Since Ian hasn't said much, I will... Then Ian, you go on and explain what I am missing.
First. Team picture. From left to right. Ian (Soullad) Carlos (Motocorsa) Frankie (not Knuckles) Johnny Corvette (or Johnny Dick), Juan Carlos (suporter) and me, Supereibar on bottom.
Woo... What an eventful event. And I know this sounds renundant. I don't have the total pictures of it yet, so this is an advance. Many difficulties to start. The racer arrived with a newly instaled pristine fresco pipe and u bend Wednesday. Aparently for the local pilots it was too low to use for cornering, so when the scooter was tested on corners, the belly of the Fresco pipe would touch the ground. We took it off, then all we could do was to place the pipe in upward position, held by a small metal piece in order to create clearance for cornering.
The day of the race arrived yesterday. During the tryouts Frankie fell down, he hurted himself so he couldn't keep on racing. The fast flow tap was damaged but it was possible to fix it, a brand new Snetterton seat was caught as well. Surprisingly the rubber manifold didn't suffer at all, so all the carb needed was a good clean. The hour of the le mans start arrived. Exciting. Frankie could just barely walk so he held Carlos the scooter while he was across the track. Carlos is an experienced Laverda Pilot, and he knew the track. 3200m long track. Off he went. The first half hour we where in 19th position and going up. He was careful on the corners cause of the U bend, but still he was very fast. Johnny went after Carlos and kept up the good number. Ian went in for battle and problems arrived (again) an exhaust stud had fallen off. Holly hell! Where is an 11 mil stud when you need it. I traded another bloke a 11 mil bolt off a rear hub extractor and Ian placed it. From that point on the racer never stoped. The sound, oh what beautiful sound it made, the idle! I can still hear that idle. Frankie couldn't race so the race was finished by Carlos, Johnny and Ian. Final position 34 / 50 at a total of 120 laps, 27 laps from the first one. It was very sattisfactory see the engine last 6h again, even if we lost a good 50-60 minutes between fill ups and the problem with the stud.
I dropped Ian at the airport this morning with somewhat of a sour taste. Hoped things would have worked better as we deserved it. Ian had to work very hard to get the scooter going after we where drastically abandoned without prior nottice from Mr. Barlow. In a matter of a weekend he searched for a way that we could have a bit of a faster scooter that would take a bigger track like this one (The track last year was 1400m long, this years track was 3200m)
All I wish is to come back and see another one of my Lambrettas race again. It was quite an experience to follow all the race from the boxes. Don't know if it will happen again but surely I will be back with a team supporter (as it is the only thing I do well)
Thanks to Sausage for his countless help. Thanks a lot to Ian hepworth for all his help, thanks to Stevo42 for his offering of a race seat, thanks to MB developments for their help. Thanks to the boys of the team, Frankie, Johnny, Carlos and Ian who came all the way from Eng err land to race the beast.
P.S: Ian, please fill up the blanks as I left many things to say.
