The racetrack. Devoid of police, speed cameras and the hazards of distracted SUV drivers chatting on phones and admonishing toddlers on the back seat. Always a fine place to play and a perfect laboratory for testing a new motorcycle. So last week La Duchessa and I made our way to Sydney Motorsports Park. If the idea was to find faults then the day could be deemed a success: in the very first session, the Ducati was sputtering down the straight slower than a bicycle. The motorcycle was behaving like one about to run out of fuel. So I returned to the pit. Fortunately those jolly nice chaps from Shed-X were also at the track and they quickly set to work to diagnose the fault. As the tank had fuel we went to step 2: check the ignition.
While Neil fettled, I borrowed his motorcycle and later Jim’s race-prepped Shed-X Ducati 999. This machine is a fearsome piece of kit that rattles windows a mile away when the engine barks into life.
It was a blast pulling out onto the track on pre-warmed tyres that enabled me to go quickly from the start. (I usually do a couple of laps slowly to warm my tyres). Jim’s motorbike has the gears set in race-style: 1 up, 6 down. Even this didn’t deter me as I was enjoying a motorcycle that reacted as expected when the throttle was opened. That was right up until the clutch seized. I had to slowly circumnavigate the track working my way down the gears to then enter pit lane at a reasonable pace before stalling, clutchless a hundred yards from our pit garage. Despite having seemingly broken two bikes in a single day, Mark still valiantly lent me his Triumph Daytona for a session. This cheered me up no end.
Neil gallantly lent me his motorcycle to get home while La Duchessa left the track unceremoniously loaded onto the back of his ute.
projectducati 
Ohâ¦.
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