Knockhill!!

Knockhill, at one point in the big break we'd just had it felt like it was never going to come around, 5 weeks or so off after just three race weekends came pretty tough, you're just getting back into the swing of things and the next thing you know it's over, however, taking the car to Wolverhampton then collecting the motorhome and cruising up soon knocked the edge of that 5 week break, it's almost like the M6 forgets to stop and just carries on going!!! 

We stopped off at Penrith of the way up to go to see the team and Birdy took a few of us out to dinner which was nice, after that it was back in the motorhome for the last bit of the journey but as we got towards our exit it was closed, a few calls later we were recommended not to take the diversion signs as it went through lots of tiny villages etc so after going up to what felt like John o groats and back we finally arrived at the circuit at about 12-30am in the morning!!!!!

Getting there on the Wednesday night left us all day Thursday to kick back and get sorted so me, my mate Wag and Keith headed into Dunfermline for a bit to get a few bits of shopping etc for the motorhome and more importantly to kick back and have a coffee!!

I think it's pretty fair to say that Friday mornings dry first session didn't exactly go to plan at all, for a start my wife had been rushed in to hospital and was looking at facing yet another operation, fortunately for me i have a top boss and he laid on the use of his helicopter should i need it to rush back down to Kent to be by her side, fortunately for us both friday she managed to avoid an operation, as if that wasn't enough however I knew I'd had a long time off of the bike but things just didn't feel quite right, the bike felt a bit slow and also felt tight, I only managed about 6 or 7 laps before I knew something pretty bad was coming so I decided to park it to not risk any BIG damage so our 1st session left us with a grand total of 7 laps which with the knowledge that a load of teams tested here last week plus that Honda had a two day test her recently definitely put as a little bit on the back foot!!!

The boys worked hard to get the bike sorted for the afternoon and I was real happy that with such a little amount of track time we were immediately on the pace, I ended up about a 10 th of a second off which I was more than happy to settle for, the boys did good, we knew we needed to make a few changes to the bike though as there were areas on the track that I was really struggling with so Friday night we sat down, went through the data and my comments and worked out a good plan to go forwards with.

Typically Saturday mornings session was kind of wet, by that I mean it wasn't fully wet but at the same time it was far from dry, i could have really done with it being dry with the changes we'd made to the bike but having said that in the time that we spent on track I was more than competitive but it ended up being one of those kind of who's bravest across the damp patches on slicks will be fastest, we didn't even bother going out for the last part of the session so dropped down the order a bit but the session wasn't that important so we were cool with that.

Qualifying came as a bit of a surprise, not as in we actually had to do it lol just that after getting through to the final session we fitted new tyres, I went out, did a warm up lap to get some heat into the tyres then I went for it, pushed real hard, hit all my apexs, crossed the line and boom 48.9, I couldn't believe it, I'd gone faster than that on used tyres, it really annoyed me but with no time to come in and change tyres etc i had another stab at it, result, 48.3 YEEEESSSS!!! I cruised it for a lap or two thinking that has to be enough surely, Josh came past and I semi attempted to follow him but I think I'd lost too much temperature out of my tyres as I was all over the place, eventually though despite him getting very close I got the Pole position!!

Warm up came and went without drama but straight after I got a text from my wife saying the doctors had decided they were going to operate on her as she wasn't getting any better and was still in way too much pain, Sod's law said it had to happen on my race day didn't it!!!

Fortunately for me literally about 5 minutes before I put my helmet on to start the sighting lap my phone rung and it was Petra, she must have just come around or been on proper strong painkillers as she didn't really make a great deal of sense but she did say " this is the 1st time in 8 years together I've ever missed a race or not been there for you, my operation went well, now you do well, be safe and call me after the race"

That sent me into the race in a totally different frame of mind, I felt like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders, lining up on the grid I was determined to have a good result, as the lights went out I got a good start but so did Josh, perfect I thought, let him lead, I'll follow, he was a tiny bit steady into turn 3 though so I ran up the inside of him, he passed straight back and got his head down so I slotted in behind and thought perfect, I'll watch my pit board for a bit and let a few laps unfold, with about 6 or 7 laps to go the lap times dropped off a bit so I thought now's the time to capitalise, I lined up and made a pass down into the hairpin but I got slightly crossed up on initial braking and had to release a bit to get everything back under control but in doing so I ran in a bit deep, Josh did exactly what I would have done and cut back and we collided on the exit which caught me up a bit and meant I had to shut off a little, I quickly got myself together though and on the following lap I made a good clean pass then got my head down for the remaining laps and opened up a second or so advantage to take the win, after the race I dedicated the win to my wife and figured it would give her something to smile about, we knew we needed to make some small changes to make the bike better for the second race so we sat and chatted about those then I did my usual, have lunch, have a sleep and prepare myself for race 2!!!

With there only being 3 per row on the grid at Knockhill and me getting the 4th fastest lap obviously I had to start from row 2, I always say that if you make it through to the hairpin at the end of the 1st lap then your generally safe but getting that far can sometimes be tricky, if ever I needed a good start this was the time however my bike had other ideas, as I exited the hairpin to line up on the grid I couldn't get the bike into neutral for love nor money, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 1st, over and over, I thought no, this is all I need, I kept trying and trying but it wasn't having any of it, I held the lever in as far as possible and kept thinking please don't drag, please don't drag, as the lights went out I released the clutch and got a mega start, that good I lead into turn one, I surprised even myself lol!!!

Getting such a good start and leading wasn't exactly in the script so I thought right dig in, put some decent laps together and let's see what happens, immediately I was in 48 second laps and I maintained them too which saw a lead start to open on my board, I carried on for about 10-15 laps at that pace and by that point I had a 2.5 second lead which around Knockhill is big, by that point though maintaining such a fast rhythm was taking its toll a tiny bit on the tyres and I started having a couple of little moments, I decided to concentrate on making every lap a low 49 and see where it got me, just a level or two down from all out attack mode, by lap 20 the gap was down to 2 seconds and I knew that if I maintained my pace I'd be safe and still have something in the locker should Josh get too close so that's what I did, stuck at low 49's and took another double win, sure Josh got close but it was kinda cool, calm and collected on my part, I have to admit though I was pretty impressed with him firing out the fastest lap of the race on the penultimate lap and I wasn't aware he was quite so close but anyway if you win by 0.0001 it's enough and a wins a win regardless so all cool.

I think that 2nd race was almost like being in imprisoned, I know I wasn't and I'm truly grateful to Paul for laying on his helicopter but the minute I took that chequered flag all I kept thinking was YES, I can get back home now, racing is my life but I was so so desperate to get back to Petra and now the job was done, i thanked all my team for all their hard work all weekend, had a quick shower, sorted the motorhome then Wag and I headed straight to the airport.

Thankfully the hospital allowed me to pay Petra a quick visit despite the fact it was about 12-30am by the time I got there but boy did it feel good to see her, hopefully now with some rest she'll soon be brand new.

Looking ahead now we have a test next week at Snetterton ahead of the race, I'm fairly sure the majority of the paddock will be there too so it's not like it'll be an advantage but I know we have some new stuff to try so I'm really looking forward to that, generally speaking we have some real good tracks coming up so for now let's stay head down, bum up full gas and concentrate hard on marinating the form we've shown so far, for now though, I'm outta here, take it easy, Shakey #67 

Quick Blog for you!!!

I've not exactly been up on these Blog things of late I know, choosing to either Blog after each race or keep you guys and girls updated with what's happening on in Planet Shakey via social media sights like Twitter or Facebook, even the latter of those I'm pretty useless with to be fair lol so I thought to myself whilst I'm sat on the train to London I'll fire out a Blog to kill a bit of time!!

We've been having a bit of a rough time of things lately on Plant Shakey, we were due to spend the whole of our break in Spain but we've been having a few dramas then to top things of my wife got a letter confirming an appointment at hospital for a hysterectomy to be performed, I feel real bad for her because over the past few years we've been doing all we could to help her with some (women's) problems she's been suffering with and despite everything it seems the only way to fix her was this operation, typically Petra she did another 10km running race a couple of days before the operation because her doctor had said fitter people tend to recover quicker lol!!!

The operation really knocked her for six and recovery wasn't helped when she caught a urinary infection whilst in the hospital so she's pretty delicate right now, I've taken up a full on daddy day care roll at the moment which has been pretty full on, in fact it's been that full on I have to get my mum over for a few hours most days so I can get out cycling just to have a rest lol!!!!

On the racing front we had a test up at Cadwell park the other week which went really well, obviously, I never got many laps last year due to the shoulder injury but with one full day on track I more than made up for it completing 90 odd laps throughout the day and as anyone of you who's done a track day there will testify it's pretty damn physical around there, I don't mind confessing to aching a little bit the following day, we've known since the beginning of the year that we have a couple of fundamental problems to fix on the Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki but they're really not the kind of thing you can start changing at a race meeting as usually with everything you change there's always something else that needs fixing so things tend to drag on a bit, we DEFINITELY made some good steps though and got a number of chassis parts tested and have a plan going forwards!!!!

Looking ahead now we've got some races coming up that I'm really looking forward to, Knockhill, Snetterton and Brands hatch GP are all tracks I like and hopefully with the improvements we've made we'll be strong at those as well as the rest of the upcoming races, it's definitely once again a case of slowly slowly catchey monkey, we're building up and building up ready for another full on assault at the Showdown, I know the team have some plans for the bike on the run up to that so it's all good.

Don't know about you guys but I watched both Moto GP and the TT races yesterday, it's kind of scary how they set off in 10 seconds intervals at the TT yet the races (both Moto GP & the TT) look similarly spaced out at the finish!! Don't get me wrong, Moto GP is the pinnacle, the guys are all so so fast and absolute legends but close racing.... What about poor old Valentino too, entering the 3rd corner at the race he's probably been looking forward to more than any he has a collision and gets taken out of the game, that was a shame, I was gutted for him, on the flip side, Cal, what a job he did, another podium, fair play, surely something good has to come for him next season, reeling in the factory Honda at the end of the race, the boy's on it!!

As for the TT, what can you say about that, I really like John McGuiness, a lot, he's a top man who lives for that place so I was gutted he only got a third, I don't mean that as in a third's no good, just finishing around there is an achievement but I know he would of wanted to win that race for his idol whom his bike, leathers and helmet commemorated Joey Dunlop, quite fitting in a way that it was Micheal Dunlop that won it! What about Josh too, 127 odd mph average, bloody hell that's motoring on around there in your first attempt, fair play I say!!!!

Right, this Blog has now gone from a train ride to London, 10 minutes or so before a meeting and I'm now finishing on the train on the way back so for now, enough's enough, talk to you all soon, take it easy, Shakey #67