To be perfectly honest though the weekend didn’t exactly get off to a flying start, we had a bit of a guess at what we’d need from the bike for the first session and with it being wet this would be the first time trying the bike in the wet with the new K Tech suspension.
To be honest my first couple of exits were far from the raging success I’d hoped they’d be, it was brutally obvious that we had lots of work to do on our wet setting, I came in after just a couple of laps and wasn’t even in the top 20, I wasn’t bothered because we had lots to do and I knew it, fortunately my team and K Tech got the issues semi sorted pretty quickly and after a couple of adjustments we were up to the top 3, that in itself boded well though as we still had a fair bit of work to do before I knew I could start pushing.
The afternoon session was nearly dry, the weather couldn’t really make its mind up what it wanted to do and the session started as I said pretty damp in places so I didn’t even bother going out for the first 15 minutes or so, I simply sat and waited for the lap times to come down to a level where things were starting to get sensible then off we went, straight away literally after about two flying laps I went P1 by quite a chunk but instead of doing the in out in out thing I stayed out and just kept doing laps on laps on laps, in fact I only came in because I got an in board and the boys said I would’ve run out of fuel, we made a couple of small changes whilst I was getting fuelled up then I went straight back out, I ended up doing over race distance on the tyres yet my last flying lap was good enough for P5 I think on the timesheet for the session!!!!!
Free practice three on Saturday morning turned into a bit of a non event, in the Supersport session that ended before ours my team mate from last year had gone REALLY fast, faster in fact than anybody including us Superbikes the previous day so we knew the track should be good, we’d made some changes to the bike from the day before and I was really looking forward to getting out there but literally as our session was starting it started to really lightly drizzle, I decided an out lap should be quick enough to be able to push just hard enough for 1 flying lap to try the new settings so I went pretty quick on my out lap then went for it but immediately coming onto the start finish straight the rear let go a bit and my immediate thought was the tyre must still be a little bit cold, that should’ve warmed it up though so I carried on, through turn one it was all cool, up into the complex no problem, through the complex all good but on the exit of the complex 3rd gear I got on the gas and had a BIIIIGGG slide, bearing in mind this was only free practice 3 I kind of semi committed from there on in until the end of the lap but was pretty damn careful at the same time, after crossing the line there was no information on my pit board to say who’d done what so I did a cruise lap as I wasn’t prepared in free practice to fire the bike at the scenery by pushing too hard but fortunately despite the fact I was pretty careful I was still P2 but the most frustrating thing was I couldn’t push hard enough to tell if the changes we’d made to the bike were an improvement or not, whilst the drizzle got worse it never quite got to the point of being worthwhile going out on wets so it was a complete waste of a session, oh well, roll on qualifying…
Well, roll on qualifying indeed, basically rather than wear out my fingertips typing this qualifying never actually happened, basically we had so much rain that the track literally had rivers and BIG puddles running across it so it was deemed too dangerous to ride so the grid for race 1 was determined by the fastest lap times throughout practice effectively placing me 3rd on the grid which I guess was cool enough, I’m gutted we lost the dry session that we so badly needed to catch up with from the morning but one thing we can’t fight is mother nature so we’d have to wait to see what the weather did on race day.
Morning warm ups track conditions looked far from ideal, dry in a sense but plenty of damp patches thrown in the mix, with the session only being 10 minutes long we let the boys go out and I figured I’d just do one or two flying laps to try to get a feel for the changes to the bike then do a practice start and that would be us done, I did just that so from then on in it was just a case once again of waiting to see what mother nature was going to throw at us..
For the start of race 1 the weather looked ok, the track was dry but it kind of felt like things could go horribly wrong at any point with a few very light spits of rain in the air, I got a cracking start as the lights went out and lead through the short run through to turn 1, the good thing was Alex passed me pretty quickly which for me was the ideal scenario after getting humped after leading the race last year then losing out in the final three laps, however pretty damn quickly I found myself at the front but no sooner was that the case it stared spitting pretty hard with rain so the marshalls were displaying the slippery surface flags, perfect….NOT!!! About two or three laps in just to make matters even more fun I started to really suffer with some heavy vibration on the brakes, I thought I’d glazed the pads but that would’ve been almost impossible having already done warm up and a few laps but there was a pretty big issue and it was causing some issues with getting the bike hauled up as you will have probably noticed if you saw how many times I went in too wide to the complex, it wasn’t me making mistakes I just couldn’t stop any faster if I tried!!!
Fortunately the rain eased ever so slightly but just after it did the course car came out closing us all right back up again, this posed a bit of a problem as originally it was Alex and I that had pulled a bit of a gap so I figured it’d be a battle between he and I but after the last course car laps things grouped up again, I tried to ride very precise but my braking was so hit and miss that it was difficult, on the final lap I ran way deep into the complex and Josh passed me, I thought no way, I’m not getting humped again, I sat on his back wheel and got a real good run through the fast Church corner that leads onto the back straight, drafted him for a bit then went passed, Josh though had other ideas, he went back up the outside of me, I let my brakes off slightly then re applied them but the vibration was pretty bad and I struggled to slow up because of it, fortunately though despite running in hot I got the bike stopped, slowed up the middle part of the final chicane to straighten my exit then fired the bike to the line to take my 43rd and record equaling race win, happy days!!!!!
We knew after the first race that we had some work to do I order to improve the bike, there were some key weaknesses for us in the race compared to some of the other bikes so the boys along with K Tech came up with a plan, with the races having such a short turnaround it seemed like about half and hour or so later we were back on the grid, after setting the fastest lap in race one I would start race 2 from pole with my team mate alongside me!!
As the lights went I got a good initial jump but I bogged my engine ever so slightly which put me a tiny bit on the back foot, I managed to get around Keith and decided to have a dig from the word go, I really wanted to win this race and I wanted to win it BIG!!
A few laps passed and just as I was starting to get a bit of a gap the pace car came out, when it went back in the same thing happened again, I got a gap then boom, out it came, the next time, I pulled the pin again, another real good lap, just got going, started to find my rhythm then bugger me the red flag came out, I was almost starting to get a bit wound up!!!, however, I knew what we needed to do for the restart as the changes we’d made in race 2 had improved some things but not helped in others so I rushed back to the pits to give my team the most amount of time to check the data against my comments so that we’d have an even better bike for the restart but it wasn’t until we pulled into pit lane that I got waved straight into the podium area and I found out the race had been declared a result so it was a double win to become the most successful ever rider in terms of race wins in the history of the BSB Championship, a wonderful achievement however, a laurel I don’t intend to rest on!!!
All in all Thruxton was a decent weekend however it’s very obvious that we still have some work to do, I know we’re hoping to get out for a ride somewhere before Oulton in order to work on some of my issues but I already can’t wait to get there and get back racing again, hopefully it’ll be a dry weekend, that would make a pleasant change lol!!!
Sitting down earlier I worked out that Paul Bird has given me motorbikes that have allowed me to take more than half of those 44 BSB victories whilst riding for him so I’d just like to finish up today by saying a massive thank you to both him and the whole of the PBM team, long may the wins continue!!!
Take it easy, Shakey #67
