Ryan Hampton - Race report, Hampton Downs

Finally the time has arrived to get into some more serious racing, this weekend just gone was the first round of the International tri series. It’s a great way to test out bikes, riders and abilities before the nationals arrive.

Testing on Friday was very positive, being that it was my first outing on the Bridgestone’s at Hampton downs I was keen to get some laps in and try some different setups. We had some big leaps forward in getting the bike to really hook up and drive out of fast corners which is an area I’ve previously struggled with, we also worked on stability in the back end under braking.

I found it a little loose or light which caused me to really back the thing into barrel 51 which was actually quite good fun it was very controllable, but unfortunately not the fastest way round
the corner. That aside we tried a couple of changes which settled that all down.

I was extremely happy with how my Castrol Honda was performing even more so because of the fact it had a bog stock motor in it still. Not many people actually believe me but it had not been touched, asides from the fact that’s it’s running the Leo-Vince exhaust system and HRC electrics, just goes to show that straight out of the box the Fireblade is a very strong contender.

Race one
I got a flyer of a start and felt like getting in amongst it all, I slightly overshot turn 2 but managed to pull in around before running out of track. Sloan tried going up the inside but I saw it coming and shut the door, he pulled a gutsy moved slamming the bike over virtually on top of me. I had to really lay the thing over drastically to the point where I tucked the front for a split second I thought it was all over but I managed to pick it up with my knee and save it.

The Bridgestone’s hooked up again and we were back on track. I spent most of the race dicing with my fellow Castrol Honda teammate Hayden, he was in the lead on what was meant to be the final lap. I made my move on the last corner of the last lap under brakes going into the sweeping right hander, but unfortunately at some point there was some confusion with a red flag mistakenly being shown and also 2 white flags were rumored to have been shown too, which caused a drama with the front runners slowing up and pulling out on the last lap. I never saw any of this so I kept going to the line, they went on the results of the last lap due to this so I was placed behind Hayden in 9th place.

Race two
I got another good start and took a couple of laps to settle into a rhythm to then find myself racing with Hayden again, we swapped positions at one point but Hayden run it wide into turn one where I managed to hold a tight line and retake the position, I crossed the line in 8th place.

Overall I’m sitting in 7th place for the series out of 18, on a stock motor and being just over half a second off my best time of a 1:05.593 I was happy with how the weekend went. Looking forward to Round 2 at Manfeild!!

Again I would like to say a big thank you to the following for the help and support,
Castrol, Hampton Honda, Bluewing Honda, Smart collision repairs, W.Whites
wholesale, Teknic,Leathers, Shoei Helmets, Five gloves, RK chains and
sprockets, Eurotred NZ, Bridgestone tyres, Foto CD by Dallas Alexandra, SPY
optics, Powerbar NZ by PRV.

Ryan