The 31st of May at Enduroland will definitely be remembered as one of the hottest and dustiest on record, but another great day was had by all.

I stuffed the electric cool box full of cokes and headed off to the track a little later than planned. It’s amazing how fast time goes by even when you get up with plenty of time to spare. Having ‘plenty of time’ tends to make me doodle about too much, so time soon runs out, and invariably I end up being late! Oh well Tony’s trailer coped with the 80mph on the motorway just fine!
I got to the track at about 9.45 and expected a big queue, but to my surprise I was allowed to drive straight in. The signing on bit was taken care of later once you’d parked up. However they were being very strict with the tag checking at the entry to the track itself.

Early morning in the pits - nice clear sky

I managed to get everything sorted fairly quickly and joined the sighting lap near the back. Now normally I don’t do the first lap as it always ends in big queues as guys inevitably cock up the hills. Today however I had my camera with me so I thought I might get some photos of guys in compromising positions!

First queue of the day. some dumped it at the bottom of the first slope

The track layout was very similar to the last event I did here, but some of the zigzags through the railway cutting were switched around. The ‘easy’ & ‘hard’ options were clearly marked and the first one cut out two of the steepest cutting i.e. the down and up bits. These had some standing water at the bottom which made the slopes on the way out very slick but weren’t a problem as long as you kept your speed up, and were not too heavy hand with the throttle.
Nigel had been hard at work on the woodland track as some of the worst ruts had been filled with hardcore. For the inexperienced riders the second ‘easy’ opt out is here as well.
Breaking out into the sunlight once again the course followed the perimeter of the fields on the far side of the land. These were as dry and dusty as hell, so being in someone’s wheel tracks was almost impossible at times. I had to slow down on several occasions and wait for the dust to clear slightly before carrying on. Advice that one poor rider should have heeded has he managed to hit a marshal’s quad up the backside and broke his arm. After that incident the back straights were closed due to the dust. Anyway - from here the layout remained the same as before, but the ‘Timber Yard’ and the two water splashes back near the pits also had opt-outs as well.

Another queue! First lap madness.

Two or three laps later I pulled in for a breather and noticed Pete had parked up near me. On queue he arrived back from a quick shakedown lap and parked next to me so I dug the banjo bolt he’d asked me to bring out of the spares case. It was for the Recluse clutch he’d fitted, so while I supped on a cold can of coke, he set about fitting the last few bits of supplementary pipework to the defunct clutch master cylinder.

Work completed we set off together to get some more laps in. Having me behind him all of a sudden must have got the better of him momentarily, as he very nearly overcooked it going into the tyre chicane and only just managed to stop in time. There were a few more ‘nearlies’ before we settled into a good rhythm and got some good fast laps in. But it wasn’t long before we needed another break so we pulled in for another drink and chatted to the guys next door. I’d told them about my helmet cam earlier so I asked if they fancied a quick lap round the course as I was now going to put all the film gear on (I have a separate helmet and camelpack for filming).
They agreed, so Pete myself and, and ah …(forgot their names!) set off for a quick lap. Somehow one of the other guys got it all wrong near the first set of jumps and by the time I got there he was on the deck?! Anyway we all regrouped and set off again without further mishap. We did have to stop a couple of time for guys struggling on the slopes but that was about it. Oh accept for me getting it all wrong in the back field and running off the track slightly in a corner, oops. Check out the film below.

Enduroland 31st May09 - Redbikejohn films Pete +2 from redbikejohn on Vimeo.

Pete had gone onto reserve during the lap so we all piled back into the pits for lunch and a rest. Pete was looking like Homer Simpson with a big brown ‘5 o’clock shadow’ of dust on his face and blowing my nose I’m sure I could have planted potatoes up there – yup it was dusty all right!

After lunch it was time for some more fun and a lap or two later I pulled in to wait for Pete when Ross came zooming by. He’s the guy I chassed in one of my other enduroland videos on Youtube (chase lap). I set off after him but he was going like the clappers so I had to up my game a bit. He got the better of some slower riders which bulked me and managed to pull away some more. Keeping the pace up I managed to pull some time back and closed the gap a bit but it opened up again slightly on the back fields. Getting into the tight stuff again a massive quad blocked the way and took up the whole track at this point. Not only that but then someone fell on a slope and I had to wait while a marshal rescued him and the bike. So that was that, chase lap mkII was over. However that was not the only thing to be over – the rest of the day was too as my seven month old throttle cable gave up the ghost! The last few corners before the Timber yard I noticed the bike was still revving and I pulled over but couldn’t see anything wrong. I took a short cut back to the pits where a frayed cable by the throttle tube was found to be the cause. Oh well, another £40 down the pan. I must have made some sort of mistake in the fitting process last time so I’ll make double sure when fitting the next one.

me!

See Dave Burton photos - over 500 now on the flickr site

As luck would have it Pete had a fully serviceable EXC300 handy! I’d been keen to give it a go for a while now and was very interested in the recluse clutch that had recently been fitted. I must say I’m not a fan of pukka enduro or mx two strokes. My first introduction to them back in the 80’s put me off them for a long time. Flipping a race tuned PE400 in my home town back in SA while two up (and nearly getting run over by a truck) leaves a lasting impression on the brain!
Sitting on the bike for the first time the mental urge to pull in the clutch lever (now the rear brake) was incredibly strong. I started the lap very tentatively and my first impressions of the bike was that it was reluctant to ‘turn in’ when I got to the first corner. Being the same basic design as my 450 this was strange, so I can only put that down to the fact that it was used as a supermotard before Pete got it and they might have messed with the sustention i.e. stiffened the front end up, which would reduce the amount the front dipped when entering a corner thereby not allowing the steering to speed up. Whatever it was I got used to it pretty fast and didn’t notice it after a few minutes. There was so much going on in my brain – “don’t use the clutch” + “there’s no back brake” etc that I actually clipped a tree the first time I got into the first small wooded section!
Engine wise it was a bit of a revelation, basically it’s a two stroke pretending to be a four stroke. Gone is the evil ‘throw you off the back as soon as you look at me’ powerband and in comes the smooth tractable torquey four stroke like power delivery. Add the auto clutch into the mix which starts to disengage when the revs drop and you can really lug the engine through the tight tricky stuff. Well maybe not in first gear as that was pretty violent when you hit the gas again so it was best to lug it in second or third while I was getting used to it and the clutch. By the second lap I more or less had it sussed but would still try and use the clutch when getting a bit excited while overtaking slower riders. Luckily the rear handbrake needs a strong pull on the lever to lock up the rear so it didn’t cause any mishaps. While on the subject it could do with having a bit more ‘feel’ as the lever is almost solid and I’d prefer something with a bit more give in it so I could get more feedback. I’ve no idea if it adjustable or not? While the engine is silky smooth lower down I found it vibrated like hell when I was giving it a good canning along the straights. Once again I’ve no idea if this is normal? It’s running the softest powervalve spring at the moment and although I’ve not tried the next one up, my gut feeling is that once I’d got used to riding the bike I’d want the extra oomph.

guess which one just come out the bike!

Second lap over and I pulled in and handed the bike back to Pete who set off for a few more laps before the closing time of 4pm.
All packed up and I popped over to say hello to Nigel who runs enduroland and we chatted about the day while I downed a litre of water to try a rehydrate after the long hot race eerr I mean practice. I’d used a camelpack all day but sometimes I forget to drink and even when I do the sweat had been pouring out all day.
Amey the ‘enduroland babe’ of the event complained that no one took any pictures of her during the day so I snapped a few for Nigel’s website and that was that. Time to hit the road and fight the traffic on the M40 – oh well, at least I had a Chinese take away to look forward too!

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