The 2008 off season has so far been very mixed, a tendency to crash too often in between glimpses of speed has not made for a happy time. I had been looking forward to getting back to my most ridden track, Ruapuna, to start off the real testing before nationals kick off in January.

The weather was good with sunny skies and 16 degrees, there was also a gentle north east breeze sweeping across the circuit. The only goals I had set for the day was to not crash and to do some 1.43's, nothing too ambitious but something to work towards and build on in the coming weeks.

The first practice session was a bit of a disaster. After forgetting to put any tape on my radiator and coming in after one lap, I got one further flying lap and then it was time to come in. Bit of a waste, but nothing I could do about it. I had the first race in about an hours time and with 8 other 125's at the event I was fairly sure I would have someone to race with.

The race came up and after a warm up lap we were off. I wasn't too agressive at the start and slotted into 3rd. Coming around towards the end of the 2nd lap I see the red flag and enter the pits. A short wait and we are out again. I get a smiliar start and slot into 3rd behind Tim and Cameron. After a few laps Jaden nips past me but I try and stick with him as best as possible, we are very evenly matched. But then again, on the 4th lap this time we get the red flag and it's back into the pits for the second time. This one looks a bit more serious so it's on with the tyre warmers and I thought that was it for our first race.

To my surprise, 10 mins later we get called up. Having a slight thought in the back of my mind that I was a little low on fuel I headed out for the warm up lap. Not to my surprise on the 3rd lap going down the back straight I felt a slight hesitation in the engine. Knowing exactly what had happened I coasted to a stop and waited for the race to finish. So a very eventful first race, only 5 of the 9 125's that started the race finished! I was quite happy to have already achieved my goal of a 1.43 but my laptimes were still pretty inconsistent jumping from 1.43 to 1.45 then back down to 1.43!

The second race came round after the lunch break and it was a very similar situation to the first race (bar the red flags). Third into the first corner, following Cameron and Tim for half a lap and then they slowly rode away from me. Then Jaden coming past me and me not quite able to keep pace with him, I was however becoming slightly more consistent with my lap times. Tim had a bit of misfortune with his front sprocket coming loose and so I finished the race in 3rd.

The final race of the day arrived and by now the breeze had picked up and was quite noticable, especially down the back straight. My lack of riding was also starting to show up. My physical fitness is fine but my race fitness is definately something I need to build on. So I was quite tentative in this race, knowing I was comfortablly the 4th fastest there I cruised around and aimed at setting some 1.45 lap times and testing out some different braking markers. I crossed the line in 4th after the 6 lap race and that was the end of the days proceedings.

So a fairly productive meeting in my view. No crashes and achieving my goal of a 1.43 second lap. Next meeting I will continue to work on some more consistent lap times and just getting more time on the bike will leave me in good steed for nationals. I expect the front running pace at nationals to be 1.41 to 1.40, so with new tyres and a rebuilt engine I am satisified that I will be capable of being at the pointy end.