Silverstone...

I always try to put a positive spin on everything I’m ever involved in, it’s the way forward as far as I’m concerned, there’s far too much negativity about anyway isn’t there!! As for last weekend you could look at it and think bloody hell, how can I put a positive spin on that but it’s easy in a way, if you could’ve seen, well maybe not seen but felt how down I was after qualifying but then seen me after morning warm up you’d see exactly what I was talking about!!

So then, after that first paragraph lets get cracking with this Blog, positively!! I have really been looking forward to this Showdown….. honest!!, only for one reason though, I love all three of the showdown tracks, last year in WSB was my first chance to ride the new Silverstone layout and I absolutely loved the place, I think I ended up something like a second or two off of the podium so I went ok there too, this year on the HM Plant Fireblade should be mega… shouldn’t it??

I set off out on track for the beginning of the first practice session with my bike set identical to the last round at Donington and to be honest even just the first couple of laps were enough to see that there was no way whatsoever we’d be running those settings, it was like riding with solid bars instead of suspension, I stuck at it for about 4 laps just to see if when I got going it would start to work but when my best lap was about 4 or 5 seconds a lap off of my time from the year before I thought no, this isn’t working, not only that if I’d stayed out much longer I would have had no fillings left due to the amount of vibration and chatter I was getting through the bike…this didn’t bode well….

We tried a few bits and pieces but all in vein to try to reduce the amount of chatter we were suffering with and actually went from full on too hard to too soft in the session but unfortunately nothing we tried and I mean nothing actually touched the chatter issue, sure we improved in other areas but I was properly struggling, not what I’d hoped for by a long way.

To be honest with you and too save my fingers and in the interest of not dragging things out I’ll skip now right the way through to qualifying because nothing unfortunately changed pretty much the whole way through the practice sessions, once again Chris and the guys made some improvements to the bike which helped in some areas but like I said to them at the time, chatter from the rear is the one problem that you just can’t ride around, fix that and we’ll go fast!!

Qualifying turned into a total disaster, I mean 13^th place, what’s that all about, to say we were struggling was a massive understatement, the only possible positive spin I could put on it was that I was surprised that with us having to qualify on race tyres whilst the others used the soft option I was surprised to be as high as we were and that’s not really that positive is it!!!

Saturday evening the whole team sat down together and spent time going over data and talking trying to find a way to figure out what on earth had been going on, in fact by the time I got back to the motor home it must have been about 9-30 but with the comments, the data and time I had everything crossed that the guys would come up with something.

Well, to say that the guys made some changes is a bit of an understatement, we had modified triple clamps, new spec rear shock, new spec front forks and a different engine braking map to go at for morning warm up, Go big or go home.. isn’t that what they say!!! I ventured out for morning warm up on used tyres as if the problem was fixed there would be much less or no chatter on a used tyre rather than going out on a new one which may of hid the problem, I did my out lap and immediately felt an improvement so I did 3 flying laps all feeling better then decided to try a new race tyre for hopefully a couple of laps, as it turned out I only got 1 flying lap but despite loads of traffic and getting a little held up in a couple of spots I lapped a second faster than I had all weekend and had no chatter, I was SO SO SO Happy!!! When I got back in I gave my crew chief a hug I was that relieved, just that one lap made the whole weekend start to feel worthwhile!!!!

Well obviously going into race 1 I was far more optimistic of a better result than I had been all weekend but the only thing that worried me was the fact that I’d only done one sensibly fast lap all weekend and now I had to do 14 of them on the bounce so we had no idea whatsoever how the bike was going to behave but with that in mind there could only be one battle plan, try to get a good start and hang on in there as best I could!!

All a bit anxious on the grid for race 1!!

As the lights went out I got a pretty good start, I made a few places on the run down towards turn 1 but due to my grid position I was right on the outside, as everyone braked and peeled in I kind of hung outside a bit let my brakes off and rolled around the outside of the turn which worked absolutely perfectly, I got a good run off of turn 1 and was up to about 6^th or 7^th already, I slotted in behind Jessop, Rutter and Brookes, passing Jessop into the chicane and then Brookes and Rutter into the turn at the end of the new F1 pit straight, eventually everything settled down a bit and a couple of laps in I knew we needed to make some more changes for the second race, the rear of my bike was too soft and in the slower tighter sections of the track I couldn’t accelerate with the likes of Tommy, M Lav and Hopper etc, It was pretty weird because those guys had like half a second or a second gap on me and it was just enough to keep me out of their slipstream down the straight, I couldn’t catch them but they couldn’t drop me, it was so frustrating for me, that said though if the team hadn’t made the changes they’d made overnight then I would’ve probably been battling for a top 15 so I guess I shouldn’t grumble!!!

I eventually crossed the line in 5^th, just behind the front four and immediately sat down with Chris and the boys to make a plan of attack for race two, I knew I needed the rear of the bike to be stiffer but rear grip needed to improve too.

After checking the data and listening to my comments Chris and the boys came up with a plan for race two, the bike was once again changed to try to give me a better package so we could fight for at the very least a podium, lets face it nothing else would suffice after the Donington races and race 1…

I got another fairly good start and thought I was going to be able to drop over the top of Kirkham who had a front row start but he lifted a tiny bit on the entry to turn one which sat me up a little bit, my bike definitely felt better in the slower sections of the track than it did in race 1, it felt far more supported at the rear but almost a little bit too much as the dreaded chatter had crept back in a little at a couple of corners on the track, that said I was making good progress and up to 2^nd behind Hopper and feeling almost too comfortable with it, I got a good run onto the Hangar straight and hung in Hopper’s slipstream as best I could then dived to the inside to take the lead at the end of the straight,

Leading the way in race 2!!

after a couple of laps leading I got a +.2 on my board, an indication that I had a tiny gap so I concentrated really hard on being perfect, hitting all my apex’s and nailing my exits hoping this would gradually increase my lead a little more but unfortunately it wasn’t to be, I got onto the Hangar straight myself and its weird how when someone’s slipstreaming you as your sat on your bike you feel the bike almost being sucked back towards the bike behind you, I knew there and then someone was coming and sure enough Hopper came past, I followed him for a lap or two but made a mistake on the brakes that let Tommy through, M Lav then came through and before I knew it I was back in 5^th again, because we were getting towards the end of the race and Brookes had took off at the front with Tommy in pursuit I figured maybe a podium was possible, I’d sussed a few potential passes but then on the last lap the red flag came out so I ended up 5^th again and pretty disappointed with it.

After the race the team were really happy with what we’d managed, I was happy obviously compared to practice and qualifying but our Showdown has been a disaster so far and now we’re well and truly on the back foot, I want to be Champion this year and after leading all year I’m feeling pretty gutted about the way these last two rounds have gone for us but all we can do as a team is regroup and come back stronger as a team with a stronger package that gives me the best possible chance of trying to win the last three races, that’s literally all I can do now, the rest I guess is down to destiny!!!

Thank you all so much for your support at the tracks, on Twitter and on my website, believe me I’m doing everything possible with what I’ve got underneath me to win races and I’ll be giving as ever my absolute all at Brands Hatch, hope to see you there, take it easy Shakey #67

Donington park...

I always have really good intentions when it comes to doing my race weekend Blogs, every time I get to the circuit I think right, I’ll do rough notes or run through the Blog as the weekend goes and then have pretty much everything I need in order to fire the story up asap!! However, to be fair they normal start and finish exactly as I said…Intentions!

Well, enough already, lets get on with it and let you know how the weekend went from my view, as you’ll probably remember from my last Blog about Cadwell Park we treated that whole weekend as nothing more than an extended test in order to get us into as good a position as we could possibly be heading into the Showdown part of the series, I quite obviously wasn’t overly ecstatic with leaving Cadwell with a 20 odd points lead in the Championship yet heading into Donington Park 7 points behind but all of that was completely irrelevant as we just needed to get out there, get on it and do our best to beat the rest, that, was the cunning plan!!!

It all started off good to finishing the 1^st dampish session right near the front after with a fairly decent initial feeling from the bike despite the iffy conditions.

The afternoon session was completely dry and immediately I went quite a bit quicker than the morning session to the tune of about 2 seconds per lap but with that increasein lap time came a bike that felt really good and pretty relaxed to one that felt like being sat on a razor blade i.e. you were gonna be jumping off pretty quickly!!! I couldn’t believe the difference and to be honest if I didn’t know better I would’ve thought I was on two completely different motorcycles, I wasn’t overly worried though as the fact we were once again right up there gave me comfort and I knew Chris and the boys would only make the bike better as the weekend wore on.

We spent a fair bit of Saturday’s morning session waiting for the track to dry out as overnight rain had made it far from ideal, we learnt a couple of bits and pieces from the session though and continued working chassis wise to get things closer to where we’d need to be for the afternoons qualifying sessions.

All tucked in!!!

Heading into the first session we were trying a slight modification to the chassis to help me to get the bike turning better, I’d been complaining a bit that on the brakes hard or with a lot of weight on the front tyre the bike would steer good but as soon as I released the brake or flicked the bike in without loading the front good the bike just didn’t want to hook around a corner causing me to run wide by the apex then even wider on corner exit, when I got to the garage before the session and Chris explained what he’d seen on the data I decided to go two steps rather than one and during the first session made small additional steps too.

The second session was quite frustrating, I knew I had a good lap time in me, certainly fast enough for a front row but after just one flying lap it was obvious it wasn’t going to come in this session, that said we did enough to get through to the last session so hopefully it would come in the 3^rd and final session.

Unfortunately it was once again blatantly obvious after just one flying lap that this final tyre wasn’t to be the one either, I was laying 4^th so on the front row at that point in time but I pulled in straight after the first lap as I wasn’t sure if there was anything to do to help my problems and Chris made a quick change but despite this on my out lap down through Craner curves and into the Old hairpin the rear started to once again chatter and skipped around on me, the inconsistency lately has been shocking, I wasn’t a happy boy I can assure you as by the end of the session I’d dropped to 5th!!

For the first time pretty much ever I think we used a new rear tyre for morning warm up as it was important to press on to a certain degree to check out our latest chassis changes and the session went pretty well, you cant read a lot into morning warm up lap times but we were right on the money regardless so fingers crossed for the races..

Talking of which I had a plan for the races, it’s not very often I can state that, generally if you asked I’d simply say yeah, the plan is to win but this time round I knew that the Yamahas of Tommy and Michael as well as Hopper were particularly strong, my plan was to just get stuck in, proper, I knew that if they got clear track they’d be difficult to stay with so I knew I had to be a massive pest in the early laps then see how things shook out later in the races, that was the plan anyway!!!

Well as the lights went out to start race 1 you could definitely say things went completely to plan, starting 5^th on the grid so 2^nd row I got a good launch and made my way towards the inside on the run into Redgate, I waited until the guys just in front braked then braked myself as hard as I dare and ran up the inside of everyone to take the lead, perfect, that’s part of the plan sorted, over the 1^st lap I had a bit of a dice with Michael Laverty and got in behind him for a lap, our 1^st flying lap was my fastest of the weekend which boded well, I managed to put a pass back on Michael down into the Old Hairpin and lead from then right through to about lap 10 I think, Tommy Hill put a move on me into Goddards (the final turn) that sent us both wide and allowed Michael and Hopper to pass the pair of us which was a bit frustrating as by this point I was already suffering a bit with some rear grip issues and vibrations, immediately I re passed Tommy into turn 1 and even had a look at Hopper too on the exit and run down through the top of Craner curves, a lap or so later Tommy had another lunge but this time we nearly went to the edge of the track so the front two got a bigger gap, by this point things had gone down hill a bit more for me and I couldn’t keep the pace so I dropped back and ended up a fairly lonely 4^th which was really annoying, after the race we checked the rear tyre and it had spun on the rim throwing the wheel out of balance but not only that it had actually cold torn a little bit too, sounds daft I know but basically we had to make some changes for race two to actually make the tyre have a slightly harder life so that it didn’t rip up so bad…. Either that or I needed to try harder ha ha ha!!

With the changes made to the bike I was ready once again for action, race 2’s plan was identical to race 1, be a pest initially then see where we were at after a while, because of the lap times from race 1 I was starting the second race from P2 behind Hopper which gave me a much better shot at making my plan come to fruition, I got a good start as the lights went out and matched Hopper on the run down to turn one, I was on the inside of him thinking I’m not braking until you do, I’m not braking until you do and the instant he hit the brakes I hit mine and ran up the inside of him, I went in there pretty quick but still got turned for the apex and was already thinking good drive, get good drive when I felt a big bang in the side and suddenly found myself riding a Swan Yamaha as well as my HM Plant Honda towards the gravel trap, I couldn’t believe it, surely that never happened…

The moment it all went so wrong :-(

as we came to a standstill with my clutch in and engine running I jumped up quickly checked my bike which apart from a bent brake lever seemed fine and got back on track as quick as I possibly could, this people was gonna be damage limitation taken to a whole new level, I got up to speed as quick as possible, repassed the course car into the esses and from then on in just had it lit, I set the fastest lap of the race on lap 2 despite a moment down Craner Curves which in hindsight I’m glad happened, at the moment I have to concentrate too hard on riding my bike rather than racing the track and I’ve explained that to the team ona number of occasions this year so me in full on attack mode racing the track not the bike caused the exact problem I’d been telling them about all weekend, quite often my comments are that I can only ride the bike to 100% of its ability but not to mine which might sound a little daft but basically it’s me saying I could change direction quicker but it will do that or I could flick the bike in faster but it would to that and the moment at Craner was a prime example and showed the team on the data exactly what it is I’m talking about when I say it, funny enough the exact same thing happened at Cadwell the other week!!!

Using all the track and more trying to catch back up!!!

Anyway, moving on I just kept going and going as fast as I could and kept a much better rhythm than I had in race 1, the changes Chris had made definitely improved things a bit, I treated every lap that I wasn’t lining up people like an all out Superpole lap and eventually got up to 8^th position, obviously this was Very far from ideal, we were or should I say are well and truly on the back foot Championship wise which is a bit frustrating, don’t get me wrong I hold nothing whatsoever against M Lav, he along with the rest of us fighting for the title are being forced to do things and put under unnecessary pressure because of the stupid championship format, how a championship that’s run over 12 rounds or whatever it is can then be decided over 175 points is beyond me, it’s going to induce risky maneuvers and guys pushing over the limit because we have no choice if we want to be Champion but hey ho, hopefully there’ll be big crowds at the final three rounds to see it all unfold…..

I feel particularly gutted for my HM Plant team over the course of the weekend, both Kiyo and myself struggled a bit through practice then Kiyo had a problem with his bike which meant a retirement from race 1 and I had the drama in race two which only netted me a 4^th and an 8^th, not what we turned up for at all bit on a positive note hopefully that’s our bad luck been and gone, sure we’re a good chunk of points behind now but anything can happen and I promise I’ll be coming out swinging at Silverstone trying my absolute best to get things turned around!!

A massive thanks for all your support over the course of the season, and thanks to to my Team and everyone around me, I guess the biggest thanks has to go to my wife for not firing out our 2^nd child whilst I was in the middle of the races and on that note I’ve got to get cracking as we’ve got a baby to have now in between now and Silverstone…hopefully!!!

Take it easy, Shakey #67

Testing, testing, 1,2,3 testing!!! Cadwell Park

I have to say Cadwell park was destined to be a strange weekend from the word go, fortunately for me and the HM Plant Honda team we’d already qualified for the shoot out part of the season but with some new parts failing to turn up the week before for the test we had the weekend was pretty much going to be all about testing and putting ourselves in the best possible situation going forward.

For pretty much the 1^st time ever too I was actually alone all the way up until Sunday afternoon as Reg my driver/right hand man was away on holiday and my wife’s so pregnant now that we could literally be becoming parents for the 2^nd time any minute now so she stayed home to rest. It felt really strange being at a circuit alone, certainly made me realise what goes into the whole weekend!!!

The 1^st session was a strange one indeed, we started with the bike as we’d finished the test the week before and within a lap and a half I’d both gone pretty fast and also been off the bike nearly 4 times including a big run on at the bottom of the mountain, I pitted pretty much straight away convinced there was something wrong with my front tyre as I’d never nearly lost the front so many times in one weekend as I did in that lap and a half!!!! I exited again with a new front tyre and settled in a little bit slower this time working through a few bits and pieces throughout the session.

Hi mum!!! ;-)

For the afternoon session we were due to test our new swing arm, well, mother nature had other ideas, half way through the day it absolutely lashed down, I’m not talking about a spot of rain I mean proper rain so obviously any dry time on the track was all but impossible, when the afternoon session started we sat it out for all but about 5 minutes from the end, to be honest the majority of the track was dry or at least had a dry line but the last two corners, well, I would’ve been faster around them on a jet ski!! Despite the fact we had an intermediate front and a used slick rear I got a bit of a feel for the new swing arm and that was about it, that said I did up P1 after about 3 or 4 flying laps so it wasn’t all bad!!!

Rubbing my hands at the prospect of the trick swing arm!!

That evening I went round to see Gary Mason for a bit and Rat Boy (Stuart Easton) came around, it was real good sat talking to them, listening to some of the shit that Rat Boy’s had to go through was unreal, the way he told his stories had me in stitches, funny now obviously but far from it back when he got hurt….

Our final free practice session was dry and gave me a bit more of a chance to evaluate things chassis wise, the session went ok but whilst I was sure there were some good points to the new swing arm there were also a couple of slightly weaker areas too, we spent the session working through a few changes to the bike in order to help out but it became as I said at the head of the Blog obvious that this weekend was going to become the test that we never got to carry out the week before!!!

Bit of air over the mountain!!!

For the afternoons qualifying sessions it was time for a bit more chassis work, we knew we’d easily be cool for the first session to get through to the 2^nd session and that we’d also probably be cool for the top 8 too so we treated all sessions in exactly the same way, somewhat disappointingly for me I could only manage 6^th place in the final session for a couple of reasons, one because the new swing arm didn’t complement the softer tyre and two because the final soft rear didn’t seem quite as good as the other two I’d used previously.

After the superpole sessions we didn’t have long to get ready for the 1^st race, we worked through the data from qualifying etc to come up with something to help with rear grip and decided to give it a go in the race.

Who you looking at!!!????

If you watched the race you will of seen that I got an absolutely dire start, it was kind of my fault but also a technical problem too, basically to make a start I have a sequence of lights that need to be lit to assure me perfect rpm, well, I was trying to get them lit but no amount of throttle seemed to light them to the point where I already knew I was well past where I normally am throttle position wise, whilst concentrating on the dash and trying to sort everything everybody just went, I wasn’t even looking at the start lights at the time!!!! Needless to say I got a dreadful start and settled in around 8^th I think, I managed topick of a few immediately and got myself on the back of the battle for the podium being led at a pretty slow pace by Michael Rutter, Josh Brookes was immediately in front of me but every time I looked at passing him he was looking at passing Rutter which was making things particularly tricky!!! I kept seeing Josh look at Michael into Hall bends but Michael was pretty strong into there, Josh looked on four or five laps before getting a particularly good launch over the mountain and looking like he fully meant it this time, I was right on the back of the two of them and to be honest my immediate thought was result, that’s at least a podium for me, it’s not that I wanted them to go down I could just see they were going to tangle and the chances were one if not both of them would run off track as whilst Josh had a good run and more momentum than Michael I think he just didn’t quite get alongside enough for Michael to see his wheel and either a) let him through or b) try to defend hence the reason there was such a big collision, I think Michael never actually knew he was there, anyway, to cut a long story short not long after the race got red flagged whilst I was lining up Josh so I ended up 4^th, however, later that evening I learnt that Josh had been excluded so I ended up with 3^rd.

We made yet another plan going forward for the 1st race on Monday after testing a couple of bits and pieces in the morning warm up session and all I really wanted was a good start, this time I got it and ran well, I made a pass at the end of the straight to get into third and was highly relieved when the two Yamahas didn’t disappear off into the distance, I managed to pass Michael Laverty and was sitting 2^nd watching Tommy’s every move tryingto suss out a) where we were stronger and b) what else we could do to improve our bike, Michael eventually passed me back but I finished literally a couple of seconds off of the win so I was relatively happy. One of my biggest problems was corner entry instability and after studying more data Chris decided on a completely different plan of attack which involved a completely different spec of rear shock which had helped us in the past and different fork springs, the final race was once again going to be interesting!!!

For the final race I started P2 due to the lap times from the earlier race and I felt much better sat on the front row, I got a fairly good start although not perfect so held my position up through the first couple of turns, M Lav had grabbed the holeshot but I managed to slip past him and lead for the first lap and a half, to be honest I already knew early on that we’d gone the wrong way rear shock wise but I figured if I just kept consistent and tried to make no mistakes we should be on for at least another podium, I thought that just as I back shifted 2^nd to 1^st into the tight chicane after Mansfield corner and the next thing I knew the bike went quiet and I realised I’d hot a neutral, I’ll not swear now but a word beginning with B and roughly sounding similar to trollocks went through my mind immediately!!! I rejoined the track in 4^th and unfortunately that’s where I ended up, a pretty unhappy 4^th, not even a podium!!

In the lead albeit very briefly!!!!

Looking on the Brightside we were in an extremely fortunate position to be able to test so much stuff over the course of the weekend, Chris and I have spent loads of time in debrief as well as a load of time on the phone to each other to try to push things forward as quick as possible with the swing arm and I believe the team have already come to a conclusion and spoken with the manufacturer who agrees totally with them regarding what modifications are required in order to push forward and improve the bike, I’m really happy that we got to run so many different settings through the swing arm and got a good chunk of the development done before heading into the Showdown part of the championship. One thing I am pretty pissed about though is that despite the fact I’ve lead the Championship all year I actually go into the Showdown 7 points I think behind Tommy, that said I guess the pressure’s on him now so if we can continue working on the HM Plant Honda and luck goes our way then things could pan out pretty good, I’m certainly feeling fit and up for the challenge so bring on the next round, the gloves are off now!!!!!