Cadwell 2010 Review

Well another Ixion@Cadwell has come and gone.

 Despite the Friday AM weather, people seemed to enjoy themselves and when I asked at the dinner if y'all wanted to do it again next year there seemed to be a murmer of a positive nature; so I guess Ixion@Cadwell 15 will happen in 2011 (ObNo the boooking isn't open yet!).

Various things in no particular order.

Thursday wasn't too bad for crashers; Steve Dalkin managed to bin his VTR Honda out of Barn in the first of the Tiggers sessions causing several pence worth of additional damage; but a) he was fine b) the bike was patched back together and he was soon back out again and having fun.

The chappie who binned his Badnit whilst following an instructor didn't fare quite so well bike wise but he was uninjured, happy, admitted it was entirely his own silly fault and announced that we was already looking forward to next year's event (Fozzy; for it was he instructing, was mortified and kept telling everyone that he'd been taking it really slowly but at the end of the day there's only one person holding the loud handle).

Friday was a bit worse (pretty bad conditions didn't help) with a few more incidents and one fellow unfortunately breaking a collarbone (t'was the only injury and the Cadwell Marshalls expressed amazement that the casualty rate was so low - a normal commercial day in weather like that would have seen a constant stream of ambulances leaving the circuit and red flags in every session. AFAIK we only had one red flagged session).

There was a rumour that this crash had been the result of a collision but talking to the parties concerned it seems that the two crashers both overbraked and lost control in response to things happening in front of them and there was no bike/bike contact.

On a more positive note, and as Champ has already mentioned, I did have a blast of a session with him and Gary Adnit - Huge Fun. Champ had a bit more power but lesser tyres so overall there wasn't anything in it and we were glued together for the whole session swapping places all round the circuit. Sorry to Gary for the overtake down Mansfield; I cracked the throttle open a bit harder than normal out of the Gooseneck and the ZX10R decided that a wheelie down the hill would amuse me: made braking a bit interesting and what seemed like a hard-ish racer-stylee pass was actually just me being a muppet/the evil bastard ZX10R trying to kill me.

On-track behaviour was pretty good from what I saw (I did my normal trick of trying to get my Tigger sessions in but sneaking out in the Piglets to do a bit of instructing or make up tracktime that I'd lost through admin stuff; I tried hard to be clean and friendly, hope I succeeded).

I only had one complaint about an overtake - someone went for a closing gap despite the bit in the briefing about not doing so.

All in all we struck lucky with the weather on Thursday..... Friday morning was a bit of a different matter and the wind and rain was pretty grim (or so it seemed viewed from the warmth and comfort of the Simkiss brothers huge race transporter's awning sipping tea).

 I did eventually gird my loins and went out on the Mille with wets for a potter round and was amused by the weather gods modifying my line into Park by a couple of feet each lap. Hmmmm... glad I'm confortable taking different lines into corners and that I wasn't 'on it'.

Friday's first PM session I again took out the Mille on race wets and had a great session chasing someone on a trackified Gixxer sommat (I hope it was a thou but it might have been a 600; these modern motorcycles all look the same to an olde farte like me!). I caught him round the twisty bits but he pulled miles on the straights and the only part of the circuit that I could get alongside was over the Mountain andinto Hall bends and I never quite managed to get far enough in front to make a clean pass.

The track dried rapidly and I really should have thought of the tyres and pulled in... but I was having great fun so didn't and the rear wet is now very much an ex-tyre :-( Ho Hum - t'was a few years old so I guess it needed replacing anyway.

Friday PM seemed to fly past and I enjoyed learning yet more about riding the ZX10R (micro wheelies out of Halls Bends into the Hairpin were a new and errr... interesting experience). The bike's got soooooo much oooomph that I'm still not getting on the throttle everywhere I should but bit by bit I'm ticking off corners and one day I might be able to string together a decent lap on it. One day. Maybe.

The organisation for the Meal@TheMasons was a grade A clusterfsck (and seriously interfered with my drinki^Wsocialising time) but it got sorted in the end; hope everyone got what they wanted and I now know what Amanda's had to put up with all these years. I did miss her :-(

As usual, Friday evening morphed into Saturday morning at the Kings Head as everyone sat around chatting and sipping a shandie or two. That's one of my fav bits of Ixion@Cadwell and long may it continue.

On Saturday, Jon Collett, his bro, Mike Newton and I all congregated in JdeR's (Raeve not Race) motorhome for a cuppa and then spent most of the day watching the Vintage motorcycle racing (all legal like as we had tickets). Most amusing and some very weird three wheel thingies going round.

Awards (from memory as my paperwork is still in the truck and it's p*ssing down here so I CBA to go get it).

• RTB - Gordon Brown.
• PYB - Chris Pain.
• Jammy Git - Chris Pain.
• SQUID - Robin Mayhem.
• Rider of the Event - Team Cheese.
• Jeff Wain memorial - Marvin^WKeith Bennet.
• Spirit of Ixion - Katrina Smith.

Congrats to all.

Many many thanks to everyone that helped with scruting, instructing and just plain coming along and being good company.

As the 2010 T-Shirt says; "One of the nicest bunches of people one could ever wish to associate with".