A recent article that I read about sports performance brought it home to me how disorganised and chaotic my race weekends are.
Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance are the five pees, yet as time goes on this mantra becomes only too easy to forget as complacency kicks in along with a healthy old dose of familiarity and his best mate, contempt.
Example. I used to make lists of everything I need to take to a race weekend, now I don’t. Why? Because I’ve been there, done that so by now I’m bound to know what I need to take to a race meeting. This is very true, I do know what I need to take, but it’s also very true that after several Arai-shuddering blows to the head, I have a memory that not even a forgetful goldfish would envy.
Writing things down isn’t very cool. But then neither is completely losing the plot when things go wrong and nor is using a bemused spectator’s Swiss Army knife to work on your beloved and very expensive race bike having forgotten to pack the tools.
Having someone with you that can share the mental burden of a race weekend is pretty vital too. You only have to look at how many people are involved per bike as the level goes up. My problem is limited hard drive space. Like most people, my head is so full of all the day-to-day stuff I have to do as well as all the race stuff, that when things go tits up, the whole system can’t compute and it just crashes or, in real terms makes me swear a lot and get really angry. Having someone that knows the drill, knows how to change wheels without snapping pinch bolts, rounding off chain adjusters and forgetting to tighten the caliper bolts is pretty handy too. A duff or absent mechanic is worse than not having one at all. A good one however means that you can forget about the bike and just concentrate on riding the thing to the best of your ability.
Recently at Oulton Park I had clutch problems. It happens from time to time – bikes will go wrong and on the odd occasion an all-nighter in the garage before race day will be unavoidable, especially if you don’t have a mechanic and spanner the bike yourself. Now on this particular occasion, I started off calm, collected and with a plan. I would miss the last session of the test day, get out of my leathers and strip the clutch pack, measure the thickness and generally inspect the clutch. Easy.
Or at least it should have been. Having never stripped the STM clutch before, I didn’t realise that unless I was very careful, the six ball bearings that sit on the ramps that allow the clutch to slip on deceleration would fall out and most probably land anywhere but in the aerosol lid I’d decided to use as a parts tray. No, that would be far too easy. Instead, two bounced across the garage floor while the other four disappeared faster than you can say: “have you got a spare sump gasket?”
Just as that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach turned into a giant knot, a female voice said: “Rob, do you want me to get someone to give you a hand?”
Bernadette Stewart then proceeded to gather up as many technically-minded specimens of the human race as she could muster and, once they’d all finished laughing at my ineptitude, got stuck in and helped me get the bike sorted or, as near to sorted as they could given the circumstances. Even ThundersportGB’s Race Director, Dave Stewart was on the floor, straining the engine oil through a pair of old tights in a bid to make sure I got out on the grid. The new clutch plates came from fellow competitor, Gary May’s dad, Robin and a very helpful Stuart Smart worked out how the overly-complicated STM slipper clutch went back together again.
GP1 rider, Rob Elsmere and his mechanic, Gary got stuck in too – the whole scene was really quite something to behold – all these people helping me purely because they want me racing, not going home utterly depressed.
My stress levels went down, the bike was back together by midnight and I got to race the next day. But did we fix the clutch problem? Sadly not, as it turned out to be something other than clutch wear that had caused us the problem, but it was good enough to be nursed home for fourth and very nearly a podium.
If you think I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent here, then you’re right, I have. I started off by talking about preparation in racing and how vital it is. That still rings true and I’m already going back to my rookie year habit of having a check list. But preparation can take many forms and the one I’ll be using from now on is being prepared to share my problems – and though it goes against my whole stupid male make up when it comes to anything mechanical – being prepared to ask for someone else’s help.