No Budget Cup
There are so many attractions that our loyal band, erm, disbanded and went off in several directions. By Monday morning, the group had explored Bruges, Ostend (twice), a bit of Holland, First War battlefields – and some continued on to Zolder.
Our racing operation was far more slick this time around, we had even remembered to bring a fire extinguisher along with the picnic table and reclining arm chair. We’d splashed out on a new Bridgestone BT002 race tyre for the Blade’s rear – had one for the front too, but it was the wrong size... Arse!
Still, we were quite proud of our shiny new rubber until it started raining and all the ‘sensible’ teams switched to wets. Arse!
Our useless new tyre had as much grip as a teflon doughnut. Stuart was pushed out first, and for once he didn’t seem too happy about leaving the pits, mumbling something through his rain streaked helmet like “Who’s bloody stupid f*#*ing idea... I’m gonna die!”
Fortunately for us, another team on the warm up lap showed how cold tyres, rain and too much lean into a fast right hander can go horribly wrong. All the teams were called back to the pits for half an hour while the wreckage was cleared up. During this time, a miracle occurred – the rain stopped, the sun came out and the track dried nicely. Our wonderful new tyre was now the dogs danglies!
This should have given us an advantage, except we were still riding one of the slowest and least competitive old barges out there. In spite of this, we made a good show and finished 11th in our group of 20.
The old girl kept going, apart from a rapid pit stop to replace a broken gear linkage.
The No Budget Cup experience was great fun and a cheap way of getting race time on a GP circuit. I’d recommend it to anyone looking beyond the odd track day. Will we back next year? Maybe...