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2006 Race Report by Michael Micallef
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As "Floata" (Luke) hopped in for his first stint in 10 years, I started warming up for my stint, as I was in after him. Floata hadn’t raced a recumbent in nearly 10 years and we thought that if he wanted to ease into it, then we should let him do it at his own pace. That mindset was not needed however, as he zoomed past pit lane at an incredible rate of knots! He was absolutely mauling the competition for 20 minutes with sub-2:40 lap times - and then he was late… Eventually he came around and was straight into the pits. We opened the hood and the chain guard was wrapped around everything! Daveys literally ripped it off its mounts, put the spare on, and he was pushed back into pitlane. You could tell Floata was a little stressed by the situation, and that was confirmed when he opened the door to throw his glasses out whilst travelling down pitlane. The throw jolted the vehicle and he smashed into a pole! The whole fairing bent like a banana, he was pulled out of the pit wall then he took off. Floata was absolutely pumped after his screw-ups, and he sure made up for it. A few laps later it was noted that the left wheel was extremely buckled, and it would need to be replaced before I hopped in. As Luke continued to ride, we were questioning exactly what he had done to warrant such damage to the wheel and chain-guard – yet not the canopy! Floata came flying past to push very close to the race lap record – clocking a 2:34 – [ previous record had been held by BYR in 2004] although the loose timing data has shown that Browny actually clocked the lap record on lap one, with a semi-clear track. Phenomenal speed from our vehicle and great skill from Floata! Later on in the day, Floata would tell me exactly what happened out there. Coming up to the very tight "Channel 7 corner", he wanted to get past a medium paced bike to set himself up for the turn. He did this, but he was now doing 60kmh at the apex of the corner! He turned hard left, flipping BY-06 into the air of the curb. It barrel rolled through the air up to 2 times (in which Floata said seemed like slow-motion) before landed back on to its wheels. The left one landed first – buckling it instantly. What a sight that would've been!

At the end of his stint, Floata jumped out and BY-06 was lifted up and Crowey started on getting the wheel replaced. Meanwhile, my drink bottle and foam was installed, and I pushed the canopy back into its original shape. It was put on the ground again and I stepped into the furnace that was BY-06. It must've been a humid 27C outside, yet inside the vehicle it was bound to be over 45C. It turned out I had a tough 45minutes ahead of me. I exited pit lane and was surprised to find that I got right into it, riding cleanly through the pack, horn blazing away. On my 2nd lap Ballistic overtook me, so I gave chase. It was going hard and I was keeping up. Then suddenly they pitted, and my chase was called off. For the next 40 minutes I was doing 2'50 laps, occasionally getting into the high 40's. I was very happy. I had my first collision half way through. Going down the straight at 55kmh I moved to the right to pass a slow vehicle. I beeped the horn to let him know I was there, and so he ignored that and sandwiched me between his tyres and the gutter. I took action, pushing him, and thus myself back from the gutter. Only when his vehicle was not going in the direction he wanted it did the driver look to the right to see his tyres burning into my fairing and my horn going into overdrive. He moved to the left and I blasted away. Crisis over. That was the only collision I had in that stint. Eventually the pitboard read that I had 3 laps to go, so I made the most of em, getting into the high 2'40's once again. I pitted and opened the door, then was thrown out of BY-06 and sprawled on the ground. Maiden stint over. That first stint was by far the hardest in my opinion. It took a lot out of me and I never really felt 100% for the rest of the race. My left quad in particular was full of lactic acid, and I spent hours getting rid of it. And so "Vanilla Ice" hopped in for his trouble-free 45minute stint, before Daryl’s turn. It had cooled down a bit now and so Daryl ended up doing an 80minute stint, putting us back on our original schedule.

Here's Daryl squeezing through the sea of vehicles that littered the track. You can see how all over the place they are. In my opinion, 90% of our damage was caused by punting or being punted into these way-ward vehicles. We need them for the sport, yet there should be tighter vehicle control rules.

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BYR's 2006 Team: Daryl/ "Daka, Daka ", Luke/ "Floata", Tim/ "Vanilla Ice", Matt/"Browny", Rohan/ "Old Bluey", Dean/ "Deano", Nigel/ "Presto Valve Jnr", Chris/ "Crowey" (Pitcrew), Mark/ "Davies" (Pitcrew), Michael (Race Report author)/ "Megapixel"