[fortythirtyfive]

Just came back from doing the NC500 around Scotland.

On the first night we parked up at our hotel before the next days kick off and a few of us opened up our hoods. Went to finally close mine and the passenger side latch twanged. Couldn't re-open it and tried ignoring it until I got back home.

This morning I took the wheel off, stripped the liner out and found there was zero access to the lock mechanism from underneath. Luckily I did manage to feel the release cable and it was still intact with the plastic washer in the correct seating position. So I began ripping the vent out of my GTS hood to try and get a hand in but unfortunately there just wasn't any room so I ended up having to cut a huge hole in my carbon fibre hood.



The actual latch wasn't lined up properly, the black plastic sleeving that positions itself and clips into the actual hood had dropped a bit allowing the latch to spin. I guess when I closed the hood it was skewed and slipped straight off the sensor plate causing this:



It should have looked like this:




So as a precautionary, always check they're lined up properly! Luckily CF/FG is easy to cut, metal would have been a nightmare.

I'm now hunting for a metal hood to carbon skin as the lightweight cf version has been a handful when driving at speed.