View from Pit Lane – Edition 22

Preparing for battle

Ales – 24/25/26 September – Part 2

Friday greeted us with clear blue skies with a crisp autumnal feel to the air. Quite beautiful in our mountainous surroundings. It really is a picturesque location and well worth the trauma getting here.

We had five test sessions to look forward to with 2 before lunch and 3 in the afternoon. The morning sessions went well with Rik feeling his way around the technically tight and twisty 2km track. The only straight to speak of is about 400m long and Rik never found 6th gear. We were using our tallest gearing setting so changing that was not an option. I hoped once Rik was up to speed 6th may come into play.????

While I cooked our ‘lunch of champions,’ a full English fry up, Matt swapped the knackered rear tyre for a less used scrub that would provide a little more grip. We were first out after lunch with Rik circulating faster than the previous sessions. I thought 1 minute 20 seconds would be there or thereabouts and he was lapping consistently 2 seconds off of that, so getting up to speed.

The fourth session only lasted for 2 laps as it was red-flagged due to an incident, thankfully not serious which just left us the last one where Rik got down to 1:21 and only a second off of the pace. I reappraised my estimate and thought 1.18 would be pole position so still some work to do but we were all happy with things.

There was just time for a quick check and clean for Trudie before the scrutineering deadline of 6.30 pm. All clean and ready to go, when I checked the rain light. Both Matt and I heard the fuse blow. Click. No rain light. I tried the ignition. Nothing. Strange we thought!!!

Matt opened up the fuse box and found the blown one, the 10 amp ignition fuse, swapped it for the spare and tried, first this time, the ignition and she lit up like a Christmas tree. Ok, let’s try the rain light. Click. It all went dead again. Bloody hell!!! She goes fine all day with no problems and then when we start to get into race mode, ‘Trudie says no’ and spits her dummy out. Bizarre.

Out comes the multi-meter and the problem is traced back to the main switch cluster which incorporates the on/off, starter and rain switches respectively and more specifically, a short in the rain light switch. I sent Rik off to buy a new switch and some fuses. Matt started exposing the necessary wires in the loom while I made some tea.

Rik returned with a switch but no fuses so I left them to fit it and went on the scrounge for a fuse or two. I came back with only one, but fortunately, Matt did a proper job and everything worked as it should the first time of asking. Scrutineering would have to wait till the morning. ????

2 Comments on “View from Pit Lane – Edition 22”

  • Pete

    says:

    Doh! that should be number 22, not 19!

    • danartemis

      says:

      Oops, fixed now! ????

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