Oulton park, round 7!!!

Well I think its fair to say that round seven never went quite to plan!!! In fairness our second visit to Oulton Park this year got off to a far better start than the 1^st but as you’ve probably already seen the end result of the weekend was far from what I was hoping for.

Getting back to the beginning of the weekend our first free practice session was dry and I was relatively happy to end the first session P3, that was probably frommemory about 10 places better than the first visit here!!!, that said we still had quite a bit of work to do, we fired a new spec shock into the bike that we’d tried briefly at Thruxton and decided to stick with it as there were some definite positives to be had from it corner exit wise but the problem with it was that it was making the bike transfer it’s weight in a slightly different way making getting stopped and corner entry pretty tricky.

We continued working on the shock in the afternoon session although we tried going in a slightly different direction with it but what we tried didn’t really work that well, yes we got a bit of feeling back for the front of the bike but we lost a bit of the original benefit on corner exit, what with that and the fact that a few of the other riders started throwing soft tyres at their bikes we dropped down the order a little to about 8^th I think, this was going to be a tricky old weekend!!!!

Pushing on out of Druids...

Saturday mornings session came with the forecast rain well and truly in effect, about 6 or 7 of the top guys including Kiyo and myself all fell off pretty much on the out lap, I couldn’t believe it, I’d had a big moment on my out lap and nearly high sided at about 20mph so I thought I’d do one lap just to check the lake that usually forms at turn one then come in to check that everything was ok with the bike as the near miss I’d had shouldn’t in normal wet conditions have happened, the lake I mentioned wasn’t too bad at all so I thought rightI’ll pull in this lap and get the guys to check everything, as I arrived at the Shell Oils hairpin I gently rolled in, went up the bank a bit in case anyone was on line and going for it then when I saw no one behind I went back on line, gently touched the throttle and then the next thing I knew I was up over the high side and pirouetting round and round, the funny thing was though as I spun around and was pointing in the direction I’d just come from I saw James Ellison doing exactly the same thing in tandem with me, fortunately both the bike and I were fine so I picked it up and rode back to the bits, not an ideal start to the session!!!

Two times i nearly fell off on the out lap here, 2 times!!!

The boys fixed my foot peg etc that had got damaged whilst the organizers looked into a track inspection to see why on earth so many riders had fallen and eventually the session was restarted and we got back out, it took me a bit of time to get going as I had massive rear grip and feeling issues that gave me no confidence whatsoever, I even wound my traction aid right up to pretty much max and that was doing absolutely nothing to assist me as the slides and out of the seat moments were happening so fast on such a tiny difference of throttle percentage that the system had no hope, we made various changes throughout the session and eventually I think we ended up 4^th or somewhere around there but I was far, and I mean farfrom happy!!!

Fortunately Superpole was dry, this however threw up it’s own little problems aswe hadn’t had a chance to fix the bike in either the wet or the dry so setting wise it was going to be a bit of a gamble, that said we knew we’d be fast enough on a race tyre to give ourselves a shot on one rear shock then to make a decision as to whether or not we needed to change again, we got straight through on the harder race tyre but did need to make some changes for the second session, as well as the changes we needed to try the softer tyre too in order to pull back a bit of time, the only problem with that was that sometimes as was the case at Snetterton the soft tyre really effects our bike in a strange way, it brings on big problems corner entry wise but then has real good grip on exit, fingers crossed that wouldn’t be the case here!!!

Over hill top, i improved here this time around...

Well with the softer option tyre we managed a pretty good lap time in Superpole 2, the tyre did give us a little bit of chatter but to be honest it was difficult to know if it came from the tyre or the increase in lap time, either way though we were through to the final session which as you’ll know for me is sometimes not possible as twice this year I’ve thrown the bike at the scenery before going through!!!!

I knew that a front row was going to be difficult as the two Yamaha’s were working incredibly well as was Hopper along with a couple of others but fortunately for me it all came together quite well so we did indeed end up P4, in all honesty I was extremely happy with that and its not very often I say that about 4^th place!!!

Cracking on on route to P4...

For the morning warm up we had a little bit more work to do, we needed to test another setting to be sure we had a good race setting for the dry but the weather had some other ideas, the rain came before we went out so we got a bit more time to work on our wet setting instead, to be honest I never drove myself too mad during the session as I once again as was the case in the previous wet session had more than my fair share of moments so I built up real slowly..

It was looking like the weather was in for the day and with only anhour between the start of morning warm up and the start of race 1 we had our work cut out trying to improve our rear grip and stability but I knew Chris my technician would come up with something!!

As the lights went out to start race 1 I got a real good start, I ran into turn 1 behind Hopper but he got in a little deep so on the run down to Cascades I managed to sneak past and from there on in I lead for the first few laps, I have to tell you I was more than having a little chuckle in my helmet, as you will have see if you watched the race I was absolutely useless and the setting we’d chosen for the rear of my bike just wasn’t working at all, I don’t think I’ve ever been out of the seat so many times in one race and was almost convinced I’d end up going down at some point, I couldn’t even touch the throttle mid corner let alone wind it on so god knows how I lead the race,

I have absolutely no idea how i pulled this off!!!

Hopper came past and I managed to get him back but eventually he made it stick so I just tried my hardest without over stepping the mark to hang onto him, eventually Tommy Hill came past too and after that the course car came out for a few laps and that’s when my biggest problems started because the slower pace behind the course car allowed my rear tyre to lose what little temperature it had in it so when the car went in for three laps it was like being on ice, after we got going Rutter passed me but I got him back but with only a few laps remaining and me struggling everywhere I knew he’d be back past by the end of the race the drive he was getting on corner exits would make it impossible nigh on to keep him behind, sure enough my weakest area on the track Druids (the penultimate corner) I had a reasonable exit but not perfect, I moved to the right a little to protect my line but Rutter passed me into the final turn, I knew there was no way I’d out drag him to the line but I had a good go and got spat out of the seat again coming onto the start finish so that was that, a pretty shit 4^th place, that said though considering how utterly useless I felt and how I had to ride I can’t believe we finished as high as 4^th!!!

For race two we’d made a plan and a fundamental change setting wise was fired into the bike, it was blatantly obvious from my rear tyre which still looked like new that the bike was putting nowhere near enough force into the tyre so it basically wasn’t getting hot so it was like riding with no grip whatsoever, I was really looking forward to the second race as I felt I’d be able to lap at least a second or so faster if I could actually use the throttle to drive the bike off the corners but it wasn’t until a fair bit later that due to the continuing rain the meeting had to be abandoned as the track was pretty flooded which was a big shame as I was right up for putting things right in race two!!!!

The team and I had a pretty long debrief after everything had settled down about what we needed in order to move forward a bit with the bike and I’m sure the guys are going to come up with some stuff pretty soon, I’m not sure anything will be ready for Brands but hopefully not long after so I’m looking forward to that.

On reflection Oulton wasn’t really too bad for us, if the Championship was run in the correct way i.e. over a season then I would’ve extended my actual lead but it isn’t so it means naff all which is bloody annoying but I’m still tied at the top of the podium credits with Tommy so from that point of view its all cool too.

Now it’s back to my home circuit, Brands Hatch long circuit, hopefully we’ll be well and truly back to winning ways there!!!!! Take it easy, Shakey #67

Snetterton...

I think every rider including me must be looking forward to the first race here at Snetterton on the new "300" layout. Our weekend got off to a pretty good start with a dealer event at Honda in Norwich, there must of been around 100 odd people that showed up to meet Kiyo and I so we had a really good evening.

As far as riding goes the 1st session went pretty much to plan, we knew what we needed to try and used tyres from the previous Knockhill round to get dialled in, there were no surprises at the top of the time sheets with Hopper going fastest straight away withhis team mate right with him, those guys tested here last week and that obviously stood them in good stead, I split them for a bit but dropped back to 5th at the end of the session when a few riders fired in their new tyres. We knew what we wanted from the bike and my engineer Chris could see the issues I was having in the first session so I looked forward to the afternoon session!!

Session two was both good and bad in equal amounts really, pretty much immediately I went P1 on a fresh set of tyres 1.2 seconds and remained there until most of the way throughout the session but after a good few laps I started to run into some issues with chatter from the rear tyre which were pretty difficult to ride around, at the end of the session we put in a new rear tyre and I had no doubt whatsoever that I'd be able to go a fair chunk faster, on my first flying lap I got badly blocked in the "car park" section and then I pushed hard on my second lap and ran pretty much immediately into the same chatter issues that we'd had on the old tyrebefore which wasn't at all what I'd expected, quite a few of the boys fired in new tyres at the end and the fact that I never improved lap times wise dropped me down to about 8th which wasn't ideal at all however ideal times wise put me third fastest and a tenth of a second off so things are far from doom and gloom!!

Contemplating our next plan of attack!!!

Saturday morning things started to take a bit of a turn for the better to a certain degree, from a race tyre point of view I used the tyres that I'd used the day before and immediately dropped into the 1.48's which was good and then I maintained a run of low 49's for a good few laps which overall is a pretty good rhythm. Towards the end of the session we planned to use the softer rear tyre in order to see what it would do for us lap time wise, we knew that a lot of the others had been doing race runs and then banging in the soft tyre to jump up the order at the end of the sessions and needed to see how it would work for us, I banged it in and felt very confident I could go a very good chunk faster however whilst it had much better grip entering the corner onto the back straight I closed the throttle to peel in and the bike bounced from the rear almost right around on me, I just managed to catch it then peeled in again and it did exactly the same thing, I ended up not even going as fast as I had on the race tyre and together withmy engineer weknew that if we wanted to make the bike work good in Superpole on the soft tyre we definitely had more work to do!!

For the first of the three Superpole sessions we started with a new front and a new soft rear in order to see if the chassis changes we made would make the bike work the softer tyre better, I was pleasantly surprised when I found we'd gone a good way to fixing the problem and found around half a second, It was a good enough lap time to match Hopper and Kirkham with the three of us on 1.48.5.

For the second session we fired in a new rear tyre again and I started my first flying lap, everything was going really good, I saw a yellow flag just after the stadiumsection because someone had run off track, I looked around onto the back straight and saw it was Peter Hickman, unfortunately though I don't think he saw me, as we approached the chicane at the end of the back straight Peter was neither on it or off it and I had to barge my way through pretty aggressively totally unimpressed with the fact he was on line but not pushing hard, my next flying lap though was mega, I hit every pretty much every apex and absolutely totally for the first time all weekend loved it, sure the lap could've been a tiny bit tidier and I could still go a bit faster but when I saw a 1.47.8 or whatever it was I was made up, I even did an extra lap to see what my pitboard said and sure enough it said P1, that was the first 47 of the whole weekend so I was properly pumped and ready for a big attack in the final session!!!

For the final session we started with two new tyres and as I said I was right up for it,after a steady ish warm up lap I got onto the start finnish straight and thought right this is it, let's go, as I got on the brakes though for turn 1 and shifted back to 4th I flicked the bike in and it chattered a bit, not terrible but enough for me to think oh no, please tell me it's not gonna be the same as the morning session tyre, before I knew it I was chattering my way into turn two, then three, four, five and then entering turn 5 the whole bike chattered so bad I almost fell off, I knew then due to the short final session it was going to be touch and go to get back and get another tyre so I completed the lap only to see a 1.48.9, I was absolutely livid and got back to the pits as quick as I possibly could without falling off, when my boys told me in the box there was no time to fire in a used tyre I lost the plot a bit and left the box, I felt so pissed off for me and my boys, we'd worked so hard since the morning to get the bike towork on the soft tyre then get let down with a tyre problem that makes you just about stay up and lap 1.2 slower than the previous session, needless to say my position was far from the pole I thought we may be capable off but a thoroughly disappointing 6th place, I was not a happy boy at all!!!!

For morning warm up we headed out on the race tyres we'd be using for the two races and had a pretty good run, I went P1 pretty much immediately and did a consistent run in mid to high 1.48's which was my best race pace so far for the weekend, the only problem was though we were stiff suffering a little bit from vibration from the rear of the bike so we knew we'd have to make a few little changes for the first race then kind of suck it and see and make any necessary changes if needed for race 2 after looking at race ones data.

To be perfectly honest with you I almost feel the less said about race one the better,don't get me wrong, we got a podium but there was no satisfaction from it for me whatsoever, in the beginning of the race I felt fine and the bike was working good but after the safety car incident I really started to suffer, my bike lost all grip from the rear in the entry to pretty much every corner and I just started dropping further and further back, let me tell you there's absolutely nothing worse than seeing your two biggest current championship rivals starting to pull away from you yet sitting on top of a bike that if you try to push even a 10th of a second harder you'd end up on your backside, I was not a happy boy after the race whatsoever and Chris and I immediately sat down to discuss the changes we'd need to make to the bike in order to be both more competitive as well as getting better tyre wear from the rear of the bike.

Us three seem to be spending a fair bit of time together lately ;-)

Race two had to be a totally different affair for me, I wanted to come out all guns blazing and get back on the top step, the only place I felt my team and I deserved after all the hard work we'd put in over the course of the weekend, however my eagerness cost me dearly off the start when I pretty much dumped the clutch and bogged the engine as the lights went out, you knob head was all I kept telling myself on the run up to turn one, you know how to make things difficult for yourself!!!

After a couple of laps I'd slotted myself into 4th place but then shortly after before I'd had a chance to make any more progress the red flags came out so the race was stopped.

The bike had felt ok in the first few laps so with the organisers deciding that part two of the race would be run over 10 laps we never changed a thing.

For the restart I got a better start and had a couple of turns tussling with Kiyo then next on the horizon was Josh, I passed him after a lap or two and then set offafter Hopper who'd already put a bit of a gap into us all, the lap times I was doing were almost hard to believe and it didn't take too long before I was closing in on his back wheel and taking a good long look at potential passing places, there seemed to be plenty of places I could make time on him but his bike was a little bit stronger than ours on the straights so I knew I was going to have to get pretty creative to take the win.

A few corners after this it all went wrong!!!

On the penultimate lap I put a move on to him up the inside at Coram which worked perfectly, fortunately I kept a good tight line and made the pass clean, I made a pretty wide entry onto the start finish straight to try as hard as in could to get maximum drive otherwise I knew he'd pass me before turn one and that worked out cool, turn two I entered slightly tight and again all was cool, I got a decent run through three and fully expected him to try to pass into the Agostini hairpin which he did but fortunately he ran in too deep and I got back underneath him, my run through turn 5 was good and I set myself well for turn 6 and then the next thing I knew there was a bang and we collided, unfortunately for me Hopper got into turn 6 so hot that he punted me out of the track and into the grass, as you can probably imagine right there and then I was far from impressed, Hopper and I had a second or so over the guys behind and were almost creation of a one two and an extended championship and podium credit advantage but for me anyway all that was gone and I ended up 4th with Hopper 3rd.

I found out afterwards that I'd done the fastest lap of the race but to be honest that wasn't really doing much in the way of consolidation, at least though Kiyo took the win so I was happy for the team in general.

Hopper came to my motorhome a little while after to apologise for the coming together so we had a chat and everything's cool now between us, I felt gutted that we ended up 3rd and 4th though as this had been apart from maybe the first Oulton round probably the hardest we'd had to work all year to be competitive and I have to say a massive thanks to Chris and my boys for all their hard work, I'm gutted I couldn't give them a win but it wasn't for a lack of trying!!!!

Abou the only consolidation of race 2, The fastest lap!!

Take it easy guys and girls, Shakey #67