders like us to team up with. I contacted a lot of old names but to no avail, I do believe I told them all they had turned and probably needed to come out for not having a go!

Mick had a couple of suggestions in Beau McKenzie from the Gold Coast and Damien Sutton from Wollongong. Beau had won the FZ cup for the last couple of years and Damien punts an 1198 in the Twins races, they were keen and it was on.

We entered the Superstock 600 Class and were cross entered in the Veterans as we had two riders older than 45 (you only needed one)! We were eligible for the outright prize money of $10,000 but realistically would not be in the running although anything can happen in a 6hr. Our aim was to finish and see where we ended up.

We had secured a few sponsors to help with the costs and a couple of very generous ones at that.

Many thanks to the Hogs Breath Cafe, who donated some cash and free meals and drinks for 10 of us on the Friday and Saturday night as a bonus. We were all baching (Shaz was staying with her Mum in Sydney and we were staying in Camden) so the good meals and a couple of drinks at the end of the day came in very handy.

Beato from North Coast V-Twins generously donated $1000 towards our tyre bill which made life much easier.

The Ducati Owners Club of SA and Danny Ahearn’s Homes for every Lifestyle were forthcoming with some help, and thanks to a couple of my old sponsors Shoei Helmets and Underground Designs from Adelaide for the last minute stickers.

The enthusiasm of these people is just great and it really makes you want to do well when people like the above get behind you and help get you to the start line in the first place, so thanks again gents.

Well it was a weekend of extremes, extreme effort, extreme heat, extreme highs and the extreme low!

Thursday morning and I met up with our team manager and bike owner Russell Phillips at the track, he had driven over from Adelaide and Shaz the kids and I had driven down from Bundaberg with the bike and trailer. Russ had freighted the bike to me two weeks earlier but work had prevented me from doing any serious work to it. We proceeded to set up the pit shed and prepare the bike with lots of changes to be made for the race. It was a very full on day.

That night we met our teammates, Mick Johnston and the two new faces of Beau and Damien. We had a couple of beers and discussed racing (as you do).

Friday practice and we had three 1.5 hr sessions scheduled, none of us had ridden the bike before that day so it was to be a big learning curve and set up day.

Three of us had been used to Twins and Beau was used to these bikes so his info was critical for us. Luckily Beau and Damien had been riding on the tyres we had chosen to run and had good info on pressures etc.

It was a 41 degree stinker.

We all had a ride around and the boys made a few changes to the bike, I didn’t have much of an input into this as I hadn’t found the bike to be causing me any problems yet. I was still learning the track and how to ride around a racetrack again.

The young blokes finished the day in the one minute nineteen’s so we were pretty happy with that, we were first 600 and fifteenth (out of 30 starters) not too shabby.

A mini cyclone came through in the middle of the day and blew the NRMA stand down that has been there for years, it also blew a few of the pit doors in causing a stack of damage and a huge mess to clear up. We had four boys standing against our door to stop it blowing in it was pretty scary.

Saturday was a smidgen cooler than Friday and we were qualifying on new hoops, we had to do the second qualifying in the order we appeared in the program so they could average out a time for us. I squeezed a couple of 18.9’s out of it, Mick was in the low 19’s, Beau had a problem in his session when the front fairing bracket broke and it hit the killswitch on him (twice) but had got into the 18’s earlier in the day, Damien ended the day with a 17.6 with the fairing bracket placky tied together for his session so we were all looking pretty good. Because of the fairing bracket incident it put us down the grid a bit on the average so we had qualified 18th.

The fairing bracket had to be fixed and we searched the whole track for someone with a TIG. Eventually Beau met up with Chris from Anderson Stands who agreed to take it back to his workshop in Mt Druitt to fix it for us. Fortunately a few of the Bundaberg boys were helping out in the garage and on pit wall and followed him back to the shop and returned it straight back to the track for us. This gave us valuable time to discuss some tactics and a plan of attack. So thanks to Ross Trulson, Hasto and Woodsy for your help over the weekend men. Other helpers who deserve a mention were Beau’s Dad Leith and Damien’s parent’s Terry and Gayle.

Damien was the fastest qualifier and as agreed he could start the race, he declined the offer saying he had had a terrible start Le Mans style in the 4hr. I jumped at the opportunity to start by default. I was second fastest because of Beau’s unfortunate breakage so I reckon I got next stab at it, and I had already resigned myself to the fact I wouldn’t be starting......excellent.

RACE DAY ‘damn’ supposed to be 42º today! Same for everyone though, so no use whining. Very scared at this stage, the thought of the Le Mans start is freaking me out, I haven’t practiced it!

A quick practice in the pits reveals it going to be harder than I thought; we’re all a little bit rushed at this stage to get all the gear up to the start line, tyre warmers, gen set etc. as well as ourselves!

Kevin Magee drops the flag and we’re off, as expected I got a scratchy start but the adrenalin is pumping. I competed 23 laps in the first session with a best time of 1.17.55 whilst jockeying for position, this was to be the fastest lap in the 600 class for the whole weekend so I was pretty happy with that. I know I could have gone faster with a little more track time, there were a few corners where I could have picked up a little more as I hadn’t found the limit. I believe the gearing could have been set better but I let the current racers dictate the settings as I had been out of it for a while I didn’t want to seem too pushy with settings.

Damien was out next and was lapping in the 17’s the safety car came out on lap 36 and this was Damien’s cue to pit and change riders, he chose to stay out and cruise around behind the safety car contrary to our race plan. This caused confusion for us in the pits as Beau was ready to go out and Damien was not coming in as planned! Russell gave him the in pit board and he pitted after three laps behind the safety car. Racing resumed as soon as he came in so our safety car window of opportunity was lost.

I expressed my disappointment in his reasoning and asked he stick to the plan. Unfortunately this caused tension which we did not need at this stage of the race.

Beau put in one 17 and then settled in to 18’s and 19’s this was also in the plan. We had asked everyone, once we had a pace to settle back to 19’s / 20’s to preserve the bike and ourselves for the long race ahead.

One of the spectators came in to our bay to warn us three people had crashed at turn 7 and to take it easy around there!

Mick went out on lap 59 and settled in to the 21’s he was still having problems coming to grips with the race gearshift pattern, he always runs road pattern on his racebike and we all run race pattern (upside down). Nevertheless this was fine for the pace we were circulating at. When he got off the bike we were leading the 600 class and coming in around 14th outright. Beautiful.

I got out in my second stint on lap77; I cruised around in the high 18 low 19’s for this session and came in on lap 91 we were all sweating like pigs (hogs) when we were getting off the bike.

Damien was out again and was lapping consistently in the 18’s he was back down into the 17’s when he crashed on lap 104. At this point we were two laps in front of the 600 field and 11th outright! I was devastated.

It took ages for them to get the bike back to the pits and they let it lay on its side at the side of the track for what seemed like forever. No one attempted to pick up the bike which greatly disappointed me. Every time I fell off in the past (and I did a bit), picking the bike up was always my first priority (if I was standing). We could only look on helplessly from pit wall, desperate to get it back so we could assess the damage and try to continue on.

After the bike was brought back to the pits they drove straight past our pit bay and down to the scrutineering bay with Russell in hot pursuit yelling at the top of his voice. We were told the bike would be bought back to us but they held it there for 15minutes or so. When they released it (with apologies) it was a frantic effort to get it going again. It sustained a broken r/h bar, r/h footpeg, master cyl reservoir hose, the muffler was pushed over the back wheel the rear sub frame was slightly bent, the fairing bracket that we had repaired on the previous day was bent but not broken and the obvious fairing damage. It was a huge effort by all involved and a hearty cheer went up from the onlookers when we fired it up again.

Unfortunately we left the radiator cap loose in our rush and when Beau went out he had a minor crash. When he came in he gave us the thumbs up not realising the radiator cap was now missing we sent Mick straight out on it. It started blowing smoke on the overrun, it was cooked!

He came in saying it felt like it was going to seize and that’s when we noticed the radiator cap :(

I let it cool and then had one last ditch attempt to finish. It ran ok for about five laps and then cut onto three cylinders it was all over. So we missed out on winning the 600’s, we would have finished about 6th or 7th outright and I didnt get the $1000 for the fastest lap in the class because to claim it you must finish the race.

If you think I’m having a bit of a cry I am. My main aim was to finish this race as I entered the world endurance 6 hr back in 92 and my partner crashed us out of that one in the 5th hr. Oh well hopefully we all learnt some lessons and there will always be next year...........................Phil Allen #35

Thanks to Sharon and the kids for putting up with my manicness over the last weeks and her support as usual. Thanks also to the organizers, officials and flag marshals, , all the sponsors and helpers and Russell

Again it was contrary to the plan.

Article by Hogs Breath Heroes. Posted: 27 November 2009.

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