Following my last blog yesterday you’ll know already that I’m in a happy mood and I’m smiling again, well I can tell you right this second I’ve got an even bigger smile on my face because not only did we get a free club class upgrade on the way to Orlando last week but we’ve been upgraded again free from New York to Heathrow so I’m sat here typing this in my club class bed, what a result!!!!!
I know yesterdays blog touched a tiny bit on how the races actually went in Salt Lake but I’m gonna take you through the weekend in detail anyway. As you may of read recently after the disaster that was Kyalami me and my team sat down to formulate a plan of attack, the funniest or coolest thing about the plan was that we were all on exactly the same page, I went away thinking do you know what, I’m not sure this ride by wire thing is working so good, I wish they’d just put me a proper analogue cable on so that I can get some feeling from this bike, when I sat down with them the first thing they said was, right we’ve been thinking and we think you should try the old system i.e. throttle cables in America and test this system back to back with ride by wire so that we can increase your feeling again with the bike. Talk about perfect, I couldn’t wait to get to America after Kyalami!!!!
We started out in the first session by doing an out in lap with the new throttle cable set up just so that the guys could download the data to get everything calibrated correctly, the only thing that wasn’t quite right was that there was no free play whatsoever in the cables so it was a bit sharp pulling away out of the pit lane, the immediate and I mean immediate sensation was like, ahhhhh, that’s better, mind you that said actually twisting the throttle felt unbelievably heavy compared to the super light ride by wire set up, I remember semi joking to myself about getting arm pump if I had to do more than about 5 laps but in terms of feeling like I said, ahhhh that’s better.
Straight after the out in I went out on my normal ride by wire bike and immediately over some of the bumps through turn 3 I thought bloody hell, this things a bit sharp, too sharp in fact, I did about 8 laps initially to get up to speed and the bike was working pretty good, I was enjoying riding and liking the track, after those laps it was time to head out on the cable bike for my first real go at it. For some reason the cable bike felt much faster than my ride by wire one, this was only an engine km thing but nonetheless the cable bike felt strong, the heavy sensation I mentioned of the analogue throttle wasn’t going away but at the same time it made the bike so much more manageable at the apex and allowed me to be smoother winding the gas on, fundamentally the bikes were set a bit different chassis wise, one was set pretty much how I had my bike there last year and the other still the same as our setting from Kyalami, it wasn’t until I got one more shot on the ride by wire bike i.e. the last years setting bike that I realised chassis wise it was a good step forward despite the cable one feeling better in terms of being able to feel more of what was going on. We ended the session with the 3rd fastest time and went P1 for a little while, the first time I’d seen that in ages, I was really enjoying riding and everything was going to plan.
We made the decision immediately after the first session to set both bikes to the kyalami setting so that we had equal chassis’s to further back to back test the ride by wire/cable scenario and made short work of not only deciding which way to go throttle wise but also how to improve the bike further chassis wise, I made the decision to go analogue for the weekend so that all we had to do now was concentrate on finding a good race set up, we could see from the data the problem I’d been having all year on the ride by wire bike, the rear suspension gets too upset too early in the turn which loses speed and doesn’t do the tyre longevity any favours whatsoever, it was almost like the decision was there right in front of us in black and white THIS RIDE BY WIRE’S DOING THIS BUT THAT CABLE DOES THIS MUCH BETTER. Although we slipped from 3rd to 6th I was still very happy and certain we’d made the right choice.
Saturday mornings qualifying session went real well, I lead the session for a while and we concentrated on being consistent over a race duration, I dropped to 5th by the end of the session but only because we didn’t fire in more tyres and concentrated as I said on durability, some more chassis changes were helping me out more and more and I was feeling good and confident that it’d be quite easy to make a big step lap times wise with fresh tyres so everything was still going exactly to plan.
We started the free practice session in the afternoon with the same tyres we’d been using in the morning as it was real important to go over race distance so we knew where we’d be at by the end of the races and the result was mega, my 24th lap on the same pair of tyres was a 1.49.1 so we were right on the money to say the least, with a fresh pair of tyres in I lead the session for about 15 or 20 minutes and was happy to plug on with another load of laps rather than chasing a fast time at the end, I felt really relaxed and was enjoying riding now even more than at the beginning of the weekend!!!
For the first time in ages we got through the first Superpole using only a race tyre which was perfect, just what we needed, once again I was relaxed and feeling really confident.
The cock up came in Superpole 2, my initial 2 laps netted me P4 on my first qualifier, enough we thought to be safe to go through to the final session with another qualifying tyre left, perfect…….. As it turned out I got dropped to 5th so the guys said right go out on your second qualifier, do an out lap exit the last turn only real hard and if you’re in the clear we’ll put BOX on your pitboard so abort the lap, right, ok, out lap, build up a little towards the end, nail the last turn hard, BOX P5, f***in excellent, now I’ve really really got a good shot at the front row, I completed the lap real slow so that I could save the tyre for the final exit, I had a real big smile on my face right up until the point when I pulled into Pit lane, the marshal guy waved me into the collecting area and I thought no mate, not me I’m through but then I saw one of my guys who looked like he was suicidal pointing to the collecting area so I got a bit confused, it turned out I was through right up to the point that the chequered flag came out so the guys gave me P5 BOX thinking I was through, I aborted my lap and course 3 or 4 of the guys pipped me by less than a 10th of a second, I wasn’t happy to say the least but we were on it regardless even if it was going to be much much harder work from the 3rd row….
Morning warm up passed without any dramas at all, we had to use some used tyres from the day before just to triple check on their performance and with morning warm up being a fair bit cooler track temperature wise the rear tyre didn’t work too well at all, we ended the session 3rd or 4th I think so if the temperature came up for the races we’d be in good shape. I did a practice start at the end of the session and it was my fastest ever start on a Ducati so if I could pull another one of them out of the bag, well…
My race one start was far from dreadful but it wasn’t perfect either and the long run down to turn 1 wasn’t helped when JT cut across the front of me so close that I had to roll the throttle to avoid a collision, I was there or thereabouts but Smrz’s bike blew unbeknown to him and he continued on all the way round the lap to the attitude turns, something that not even a minute or so later would cost me dearly, on lap 2 I entered the fast turn 3 left hander, threw the bike on it’s side and the rear snapped round so fast that I honestly thought I was going to have to hit the ejector button, fortunately or not depending how you look at it the bike snapped back in line sending me off track at high speed, I remember looking up and seeing the tyre wall heading in my direction at a pretty rapid rate of knots, I managed to slow just enough to make a turn but had to rejoin dead last, all I could do was get my head down and push as hard as possible to try to catch up so that’s exactly what I did and lap after lap I got further and further up the order, right at the end of the race I was on the back wheel of Troy Corser in 5th and I looked at pulling the same pass on him as I had on a lot of the others, I think it was a bit too touch and go if I’d pull it off and after spending 20 laps busting my balls I’d feel pretty daft crashing on the penultimate lap or so I thought, I was so engrossed in catching troy that I misjudged the laps left and as we exited the final turn I saw the chequered flag and initially my heart sank, as I said I felt touch and go I could’ve made the pass but I was convinced there was 1 more lap which should of seen me be able to get pass to take my first top 5 of the year but it wasn’t to be.
The team were absolutely peaking when I returned to park ferme which was good to see, we’ve not had a lot to cheer about of late but it was nice to se them smiling and happy and long may it continue!!!
After the pace we had in race 1 I was really hopeful of a far better result in the 2nd race, I knew if everything went to plan there could well be a podium up for grabs, my bike was fantastic in the first race and I actually had race winning pace, I lost 13 seconds on that second lap and finished 11 seconds behind the leader, you do the maths, I was feeling good!!!
I got another so so start and tried to settle in immediately, straight away though there was a bit of a problem, I had a bit of chatter from the rear tyre straight away and about 50% less grip on the corner exits, it really was a case of oh no, this is going to be a long old race, I battled the best I could but could only manage a 7th after some difficult battles with some of the guys, that was far from the result I was hoping for but nonetheless it equalled my best weekend so far in Portimao, I’m really hopeful now that dropping the ride by wire is the way forward, I’m chomping at the bit to get out in Misano and keep the ball rolling, I really enjoyed that track last year and hope to emulate my results from ’09!!!
I’d like to say a big thank you to my team owner Genesio and to Ducati for arranging the cable throttle for me to test and to all my guys in my side of the box who worked so well this weekend, hopefully we’ve now turned a corner and can look forward to a far better second half of the season!!!!!
To do the most possible I arrived back at mums around lunch time this afternoon, got changed into my cycling gear and busted out 50 miles with one of my pals, jet lag and all, it wasn’t easy as I felt half asleep but it keeps the momentum going, bring on Misano!!!!!
