To say that I was looking forward to
getting back to Oulton park for round 6 of the championship is a bit of an
understatement, let’s face it, things have been going pretty well lately, my
bike’s been improving week in week out and having won at Oulton last time we
were there, won at Knockhill and generally taken some good steps I was hopeful
of some very strong results from last weekends triple header!!
The weather forecast didn’t look
particularly special so I never bothered taking my bicycle with me so I was
gutted when I woke Thursday to be greeted by bright sunshine, it seems every
time I take my bike it rains and when I don’t it doesn’t!! The weather had
other ideas for Friday though with a particularly gloomy wet start to the
weekend, we had a new spec of engine to try that we were very hopeful of but
for some reason in the first session the bike ran like a bag of nails, my data
guy Ben made some improvements but the actual performance wasn’t exactly
staggering which was a bit gutting, I withheld judgment though hoping a dry
session might let me use the engine better and give better feedback on it..
Saturday we finally got a dry session and
with some improvements mapping wise the bike started to feel a little bit
better, from a chassis point of view the changes we’d been making over the
course of the last few rounds were feeling pretty good though and I was
enjoying my riding which is always highly important, we knew we needed to
improve but ending up P2 and only a 10th or two off of Tommy was a
decent start in the dry.
Due to the three race format from here on
in it was straight into qualifying, we knew we comfortably had the pace to get
through at least the first session and probably the second but there’s a good
few one lap wonders out there and to be perfectly honest using a tyre to the
best of it’s ability doesn’t appear to be one of my strong points at the
minute, it’s something we’re working on but for me it’s far more important to
be strong for race distance than it is for one lap and generally we seem to
find ourselves on or pretty damn near front row pace anyway!!
For some reason we got through Q1 no drama
at all but in Q2 we started having a few little dramas, nothing major it was
just that the engine was feeling real tight on the overrun and I had a bit too
much backing in going on whilst trying to run into turns quickly which wasn’t
ideal, we got through ok though so it wasn’t a drama, Q3 here we come…
Q3 just didn’t go my way, that’s the long
and short of it, we made a couple of little changes to the bike to try to
improve the bikes rear corner entry stability but just didn’t find what we were
looking for, my cause wasn’t aided either when one of the other guys lapped
about 3 or 4 seconds off the pace in the final session yet didn’t move over when
waved a blue flag but anyway, no excuses, we weren’t good enough in the final
session and we ended up P5 and off the front row, needless to say I wasn’t
happy!!
The first race of the weekend just didn’t
go to plan full stop, that from my point of view is almost enough said, the
problems we’d suffered in the qualifying sessions were compounded massively by
a duff rear tyre, I ended up with so much corner entry chatter that I just
couldn’t ride the thing, I maintained 2nd for pretty much most of
the race then got passed by Josh at the last corner and dropped to 3rd,
if you thought I was unhappy after qualifying……
Sundays warm up gave us a chance to get out
and realize the rear tyre had been a big issue in the previous days race but
something was still a miss, if I told you that the race I won earlier in the
year I was lapping almost a whole 1.5 seconds per lap average faster that’ll
tell you we were up against it, with that pace i could have rode off into the
distance this time around!!!
Race 2 and to be honest things didn’t get a
great deal better, we pushed hard, stayed closer to Tommy by miles than we had
done the previous day, had a good battle with Haga but ultimately finished 3rd
again, it’s strange in a way how two podiums from two races would normally be
considered good form but let me assure you it’s not what I’m turning up for,
the difference of that 1 posistion between 1st and 2nd
means everything, and I mean everything, I used to think Foggy was overdoing
the winning statements back in the day but I so get it, if you get a 2nd
or a 3rd who gives a shit, I certainly don’t, both of them mean you
lost yet the elation from finishing 1 position higher and winning is the only
thing that matters, weird!!!!
After that 2nd race the boys
discovered a problem, the problem, but an even bigger problem was the fact that
the problem had been happening for an undisclosed amount of time and we didn’t
know where to go to rectify it, it turns out that an electrical issued (yeah I
know, an electrical fault ;-) ) had basically not been letting our engine
braking strategy work properly but it had been kind of intermittent and engine
braking was something we’d been working really hard on for the last few
rounds.. the guys or should I say Ben our data guy took a bit of a punt on the
setting and Johnny my crew chief went a step further with our chassis setting
than we’d ever been so the final race was going to be a bit of a revelation or
a disaster, fortunately though it was pretty much the former, it took me a
while to get going and to understand the bike and the settings so I was a bit
steady initially but once I got my head around things we were away, unfortunately
it took me too long to pass Nori in the final race despite catching him quite quickly
as the Yamahas just seem to be that bit stronger than everything right now,
sure the guys are riding well and I take nothing away from Tommy but shit that
thing’s got some grunt and not only that it has good top speed now too, just
what we need, not!!!
The race came to a conclusion with Tommy
once again putting the hammer down whilst I was stuck behind Nori and gapping
me a little but at least in that race I actually felt like we might have an
answer, sure we never had the best bike out there but we had a decent package
and this isn’t a “I could’ve won that” number it’s simply me being far happier
with the bike in the final race meaning I could push harder.
What a cool pic!!!
What a cool pic!!!
The team are away now to work flat out to
fix our issues, Birdy was really complimentary about my riding at the weekend
and has vowed to do whatever it takes to get us back to the front and believe
me the mans not shy, hopefully Brands hatch in a couple of weeks will be a
whole different ball game, I’m certainly going to do everything I possibly can
to make it happen from my end, I want this championship again this year, 2
title’s is nowhere near enough and on that note I’m out of here, take it easy
guys ad girls, Shakey #67
That is such a cool pic, is it by double red? i've only seen 2 of you on Schwantz RGV :(
ReplyDeleteGood luck for Brands