Besides sleeping or being in a coma, doing stuff when you’re tired is never a good idea, and when I rocked up at Hungary’s Pannonia-ring at silly O’ clock on Saturday morning, I was precisely that.

The day had started well. I had breezed through work and was ready to grab a train to Stansted and jump on a Ryanair flight to Bratislava-Vienna, grab a car from the airport car park and drive the hour or so into Hungary.

However, it was just the start of Another Feisty Adventure when my long-suffering boyfriend (LSBF) and I stood on the platform at Peterboghorror station and watched as the Stansted train, which we had been trying to get into for a good 30 seconds, rolled away.

Angry wasn’t the word for it.

We called back the taxi which had dropped us off, and paid a minor fortune for it to take us to the airport. “It’s just another Feisty Adventure,” I said to LSBF. His reply sounded like: “Of course dear, never mind, eh?” Well, that’s what I heard anyway.

The flight went without a hitch and, apart from a good ten minutes arguing with a Hungarian left-luggage attendant who was adamant no-one had left a rucksack with him containing keys to said car, the whole thing wasn’t that hard. Especially when he found said rucksack in front of his nose.

We rolled in to the Pannoniaring, woke Deb up, went and signed on that night as the office was open, and retired to our at-track hotel. Well, it was more like Stalag-luft 13 but it was a bed… Well, I say bed, it was more like an the front door to Steptoe’s Yard with many and varied rusty instruments of torture poking out of it. Ahem…

A bit later on Saturday morning, after being kept awake by people making a lot of noise and switching exterior lights on, we started prepping the bikes. Then it started to rain, so we retired to breakfast and discussed the weekend ahead.

Deb had been to the track on a number of occasions already, and had given me an overview which basically consisted of the fact that you need balls to go fast round here, and getting under 2min 15secs on a first visit would be a reasonable aim. The fastest boys are squeezing in under two minutes, but this is a hard track to learn with lots of places to lose time. I decided not to even look at the track before venturing out as I’m rubbish at applying what I see to actually cruising round.

By the time the tempest had died down and the track was only mildly damp, we had missed the first two sessions, so I decided to potter out on my own and take a look. Deb wasn’t wrong about this being hard to learn. More than most tracks I can see that you have to tag onto the back of the fast riders to find out the best way round – either that or keep coming back for a few weeks and use trial and error to learn it. The trouble with the first option is tagging on the back requires getting up to speed in the first place… when it’s damp… hmm. The latter just isn’t an option. Instead I just did my usual trick of shutting my eyes and crossing everything until things felt right.

The best bit was the lack of having to make any adjustments to the bike. Admittedly I was on completely the wrong gearing – far too tall for the longest straight – but that didn’t really start to bother me until the middle of day two. The combination of the forgiving R1, the Dunlop D209GP tyres and good basic Ohlins suspension settings allowed me to concentrate on learning – I had no issues with feedback at all. Given another couple of days on track to really learn the place I would hope to be easily hitting 2min 5 or under. Although you can’t tell until you do it!

In fact the biggest factor against me was my aching body! No matter what sort of exercise you put in off-season, nothing prepares muscles for the track except riding on the track. You can squat thrust and push weights all you like, disco dance all weekend or persuade your LSBF that you absolutely, positively must go on top, but your thighs will still scream for mercy after a couple of 15 minutes sessions pushing your limits on a track.

The weekend was sold as an Austrian club race, but in fact is similar to format to most European organized track days – you don’t need a race licence (in fact no-one even asks to see a bike licence) – and you can race if you want to. There are championships to compete in and for practices, the sessions at Pannonia-ring were split into those who circumnavigate in over or under 2mins 15secs. We had a few free practices sessions, timed practice (qualifying) and one race per day.

My first session on day one was a qualifying session. Needless to say I qualified near the back of the over-600cc field, but I did have another good couple of sessions before the race. For the race itself, the grid was pretty full and the first corner was full of brave chancers. For me this was a shake-down so I wasn’t taking any risks. I watched them fight for position then got into my stride, taking a few places back over the next few corners then picking them off gradually over the course of the next few laps. I had, however, grossly miscalculated the fuel situation – the engine started spluttering on lap 5 of 10. Oops. I managed to nurse it back to pit lane and ran out fully as I pulled back up to the van. I’d managed a best time of 2min 12secs; not too shabby but still not good enough for self-pride and world-conquering.

Having had a truly terrible sleep the previous night, I decided the solution was to sink a bottle and a half of vino collapso, much to the amusement of LSBF and Deb. It had the desired effect though – a full night’s kip. Day two dawned chilly but sunny with muscles requesting a nice cup of tea and a sit down. For some reason though, my limited mortality decided to play on my mind, translating into slow sessions from basic fear of hurting myself.

I blame Deb entirely for talking about how bad local medical care might be and how it played on her mind. It passed me by until that point!! I didn’t manage to shake the fear until the last session of the day – the race. Again I qualified badly but made up for it in the race, having some good battles and getting a best lap time of 2min 9secs.

Unfortunately a mechanical issue let me down again, as I felt the bike mis-firing down the start/finish straight yet again on lap five. I knew it wasn’t fuel as the light wasn’t even on! Well, after nursing it round the first two corners I opened it up again and the bike seemed to be fine. Maybe it was my body asking the bike to slow down due to fatigue. Anyway by now I’d lost my playmates and with them the drive to fight up the field again. I pottered round for another lap then called it a day.

If this outing has taught me one thing, it is that fitness is paramount. I’m still sore now so I have devised a plan for myself and LSBF (and you should see the enthusiasm in his face) which involves Pilates, swimming and squash. And plenty of horizontal jogging… but we’ve only got a week before the first EWC round at Misano.
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