2011 - Our First meeting

With the bikes only just built, it might have been a good idea to start of gently,but that's too easy, so, in February we set off for a 5 hour classic endurance at Cartagena in southern Spain with the Deccla club. www.deccla.com

We were given a great welcome from the organisers and were fortunate to have the help of Pete and Pat Lovell as pit crew 

Pete and Pat hard at work as ever

After problems with one of the bikes during Friday's free practice (leading to a complete rebuild of Stu's bike after a seizure) Andy's bike was to be used for the race once the larger tank from Stu's had been fitted.

The 350 Ducati

  The big opposition in our class was 350 Ducati ridden by two local guys, we were told one of them was Spanish champion so with 100cc's less we had our work cut out but we qualified OK though near the back of the twenty-odd starters.

Once the race started the problems started to appear. Within the first hour, a misfire started, strangely only on right handers and soon after the front brake completely overheated leaving us with so little braking power we had trouble pulling up in the pit box when we re-fuelled or changed riders and that was from the 40kph pit lane speed limit and Pete had to physically stop the bike as we pulled up.

Rather than try to cure the problems, we decided to ride around them and slowly hauled in the opposition until, with an hour to go we were in 11th overall and leading our class by 7 laps.

With a comfortable class lead, we backed off the revs and cruised home to 12th overall and a class win

Our thanks to all who helped, Miguel and Zoe from Deccla, Pete and Pat Lovell, Nick and Kay for putting us up for the night and keeping us fed and Nigel Lacey  www.laceyducati.co.uk/ducati-parts/  for parts and advice.