Moving on
June 2005
Check out what I've been up to between races.


Hey guys, I haven't really got a lot to say for Silverstone, but I did manage to stay away from James and Chris at least. I kinda new it was going to be a tough weekend after day one, this thing is such a handful around this goat track. It was like riding a wild bull. The thing has a bloody mind of its own! I was also able to keep my ass on the seat as frustrating as two 10th positions can be. So I was pretty happy to walk away from this one, and try not to look back. The next day we were off to travel world to get a few minor things done to the bus, we then jumped in a cab to shoot us down to Birmingham Airport, and catch a plane to Andorra. The cabby was insane, he must have been late 60's super nice super talkative and super bloody sonic. We barely dripped below a 100. Record time, record price and again another happy customer.

Out visit to Andorra this time was to be my last as an official resident moving over to Switzerland to live with Isabelle in Zurich. So there was plenty of loose ends to be dealt with and plenty of signing off to do, which kept us pretty busy until Friday. (nackered actually). The small nations Olympics were also on which basically brought the already crappy traffic situation to complete stand still. By the time we hit the border on Friday to exit Andorra I was pretty anxious to open up our little Golf rental rocket. About 10 km into our 150 km grand-tourism track to Barcelona, I notice this bright red Ferrari practically welded to the back of our car, 5 km later he tried to remove the paint from our car as he roared on by, 2 seconds later the race was on!

I wasn't doing to badly, I wouldn't say I'm the greatest driver, I think he was just particularly shit. He was good on the straights, tough "tool"! Half an hour later I got the bid nudge and if I continued my antics I would be wearing Isabelle's lunch! So it was back into relax mode, and let the red beast disappear into the horizon. It turned out we'd done pretty good time so we could go and grab a bight to eat down on the port of Barcelona. After devouring something that defiantly didn't look like the pictures we even had time to take a stroll around and check out some of the yachts. We came across this massive cruise ship; well you couldn't bloody miss it, 450 feet long with security about and even a reception area. As we were walking down towards it we sore a guy coming our way who had just left the boat, so being a noisy bugger I grabbed him. "Excuse me mate, is that for holiday cruises?" "No this is privately owned by Larry Oracle and is worth 500 million euro", in his German accent. All that fell out of my mouth at that point was a big "wholly shit!" and "shall we leave now?"

This was the most amazing boat I'd ever seen! After half an hour of dwelling it was time to get our plane back to England pick up the bus and head down to our 2 day test in Magny Cours. My mates like to call them track days! On the way passed Paris we stopped at Disney Land with the Motorhome and watched the rain fall from the sky four 2 days. No fairy floss, no hot dogs but we did get to catch up with our good friend Harry and went for a really tasty meal. Thanks H.!

The next days we cruised off down to Magny Cours to get organised for our test. It's really a relief we can finally get to a decent track although late in the season and get some solid track time under my belt. It's been a bloody war between me and the bike. So I'm really hoping we can sort things out and get back on track. At the test we had a number of things to test, swing arms, linkages, shocks basically everything that has anything to do with the rear end of the bike, oh and Pirelli have brought a heap of new test tyres, although not really important right now, but definitely important for the future.

As for the bike I could basically tick all the boxes, the big girl was beginning to work in the way I've wanted all along. So all smiles from this end! And for the tyres, well some were better, some weren't, we'll just have to wait and see what comes next. But it was really great to see what's coming around the corner, and hopefully your input turns into something.

After the test I jumped back in the bus and rolled out. 6 hours and a couple of Red Bulls later, I found myself back in Switzerland, unable to do the last 130 km. So I slept on the noisiest road side services on the planet. The next day I was pretty messy, but I managed to crawl the rest of the way home. The next couple of days were all about R&R. I did absolutely nothing; well I did go for a massage and slept a lot. The following week I kept things pretty light, plenty of stretching, a bit of walking and turned some wheels on my pushy. This week on Monday I'll be beading down to Misano. It's about 700 km so it will probably take about 7 hours, a nice evening cruise. Than I just hang out at the beach for a couple of days and then head up to the track, inflate my blow up pool and get organised for the week-end.

I gotta say I'm pretty pumped to see how these new parts are going to work on a track like Misano. Hot, bumpy and slick. Can't wait! Gotta go, c ya...!

 

 


 

   
HOME | Race Calendar & Events | News | About Karl | Image Gallery | Fun Zone | Links | Contact us
© Karl Muggeridge Pty Ltd 2004 - All rights reserved | Site designed and developed by Universal Fusion