Darrell "Bullet" Knight #12 Press Releases
SA ATV MX Titles
Tuesday, 31 August 2010 13:28 | Written by Darrell Knight |
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Wednesday August 25th, and Bullet finds out that numbers are looking slim for a Senior Production Class at the SA State Titles to be held at ACUSA Park, Harrogate, SA. Bullets bike was certainly up to the task; A 2010 DS450X MX with about 5 hours on the clock is just old enough to have the personal set up spot on and be ready to race in its impressive standard trim. Bullet however was more recently accustomed to back to back working away from home, with minimal riding limited to coaching and Outlander Demonstrations. Not the ideal sport persons approach to an MX Title. Saturday morning came around and the rain had stopped for the first time in a solid week. The titles were going to be a muddy one. In the Veterans 35+ class Bullet was allowed perform what ever modifications he thought necessary to tackle the conditions. A set of Flexx Handlebars and a steering damper added that little extra comfort to the job. A new set of ITP Holeshot SX 18 inch rears tyres (Bullets favourite MX tyre) were thrown on for the job. With only 5 class entrants, the Vets 35 and Vets 45 classes were combined. Bullet would be lining up with ‘old' team mate Rob Van Vleit... a self confessed holeshot king. The gate dropped, and the old bastard was off like lightening, with Bullet hot on his heels. Line selection was important for the early races, and Bullet waited for an easy overtake to help keep the radiator clean and not risk taking out his team mate. Once in front Bullet made it look easy and worked the new Can-Am to establish a big lead and hold it for the 3 laps and take the win. The next Vets race went pretty much the same way. At the end of the day, amongst a very full grid, 2 strong Can-Am teams fronted for the Manufacturers cup. Chad, Bullet and MrsB would be a hard team to beat. But the other Can-Ams of Jake, Rob and Chloe might just do it. It was a huge start, and hard to keep track of who was where in the pack. The field was staggered all over the place but 3 Can-Ams of Chad, Jake and Bullet crossed the line first. MrsB won good points in the pack to ensure a 2 point lead for the team. 24 hours without rain and the track dried out well for Sundays racing. Bullet hassled and joked with Rob about stealing his holeshots, but was unable to even come close in any Vets class race. "Rob is consistently great off the starts, but i am confident flying passed him early in the race. This allowed me to try a heap of different techniques on the line and gauge overall performance against Rob. We experimented and learnt a bit, but I only ever got Rob in one Manufacturers cup holeshot challenge for the whole event. He's good." Bullet said. With all the 35 Vets race wins under his belt, the 2nd Manufacturers Cup at the end of the event was the last big one. The gate dropped and it was on. The big field was lead by half a dozen Can-Ams into the first corner. The way they were going, you wouldn't know that most of them were team mates. Things went pair shaped at the ski jump on the top straight. Jake hit it tapped in 4th gear probably close to 100kmh and flew way too long, and too high with his team mate Chad hot on his heels. The landing in rough ground was simply too much and Jake exploded into a cartwheeling mess that Chad could now avoid tangling with. Fortunately the Flaggie was on to it, and with a split second warned Bullet who was just overtaking for 3rd right behind them and airborn while the bikes in front were still tumbling. It was a really big crash that left Bullet with an easy lead. Chad managed to get back on, and work his way back to second place and together with MrsB's placing, they took out the Manufacturers cup for the SA State Title. Another great day out for the old Bullet with a faultless run and 2 first place podiums under the belt. "Thanks to QRASA and their volunteers for a top notch first state title event. And a big personal thanks to my fantastic sponsors".
Last Updated (Wednesday, 01 September 2010 21:17) QRASA Enduro round 2. Peake.
Monday, 19 July 2010 12:42 | Written by Darrell Knight |
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Peake is the coolest sand patch that you can tear around on your quad close to Adelaide. On July 18, it was the coolest sand patch that you could run a 3 hour enduro. I teamed up with good mate Froggy on his Honda to tackle the cold and drizzly day. My Outlander has not been in the best books lately, so the beast is off at the doctors. Like any good day time soapy, when the old one is out of town for a while... there is always the chance that a fancy new piece of equipment might slide onto the scene. Enter Bullets new 2010 DS450X MX. Now that's a sexy new quad. Technically there aren't many major differences with the 2010 model. BRP have always had a good thing with the previous DS models, but as usual they can't help themselves in tweaking and adding a heap of little refinements. The closer you look the more you see... and I probably have not even found them all yet. Starting with the obvious, the Nerf Bar Heel Baskets with the webbing are new. The vertical louver radiator grill is new, and cosmetically, the yellow centre piece in the plastics adds a bright splash. Some of the minor frame parts differ slightly and the rear engine mount now incorporates a rubber mounting. Under the seat, the battery cradle is now a stronger fixed chassis unit which means the racer can simply unbolt and remove the rear guards without playing with wiring. The rear spring has a shorter free length and offers better adjustment, and the rear shock valving feels more firm than the previous model XMX. For this first race out of the box, all i did was throw the 22 inch ITP Holeshot SR's on the front and a set of 22 inch Fury rears for improved chassis clearance in the sand tracks. Other than that, air box lid on and exhaust baffle still in, with 20 minutes on the clock and the first XPS oil change out the way, it's off we go racing. Team mate Froggy started the first leg for us after pulling number 2 for the peg draw to send us out as the first team. After watching the clean get away, i went and hid out of the rain and waited my turn with while watching through a gap in the distant sand dunes where i expected Froggy to shoot through. Froggy showed up in good time, tapped my rear tyres and it was my turn to tackle the race. The DS instantly felt good. With most of my high speed compression settings wound off front and rear, the DS suspension was loving life out in the dunes. While the bottom end power almost feels wanting in stock standard form, it is surprising how fast the quad is still moving while you are in that rev range. As the revs climb the Rotax engine just delivers more and more in a very linear fashion all the way to a high 10,200rpm redline. There are no nasty surprises in the consistent power delivery which makes it very easy to ride fast and knocks out a lot of rider fatigue in longer races. My lap times were right up there with the fastest riders on modified bikes and i will bet i felt more comfortable during the race. Both Froggy and i seemed to be overtaking people throughout the day over the 12 minute loop track. The sand was wet, so the ruts cut deaper and the whoops were packing up harder toward the end of the race. The G-out dippers and higher sand dunes were my favourite bits, and while it was great to race the DS in it's dead stock form... one thing i did miss as the day went on, was my Flexx Handle bars. Maybe i'm just old and soft, but you do get used to Flexx bars and once you are hooked, you really notice it when you are racing without them. By comparison, i hardly noticed the lacking steering damper. Of all the quads, because of the DS's advanced steering geometry, they would need one the least anyway. Under race pressure, I think everyone had a few visits off line into the trees which opened up many overtaking opportunities. There were a few bikes falling out with more major DNF's, but i managed to steer clear of them and keep good lap times as the track got rougher. Because we started as first team off the line, with many lapped riders in the field we struggled to work out how we were running. I threw on my last pair of dry gloves and saddled up for the final lap. This is where you still want to run hot, but not risk a DNF... or the whole day to that point would count for nothing. Crossing the finish line clean to shake hands with my team mate, all we could do was wait, pack up and unwind until the results came through. Teams 1st Darrell ‘Bullet' Knight & Peter ‘Froggy' Chambers 2nd Howard ‘Howie' Reed & Dean McMillan 3rd Chelsea DeBoo & Donna Newman Ironman 1st Wess Cowie 2nd Dominic S 3rd Brenton Potts There is no better way to spend a rainy day. Thank you to all the competitors support crews and mostly the race officials. PS. Don't tell my Outlander about the DS :)
Last Updated (Thursday, 22 July 2010 04:21) |
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