Promoting TKM

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TKM doesn’t get a lot of publicity. I’ve always found Tal-Ko very helpful but their marketing campaign consists almost entirely of bigging themselves up when their team does well or when there is an opportunity to dispel some of the paddock gossip, be that proving that the Tag engine is as strong as its Direct Drive counterpart or the big bearing crankcase performing as well as the older small bearing equivalent. It’s a shame because it’s almost the perfect class: the engine parity is renown, there really is only a couple of tenths between most of the engines, and it is by far the cheapest class to start with 20+ years of engines out there on the used market. There is a lot to shout about and yet nobody does.

MSA numbers for TKM have dropped again with the rise of X30 taking a good chunk of the elite TKM drivers and IKR has been biting little pieces off of the budget end of the market. To give credit where it is due Tal-Ko have indentified Honda Cadet drivers as the Junior TKM entrants of tomorrow and have opened up the Festival to them. Hopefully they are rewarded with a good sized grid, we’ll soon see.

I’ve been mulling things over for some time and sent my thoughts to Tal-Ko last month. For me, TKM needs to establish itself as the undisputed budget class. Cheap entry to the class is one thing but, with tyres good for only two race days, engines needing a rebuild every ten hours and parts priced up there with the best of them, you can see why Rotax owners would quite rightly argue their case. Little can be done with regards the engine rebuild time, consider it the cost of such good engine parity but the tyres are another matter. The softer Maxxis New Age slick tyre was apparently introduced in response to driver demand for a grippier tyre and to enable to TKM to take on Rotax. X30 has rocked up and clearly displaced TKM as the Rotax beater. It is time for Tal-Ko to have a rethink; to take the class back to it’s roots. Imagine a set of tyres that cost £99/set and that were good for five races – now that’s a headline grabber. The harder tyre mandated for all five races of the series has been a hit at Clay Pigeon IKR. I think it would be a hit for MSA TKM. With cheaper tyres, I’d forgive Tal-Ko on the engine parts pricing! Can Tal-Ko afford to do something like this? One might question whether they can afford not to…

So what about promotion? I’m just one bloke who loves the class but I’m not going to be able to turn things around on my own. With that in mind, I yesterday created the Formula TKM Owners Group on Facebook. It was a spur of the moment thing, who knows whether it will fly. Hopefully it will engage the younger drivers who couldn’t care less about the mainstream karting forums. If we can get people discussing the class and sell how enjoyable the class is maybe we can turn things around. It’s worth a try at least!

Ahh, the exhaust cloud of a decent TKM grid...

Ahh, the exhaust cloud of a decent TKM grid…

 

Looking at the data

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After all of the preparation and the hectic three-day karting weekend, it’s been a case of leaving the kart well alone and enjoying free time this week. I’ve no enthusiasm to clean the kart at the moment but I did get around to downloading the Alfano data to take a look at the data logging.

I’ve said it before but the Alfano ADM BOX4-GPS really is a fantastic piece of kit. It lays all of the data out in front of you, in a single window and it’s great to see how the sessions unfolded, when the tyres came on and how we fared in the traffic against how we ran with some clear track in front of us.

ScreenShot 035The data itself is a little surprising; the rev range suggests that we might have considered a sprocket change, Junior’s fastest laps don’t look that clean in terms of the nice, smooth acceleration out of the corners that you’d expect to see. Most surprising was a string of laps that Junior put in when running with his pals in the second heat: four laps within 0.04s and a theoretical best amongst those that would have missed the track record by only 0.05s! Of course a theoretical best means very little and it goes to show the benefit of having a tow. If anybody is going to break the lap record any time soon they’ll be doing it on their way to front rather than simply driving away from the pack! It is pleasing but largely meaningless if you lack the race craft to put your kart on the podium. It’s almost as if the second phase of Junior’s karting education begins now and I can’t help but wonder if this is where the hard part begins…

Nice theoretical!

This is what we should be aiming for!

A proper TKM Extreme grid at Llandow?!?

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With all of the excitement of the weekend, I negated to comment on how great it was to see a sizable TKM Extreme grid at Llandow. I’d not seen one before in my time at the club, not even when Super One came to visit! The TKM Southern Championships have proved a great success for drivers (I’m not certain that CPKC would agree given that it is pretty much their entire grid that has gone on tour) and it was great to catch up with my chums from TKM Corner (the area of the Clay Pigeon paddock renowned for hosting the junior and senior TKM drivers). Extreme has always been a great spectacle and so it proved again.

With Junior likely to move up to Extreme at the end of this year, hopefully we can generate sufficient interest to form a permanent grid at Llandow for 2016.

Coming of age

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This was our biggest race weekend of the year; the time to see how close we had gotten to the pace after our April front-running and a final year exam enforced break in May. I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. Friday practice had been frustrating with Junior driving around largely alone and 4/10ths off the pace. I had booked overnight accommodation for the Saturday night without having really considered that scrutineering was taking place on Saturday and not Sunday morning so it was an early start as we headed to Wales.

With the awning already up, I got the kart built and had the relative luxury of an hours break before first practice. The morning was up and down; we were pretty close to the pace with the benefit of being able to chase one of Junior’s two friends who were clearly going to be setting the pace for the weekend but, when we were on our own and without a fast kart to follow, we were 3/10ths down. Junior was much too hot into a couple of the corners. Qualifying was always going to be interesting. The two pace setters were good friends of ours and have given us an awful lot of help over the months/years. One of the dads was the person who had ‘fixed’ our brakes and to whom I owe a life debt, the other had been helping me pretty much since Day 1! They knew that we’d be looking for a tow and you could sense a ‘cat and mouse’ type situation arising. We hung about waiting to see how the karts were forming on the grid. One of our potential suitors went to the very head of the grid, the other to the back. We stayed at the back and followed them out. I had briefed Junior that it was very likely they’d back off and let us pass; I told him to do likewise if that happened – at some point they’d both need to get their heads down since they only had 5 mins to put in a lap! As it turned out, our guide backed off and Junior just carried on. He was caught and passed and then the two of them started racing! It was one of those ‘WTF?’ moments that I was to have several of over the weekend. They diced and caught a pack of four drivers. Instead of backing off they just carried on!?! In qualifying it really did beggar belief.

Fortunately for them both, the timing sheets put them on the front row for Heat #1 with the my brake saviour’s lad in third. I felt awful! Although it would be rude not to acknowledge the benefit of the coaching we’d received in February, pretty much our entire karting turnaround was down them and Junior had just qualified ahead of them. Worse, I picked up the timing sheets from the office for the three of us (one of us or the kids  always does) but didn’t know what to say when I handed over the sheet. I couldn’t have looked more sheepish had you covered me in cotton wool and put me out to graze!!!

P2 is not a good place to be at Llandow, particularly since the start was switched from Hangar Straight to the finish line. In TKM especially, the karts bog down as they have to take a very tight hairpin and second can find themselves having to back off to allow the pole man to get alongside just as the pole man is thinking of going. Starting third is a much better place to be. That proved to be the case here and the race became something of a procession: junior dropped to third into the first corner and the three of them worked together, staying single file and finding themselves increasing their lead by half a second a lap. Junior was third but never challenged; to be honest we were really happy to finish there (matching our best ever finish but this time it was on merit and not reliant upon DNFs) and just wanted to continue in that vein. The rest of the field were nowhere near them. Perhaps it was a chassis thing, perhaps it was a track familiarity/setup thing for those visiting with the TKM Southern Championship (the field was missing a couple of very quick locals but those that were there were no slouches) or perhaps it was three very strong engines. I wasn’t bothered to be honest 😉

It was a great feeling to see Junior going so well. Saturday evening at the restaurant was a happy place even if my buddies stood me up and left Junior and I dining alone!

Considering we stayed over and didn’t have to scrutineer early, Sunday morning somehow became a mad rush. The kart was just about assembled for the 3-lap warm up although the fuel hose and tank were not cable-tied. I quickly sorted that out after the warm-up and soon focused on the strategic game that had become qualifying. This was to be probably the highlight of my weekend; on the Saturday we were clearly hanging on and trying to use our friends to tow us around. We took our kart to the back of the grid, alongside the friends with whom we’d qualified on the front row the day before and tentative discussions began over our plans. It was a little bit cagey as I didn’t want to be seen to asking for his help but it was clear that we’d been mutually beneficial to one another in Q1. We agreed to do something similar for Q2. We were joined by the other dad with whom we had formed the lead trio the day before. I think there was probably a point at which we were all wondering what each other was really thinking but we agreed to hang back, let the pack go and then we’d each do a stint at the front of our own group of three and just see how qualifying unfolded. The thing that struck me most was that we’d been accepted as equals, not as some leech to shake off 😀 Qualifying went really well and they were clearly going very quickly. The on-kart data loggers had Junior at the front and, pleasingly, it wa a lap he’d set when at the head of the group. Unfortunately, the circuit timers had him in second by 0.007s.

Heat #2 didn’t quite go according to plan: Junior had another poor start in second and lost two places but quickly worked his way back to third and had almost caught the leaders by the end, setting the fastest time in the process. Things were looking good.

The Pre-Final was the low point. The three drivers had been in a league of their own up until this point and, although things were starting to get a bit more serious, the plan remained unchanged: get clear without fighting, pull a gap then fight for the final grid positions. Unfortunately, Junior suffered a brain fade: he took the lead on lap #2 and initiated the kind of scrap the spectators enjoy seeing in JTKM (and that had been notable by it’s absence thus far) but that left the dads slamming their heads into walls. The pole-sitter fought back and was followed by third. I didn’t see any of this since I had stayed at the pit bend to act as a pusher if anybody span off (it’s funny how the closest post and the furthest post are largely unmanned with most pushers mid-track where the views are best!) but I think that Junior got miffed at some part of this process and the race mist descended. It ended with Junior losing momentum and position. He was third again by the final lap but defended the final corner poorly and was done on the line. I couldn’t believe it. ‘WTF’ doesn’t come near to describing my feelings. You could see it in the faces of the dads and their kids: “What was he thinking?” Junior couldn’t answer that one. I know that racers will race but there are times when you need to use your head and this one had cost us.

I’d have bitten your hand off if you had offered me P4 for the final at the start of the weekend and, although it was not disastrous, it was a huge setback. After a poor start to the weekend, P3 had made some serious inroads into what had been a comfortable advantage over the rest of the field and was now well in the mix. The start would be massive; Junior was going to have to take some chances in order to keep with the front row. Junior still looked a bit downhearted on the dummy grid and it was really nice that the person we’d had coach us in February left his own driver and spent a few minutes sat with Junior and gave him some encouragement 🙂 He made a good start, going around the outside of The Hook to maintain fourth and took third with a move down the inside in Surtees that continued to the entry to MacWhirters as P3 tried to hold it around the outside. There was contact and P3 touched the grass as Junior cut across into the corner. I couldn’t really see the incident properly from my pushing post at Chandler’s (do I sound like Arsene Wenger???) but P3 may have had reason to feel aggrieved with Junior cutting him up. As the race unfolded and the front four pulled clear Junior couldn’t shake off fourth, who was all over Junior up Hangar Straight. It was clear to me at this point we’d probably be ousted from the podium. Junior lost his place with three or four laps remaining, again into Surtees and again there was contact as it was Junior this time who tried to hold it around the outside, lost out and crucially lost momentum. It looked ok to me, just two drivers battling hard for the final podium place. He was angry when he came in but I think it was one of those very one-sided driver opinions; he’d given at least as good as he got over the course of the race. Our two other friends had duked it out on the last lap to take the ‘C’ Plate, with it going to our official Brake Advisors 😉 on the final corner.

It was a tough result to take and neither of us could help but feel a little gutted at coming home empty handed having been in the podium places most of the weekend. I was glad that we were third at one point in the final so that the Pre-Final nonsense was not the sole cause of our downfall. We held third and it was there for us if we were good enough. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Junior and I had an unusually long chat on the way home and he’s a little chirpier now that he realises what he has accomplished. From the back to the front in two race weekends. From not being able to put in a hot lap without following somebody to leading his homeboys and putting in some stunning times through the day, even without a tow and fastest in three of the final day’s four races including the final! At his cost he’s learnt how he needs to defend the final corner properly and that it is really important to know when to work together for mutual benefit. He has come a long way in a very short space of time. Being the quickest gets you nothing without good race craft and that’s something that will only come with experience of battling it out at the front. We never really looked like winning any of the heats all weekend.The hard work will start now as Junior seeks to rectify this but this felt like the meeting where we came of age. Hopefully we’re here now boys so watch your backs… 😉

Thanks to Llandow Kart Club for a very well-run weekend 🙂

Cost of race weekend: Entry fee £100, petrol (car) £12, fuel (kart) £6, accommodation £48, food £40, new fuel tank, chain lube, exhaust springs, £32

Total spent this year: £2,570

A *massive* weekend

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Tomorrow sees Junior’s first race since his pace-setting if short-lived heat in April where he suddenly found some proper pace. Not only is it the June club round but the Welsh Championships no less! Llandow has a special ‘C’ plate up for grabs, one of the handful of ABKC recognised plates available. It adds a little something extra to the meeting, especially with racing taking place over two days and it will be only our second time we’ve had to qualify, something we weren’t too great at on our onyl other effort at Clay’s charity meeting last year!

I wanted to get our eye in early so picked Junior up straight after his penultimate GCSE exam this morning (Friday) and headed to the track. We arrived and pitched up a little further from our pit buddies than usual but it was good to get the awning set up nice and early. Initial practice was hit and miss, we combined our ‘installation’ laps with scrubbing in the race tyres although Junior decided he didn’t like his leaking fuel tank lid and came in after only two laps. Consider the race tyres partially scrubbed in! I wasn’t happy with the burning smell emitting from the engine thanks to not priming the carb!?! Who forgets to prime carbs after all this time??? It was a new one on me and I blame Junior for rushing me 😉 Checking inside the engine meant missing the next session and then we had an enforced break as the track had some corporate karts running. We finally got down to business at around 3pm and spent the next three hours trying to find the half second that we were down compared to the front runners. It’s fair to say that I am expecting us to be in the pack tomorrow but this deficit was a little disappointing and Junior didn’t look to be running the most fantastic lines I’ve ever seen. This confirmed that we probably won’t be instantly returning to the head of the pack although, unusually for us, we actually got to test some stuff: axles and sprockets which found us a couple of the missing tenths. I think that running in the pack may help curb some of the corner entries as he seemed to be back to trying to carry too much speed again. At least his brakes are still holding up.

It’s going to be a bit of an early start tomorrow, not helped by my not realising that we’d be scrutineering at 8am. See you on Sunday evening 🙂

Cost of day: Practice fee £20, petrol £12, fuel £6
Spent since last post: New axle £60, new sprocket carrier £25, new sprocket £14, replacement chainguard fixings £8, new grub screws £6, new engine mount bolts £3

Total spent this year: £2,322

Buy cheap, buy twice

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I’m the sort of bloke who likes to do things his own way. I’m do look for different/better/cheaper ways of doing things. Sometimes I am very happy with the outcomes: the FP7 bodywork, custom decals, changing to an Alfano ADM. S but sometimes these things don’t pay off, action cameras would be a good example. Having tried an ActionPro back in 2013 that just wasn’t up to the shake-athon that is karting (the waterproof case broke, as did its replacement), I had bought a Sony for Christmas. I had high hopes for this but it, too, failed to cope with the demands of karting. Whilst the picture quality with the image stablisation was comparable to that of a GoPro, it appeared to suffer from an issue whereby the vibration was moving the battery sufficiently to power off the unit! My success rate in actually recording a session was around 20%. Then there was the problem that camera lacked a fully functional tile mount and I had to bodge a solution myself. It was a good job that I have GPS on the Alfano too, as the Sony’s… well, let’s just say you wouldn’t have recognised Llandow! The Sony went (quite literally) on eBay recently; when an item goes after 45 minutes you know it was probably underpriced! I have an option of a 4k GoPro loan whenever I need it so we’ll see how that goes.

Another purchase that didn’t pay off was a recent purchase of a box of Walbro carb kits from the US. $4.99 a piece was a great price. Too great in fact as the kits were non-Walbro. So much for the Walbro logo on the image!!! Another heading-straight-to-resale purchase :/

Switching topics completely, I was miffed to find Junior’s steering wheel turned out to be bent and in need of replacement. Luckily one came up on UK Karting and, on the day I was going to contact the seller to haggle a price, it was relisted with a £50 reduction 😀

Deja vu? I had expected the last one to last a little longer if I am honest :(

Deja vu? I had expected the last one to last a little longer if I am honest 🙁

Spent since last post: New OTK steering wheel £90

Total spent this year: £2,168

Senior Prokart at Clay Pigeon IKR

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Not Junior obviously! Since going down the owner/driver route my track time has dropped down to a couple of outings per year. I’d driven the JTKM at Clay’s IKR in a parent’s race last year and done ‘ok’. To be honest, I didn’t really enjoy not feeling in control of the kart at any point during the day! I’d also driven the corporate karts at Clay and been pretty damn quick if I say so myself 😉 Senior Prokart seemed like the perfect compromise so I bagged myself a rental kart and took the plunge.

I struggled to cope with the fairly hard tyres in practice although the kart felt good and the engines seemed to be strong based on my catching people down the straight. My Hairpin and Top Bend were letting me down a bit but a qualified in 8th of 12. Then things started to go south: in Race #1, I got hung out on the outside of the entry to The Esses and panicked, hitting the brakes and spinning (the reality is that the person I thought was hanging me out had actually conceded the corner to me!). I got going again but felt a loss of power a lap or so later. It felt like I was running on a single engine but, when I pitted, both engines were running. The problem was identified a throttle cable issue and duly rectified. At least that was what we thought. I new as soon as I left the pits for the pre-final that I was in the same boat and I was dropping away as soon as the karts sped up to begin the race 🙁 I was pretty peeved at this point and was thinking that I should have entered a pay as you drive arrangement! 😉

The problem was fixed for the final. I began in last and made a decent start. I think I gained a good number of places at Billies as there was some contact which I was able to drive around the outside of. Then the two karts in front of me decided to quite literally try to run one another off the track!?! I ‘d never seen anything like it. The Super One clerk would have had a fit!!! I passed them as they messed around although I think that may have made them wake up to themselves and focus on the race. They soon passed me and I lost another place before I settled into my rhythm and tried to catch some people. I wouldn’t say that I was at ease with the kart but it certainly pulled well out of the corners. I made a few nice moves slipstreaming down the straight, pulling out around The Kink and then parking it on the apex at Billies to prevent the cutback to bring it home in a repsectable 7th place. It was an awful lot of fun 😀

It was another good day at Clay IKR. The atmosphere is something I’ve enjoyed on both visits. Although I can’t see Junior switching from MSA anytime soon, I’d definitely do it again although I have my eye on an endurance event for next time.

She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid

“She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid”

Back to the track, finally :)

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With Junior well into his GCSEs, May had until now been a no karting month for us. We missed the club round (although, had I not been cheering my team on at Wembley, I may have put in a very late entry). With Junior already revising to the max and in need of a welcome break, the May holiday gave us a chance to run in our race motor.

We had a very troubled morning. Junior stopped next to me on track after only two laps to say his brakes weren’t working properly. Not that old chestnut I hear you shout! Not really: the nut holding the brake pedal bolt had departed and both bolt and pedal were in the process of setting themselves free 😮 I told Junior to ease back into the pits and I’d sort it out but it was then that I noticed his exhaust hanging off. The extension bar had snapped, clearly a result of our big exit from the April meeting; during my kart prep I had checked everything was secured but the bar was damaged. And I so hate pushing the kart off-track on a trolley…

With the bar replaced, we got back to running-in. The next session went fine but afterwards I noticed some oil around the manifold so checked the bolts were tight (as I had swapped manifolds between my engines at the rebuild) and cleaned up the oil with the intention of checking this after the next session .You don’t need me to tell you what happened next. I couldn’t be certain that the kart *was* sounding rough. When you focus on something it always seems worse. I stood next to Hangar Straight and listened intently. It was sounding a little rough. Three corners later the manifold snapped.

Lesson #246: when your exhaust has been hanging off, ALWAYS REMOVE THE MANIFOLD FOR VISUAL INSPECTION 🙁

It was lunchtime before we got some good track time and 3pm before running-in was complete (Bambinos!). Just for the running-in (and because all of my practice tyres are rubbish), I had put on some EasyKart tyres that I had been given a year ago and that had been sat in the garage since. They had a lot of tread left and, in his first session at full chat, Junior had beaten his old (pre-transformation!) PB on them which, after running-in, was my only real goal for the test day. He was keen to move onto the Maxxis Slicks to get a more representative time but was 2/10ths slower on older tyres that I had mounted onto a set of Gillard full mags that I had been shelved since last summer. I’d have used our Douglas rims had I not been too lazy to remove last month’s race tyres from them (far too good for non-race weekend practice!). I had negated to check pressures after our first session on the Maxxis tyres but noticed the front left was running at 2.5psi before we went out for the next session!?! I quickly corrected this and Junior then went out and enjoyed a good tussle with one of his friends with whom he’d raced against last year but who had moved to Junior Rotax (boo!). When he came back in, his tyre showed 2.8psi. Houston, we have a problem… A leaky bead retainer was to blame. We switched back to the EasyKart tyres and found the missing 2/10ths. Although lonely practice days are good for track time, it’s always a bit of a shame when there is nobody from your class against whom to gauge your speed. The Llandow track has definitely lost a little of it’s pace since April so I think our times were fairly good, certainly there was no sign of us losing the pace we found last month 😀

A couple more sessions and our day was done. The morning problems had been irritating but the afternoon was good enough and my new push start bar worked very nicely. I had bought it because my back was still bothering me from the April race weekend and I never want to be in a position again where my fitness (or lack of) threatens to ruin Junior’s weekend. I have to give credit to South Wales Karting Centre: we had packed up and left at 6:15pm and there will still owner/drivers on track. I know a lot of circuits who’d be kicking people off as soon as the clock struck 5pm!

*Very* impressed with the image quality on the 4k GoPro I borrowed...

*Very* impressed with the image quality on the 4k GoPro I borrowed…

Cost of day: Practice fee £40, petrol £12, fuel £10
Spent since last post: Push start bar £40, 2x Shell M Oil 15

Total spent this year: £2,078

A race observer? Me???

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Having kind of done marshalling courtesy of a marshal training day at Whilton Mill, I’m well on my way to completing the set with my latest stint at officaldom courtesy of volunteering to help Llandow Kart Club run the Super One Series third round last weekend. Although I had a mini panic attack when told I was to act as the observer on the final corner, it was another enlightening experience. It’s not an easy job: as the grid approached I focused on the closest karts and wacthed those until they past the apex and then switched back to pick the next candidates. Where they were bunched closely, I just had to watch the apex – I could see the final 10m of the entry to the corner but it’s at the apex where the lunges or rear shunts came. Yes, it can be a very difficult task especially in the larger grids and there will be times when the observer misses a big incident simply because they are watching other karts but, if I can do it…

I did have help: the clerk was also stood at my corner for much of the meeting but that enabled me to discuss everything we saw and get his view on things. There was a lot to learn: that you needn’t necessarily give someone room who has run wide provided you aren’t deviating from your line (it’s down to them to back off and fall in line), that the best clerks really do see the sport as non-contact (this Super One clerk handed out a warning to pretty much every initiator of contact) and, if you gained a place from making contact, the chances are that you’d be losing that place an four more! I got the sense that there was some inconsistency however as there were some incidents reported at other corners that perhaps leniently went unpunished. It really enforced the feeling that clubs *must* have dedicated observers: neither the clerks or the marshals have a primary role of reporting incidents. It’s a concern of mine as the Llandow seem to have done away with race observers for their club meetings.

So it’s two down and two to go although I cannot see myself acting as clerk, nor scrutineer anytime soon 😉

My office for the day...

My office for the day…

31 days after last touching the kart…

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Having mulled over the prospect of submitting a late entry for Junior, my wife soon knocked that idea on the head. It wasn’t the fact that Junior had an exam the next day; he’d done five hours of English Literature preparation at school on Saturday, it was more the small issue that I was going to Wembley to watch my team play in the Football Conference playoff final!

With us planning to run our race in at Llandow next week, I really had to get out and attend to the kart which had been untouched since I removed the engine/chain/fuel after April race day. This ‘karting holiday’ was pretty much the longest I’d had since we started. First things first, the steering wheel is bent 🙁 Being a chip on the shoulder type of person doesn’t really help although I do hope that I will stop resenting those that cause my wallet pain at some point 😉 The steering column had already been straightened previously was bent fairly high up the column so I decided to just bin that. The front end is mostly back together now although I might try giving the bumper a little TLC with some decal colour insulation tape in a bid to restore the bumpers appearance, at least from distance 😉

I'm sure there's a kart under there...

I’m sure there’s a kart under there…

In other news, I’ve bought a push start bar! I like to think of myself as a pretty fit bloke but I am getting on a bit  and my back (injured on the practice Saturday last month) is still causing me some issues. The bar came up at a really good price and, with one eye on the next practice day and another on Junior getting heavier and running in seniors in the future, I took the plunge. I plan to use it a my primary means of push starting. No sense making my back work unnnecessarily!