Coyote take first points at
Snetterton
April 21, 2002 - An impressive 50 riders sprinted across
the circuit Le Mans style, to start Round 1 of the KRC
UK Endurance Championship 2002 at Snetterton on April
21st. British Endurance Racing Team Coyote Racing,
riding together only for the 2nd time, took their Yamaha
YZF R1 to 8th place in Class C, earning them 8 class
championship points and 8 rider points each. Mike
Eglington, Shaun Finch and Shelley Pike clocked up 244
laps, an incredible 476 miles of track time to give them
an overall standing of 28 in the three-class races.
 The
team is a seemingly unlikely mixture of personalities
and riders, but has already proved to be a strong racing
combination. Former GP, Road and Endurance racer, Mike
Eglington, the oldest member at 43, joined the team this
year, following a 9-year absence from racing. Civil
servant and vegetarian Shaun Finch, also boasts an
impressive road racing history, while novice racer,
Shelley Pike, at 5’3” is the youngest member of the team
with only 4 races currently under her belt. But they all
have one thing in common: racing is something they just
have to do. Backing up the team is a 7-strong Pit Crew,
made up of friends and associates of the riders.
The KRC Endurance Championship season consists of 4
six-hour races and 1 eight-hour race. Each race starts
off with a free practice session followed by timed
practice sessions for all riders, which determines the
team’s grid positions. Coyote Racing runs each rider for
an hour, giving 2 race sessions to each.
Round 1 proved to be a reasonably good race for the
team, following a pre-season change to a new front and
rear suspension set-up and a new steering damper. Finch
took the first hour, starting at position 33, quickly
moving up into the 20s with good lap times but had to
pit after ten laps when the brake lever was coming back
too far and his knee-slider came off unexpectedly. The
bike also used more fuel than anticipated for the first
session and ran out on the end lap with 3 corners to go
losing about 10 minutes getting back to the pits.
Eglington kept everything steady in the second session
as the new rear tyre the team was testing had already
gone off quite badly. Coming up to the 2-hour mark,
there was alarming wear on the rear tyre and Eglington
had to hang in there as best as possible. When he came
in, the tyre was unrideable.
Pike was sent out for 3 laps so pit crew could get
everything ready for wheel change. They did an excellent
job changing the tyre and the rest of the session went
quite well on a new slick as Pike, with consistent lap
times several seconds faster than last years, pulled
back 2 places.
At 4 hours, Finch pulled back six places with Eglington
grabbing back another 4 in his session, in spite of the
second tyre being shot by the time he pitted. With one
hour left, the pit crew put an old road tyre on the
back, sending Pike out on two mismatched tyres to finish
the race and take 8th place in Class C, in spite of
losing 10 or more laps on the additional fuel and tyre
changes. The team are confident of a taking a higher
position in the next round scheduled for May 26th at
Pembrey Circuit in Wales.
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