Brands hatch GP

I think it's fair to say after Snetterton that both myself and the Rapid solicitors Kawasaki team knew there was work needed going forward, he we were coming off the back of a not so good weekend for us thinking wow, what happened there, basically we discovered that speed wise any top speed advantage we used to have had been negated and not only that despite a test day and a race weekend we couldn't get the feeling we wants from the front end of the bike, like I said, work was needed!!!

Onwards and upwards though, both the team and myself stepped it up in between the two races, we changed the front forks back to our old ones and the boys spent a whole load of time on the dyno trying different engine specs and working on the mapping etc, on my part I got a fair bit of training done although that didn't go entirely to plan, cycling 90km's Monday, 80 on Tuesday I set of Wednesday morning for a real steady little recovery ride just to spin my legs over, got less than half a mile from my house and without going into too much detail got semi taken out, it wasn't massive it did leave me with a big gash up my left arm and elbow, something I could've definitely done without but hey, it could've been far far worse!!

On to Brands hatch then, for Friday we only had one session and that wasn't until 3pm or something, to be honest I was a bit gutted as Thursday had been my sons last day at nursery and he had a little party and a play he was in for leaving on the Friday, typically that started at 2pm so I couldn't be there risking getting stuck in traffic on route here and end up missing the 1st session, that wouldn't have been cool!! I'm no fan of the Indy circuit at Brands to be honest but the one good thing about a 45 second lap is that you get up to speed real fast and can get a lot of work done in a short space of time, something we definitely needed to do!!!

The guys had made some changes to the bike from Snetterton, we'd changed back to our old front forks and various other chassis changes were made, to be honest I wasn't really feeling it, I was expecting all my problems to be gone, we worked hard throughout the session and made some progress but knew we'd have to sit down and work out a plan for the first assault on the GP circuit the following day, and that, it what we did!!

Immediately on Saturday we had a much better feeling from the bike, I was fast and consistent too, we were chipping away from then on in and ended the session P1 half a second clear of the rest.

Session 2 went equally well, again small step by step improvements saw us top the time sheets again and a long run on the tyres confirmed race pace wise we were looking pretty strong so that pleased me.

Into qualifying we went and we were still just chipping away, making small improvements here and there to get the bike better, I never drove myself too mad in Q1 only completing 4 laps as an electronic change to our engine braking wasn't working at all, the lap time was poor and we ended up P4 but it was all cool, more changes for Q2 would sort that!!

Q2 we did on the same used tyres as Q1 so it was no surprise that despite going a bit faster we dropped to 5th, the bike felt better and that was all that mattered, whilst there's no points for Pole it's a front row that counts I was looking forward to having a go in Q3 on new tyres...

Q3 went.... Good!! We'd made one final change, a stiffer front fork spring as the extra forces being put through the bike were welding the forks to the bottom of the travel and causing a fair bit of instability on hard braking, the change thankfully was Really really good, I knew on my warm up lap I'd be able to push harder, I eventually pushed just hard enough taking Pole position by just over a tenth from Alex Lowes although to be honest I almost wished there was one more session as the change we made to the front was so good it was almost as if the rear of the bike couldn't keep up, so one more little change to the rear and I'm certain we could go faster still!!

In morning warm up we tried a different spec of rear shock to help with the problems from Q3 and had a steady ride around on used tyres, I rode out on my warm up lap and had a clear track in front of me so I pushed hard for my first flier, the bike felt a little different but I completed the lap and thought that felt good but then I looked at the lap time and though hmm maybe not, I had a bit of a go again trying to suss things out and got a bit faster, once I got up to speed things felt fine and I ended up 2nd a 10th off of Josh so all good.

Race one then, it's fair to say I had a plan, the lights went out and I got a great start, lead into turn 1, Alex passed me down into bottom bend but I passed him straight back, he en passed me into Surtees so I thought, right ok, you lead for a bit then, that suits me, I sat happily behind him for a few laps and then Josh came past, I was cool with that too, Josh passed Alex and after a few laps got a tiny bit of a gap, I re passed Alex and caught back to Josh and at that point I saw on my pit board +.3 I figured if Josh and I maintained that or extended the lead I'd sit behind Josh for a few more laps and take it from there, next thing I know Alex came back passed, by now there were 6-7 laps left so I decided to get to the front and try to push on at my own pace and try to break them both, I passed Alex then lined up Josh at the end of the back straight, I dived up the inside to take the lead but no sooner had I got to the front I lost the front, literally, a big 120 odd mph get off which destroyed the bike, I couldn't believe it, it wasn't like I ran in there thinking oh no, I've over done this, far from it in fact, the team certainly had their work cut out for me to make race 2 as the damage definitely wasn't going to polish it, that's for sure!!

I heard on tv something which really annoyed me, basically being questioned for falling down and asking if it was going to see me crack now as the others were catching up etc, "what will this do to Shakey's head now?" I'll show you what it will do I thought to myself!!!!!

Amazingly the guys got the bike built back up in time for race two, I was starting race 2 in P4 which due to the camber on the inside of the track at the bottom there isn't ideal, anyway, I got a great start as the lights went out and once again lead into turn one, being so disappointed with the crash in race one I knew I needed a good race, especially with the fact we had a couple of weeks off after then straight into a triple header at Oulton park, the course car came out due to an accident and seeing as how nobody had tried to pass before it despite the fact I was maintaining a fairly steady pace as soon as the car went in I went for it lapping probably just over half a second or so a lap faster, despite this my pit board continued to say +.0 so I thought oh well this is it then, I knew it was James Ellison behind me and figured if he tried to make a move and lap faster I'd try to go with him but as it was I managed to hold the lead and took the win, I was chuffed to bits with the team for all their hard work, that victory was for them!!

After the bitter disappointment of race one turning things around the way we did for race two was great, we know that as a team we have work to do and I'm more than prepared to taking training to the next level in order to have no question marks whatsoever with myself, however whilst I didn't wish it on the team after race two when the boys had totally rebuilt the bike the organisers stripped all the top 5 bikes to properly measure the chassis's to check everything was legal and mine was one of the bikes that got checked and guess what, it passed, perhaps that'll shut up some of the idiots in the paddock who are convinced anyone that wins must be cheating!!!!

Moving on now, Oulton park next as I said earlier, a triple header, that's 75 points and nine podium credits up for grabs, hopefully we'll be taking more than a chunk of those, until then guys and girls... Enjoy the sunshine ;-) Shakey #67

Snetterton.... Frustration and Elation!!!!

It has to be said that after getting the opportunity to test at Snetterton last week ahead of this weekends BSB round I was really looking forward to getting back to the track and getting back on my bike to continue the work we'd started.

The test itself didn't exactly go to plan in some ways, don't get me wrong a test's a test and that's what you should use it for but when pretty much the whole BSB grid is out things inevitably start to get competitive!!!

We had a good plan for the test, a schedule we needed to work from and to, basically starting with some stuff we learnt at Knockhill then working towards last years set up and trying some new spec K Tech front forks.

As a team we've been making good progress with the bike this year and the new forks were something that had me quite excited, unfortunately however about a million red flags throughout the day saw our schedule go a little bit south, we did however get the chance to fire the new forks in right at the end of the day and the results were interesting, they were much better in some areas but worse in others, work in progress I think we'll call them!!!

To start the first session on the race weekend we stuck with the new forks, at the end of the day these are going to be a step forwards so wasting a session on the old ones didn't make a lot of sense, unfortunately for me though despite having plenty of time to go over all the data from testing and starting with a different setting in them the new forks were still giving me a bit of grief, we ended the session however after a few changes in P2 just a 10th off of Alex and he and I were nearly a second quicker than the rest so it wasn't a total drama!!

For the afternoon session we made some more changes, the team worked real hard and we started to make a bit of headway, I still wasn't happy and felt we had lots more work to do, it wasn't so much a problem of the bike doing this or that but more that I felt like I had much more to give than the bike would allow and as soon as I tried to push on it just brought on uncertainty and a lack of feel, I basically wanted to ride it like I stole it rather than wobbling around on the thing like its my pride and joy which I don't even want to splat a fly on the front of!!! We ended session two well, a new pair of tyres saw us go P1 by just under 0.6 of a second but as I said I knew I wanted and needed more!!!

We made some changes overnight to try to cure some of our problems, a gearing change and some geometry changes and we found a better feeling, I did over race distance on used tyres and my rhythm was still good, we still had a little bit of work to do but the fact I was now pulling an extra 3 bar of front brake pressure was an indication that I was starting to feel more comfortable and be able to push the front harder, I actually went a bit faster too in that session but Alex pipped me by 2 100ths of a second, the pair of us 6 10ths faster than the rest!!

Qualifying Saturday afternoon turned into a bit of a nightmare, the first two sessions were not what we were looking for, we were constantly changing the bike to try to get a better feeling from the front but seemed to be chasing moving goal posts, every time we made a little change a variable, a tyre, the track temperature, traffic or something else seemed to hamper us, I was actually hoping after two bad sessions that it would be 3rd time lucky in the final session, however despite my fastest time of the weekend I was still a bit off what I hoped and thought I'd be able to do and my final lap got blocked by another rider so 2nd it was! Front row's a front row though so I was happy enough.

We had a few changes that we wanted to test for the morning warm up session after sitting down after qualifying and going through the data but morning warm ups track temperature was only 32 degrees track temperature so we'd have to wait to see what conditions the races brought and with temperatures forecast to rocket we were in for a tough old day...

Unfortunately for me time had run out, we'd tried a soft bike, a hard bike, a long bike, a short bike and just about every permutation of the lot of them and nothing we'd done had given us the feeling we were looking for going into the races, there was only one thing left to try... Something I hadn't tried in just over two seasons, the harder front Pirelli tyre, I really wasn't happy about this, really wasn't happy but he track temperature was getting higher and higher and the data showed that the reason I'd been struggling all through practice and qualifying was that basically the front tyre was getting seriously squashed with the amount of load I was trying to put through it and that was why I couldn't get any feel from it, basically it just wasn't consistent.

I went out on the sighting lap with the harder front in and came straight back into pit lane to get an extra lap on it, before taking to the grid, my crew chief asked me "what do you want to do?" What could I say, in effect this was the only variable we hadn't tried, I had to give it a go didn't I...

My confidence was far from high when on the warm up lap at about 50-60% of my normal pace I flicked the bike into Oggies and completely lost the front and nearly went down, I thought to myself Christ if this happens at that pace what's it going to be like next time through here at race pace... I guess I'd soon find out!!!

As the lights went out I got a bit of an awkward launch and unintentionally veered left slightly, Josh had got a good start too and I happily rolled into turn one behind him in case I pushed the front too hard on the way in and crashed, not exactly my usual battle tactics but I already knew this was going to be a race of attrition and that I needed a few laps to try to figure things out, I'm not going to mince my words or lie, I ABSOLUTELY HATED the race, all 16 laps of it, there wasn't one part of it that I thought, that's better, or, it's not doing that anymore, it was simply right, get it in to the corner, hope, then get out again, I honestly felt like I could only give about 60% of me in that race and that was a little too much, thinking let alone trying to give 61% would have seen me on my ear, basically I sat in 3rd trying hard not to try hard and despite getting a good run on Josh out of the final turn my bike just didn't have to speed to out drag or pass him before the line so 3rd it was.

After the race I was furious, the whole slow down lap I was sitting thinking how crap I'd rode, I was so frustrated though, it's not that I'm a bad loser, I'll finish 2nd, 3rd or 5th even happily as long as I know that I've given 100% but today for that race I just couldn't.

I have to apologise for my post race interview, saying Shit on live TV isn't cool and I know that, all I can do is say sorry and that it's a good job I'd had a whole slow down lap and the rostrum area to calm down a bit otherwise it would have been safer to not even do the interview full stop!!!!!!

A long, get to the bottom of everything debrief followed, I told my team exactly what the problems were and they could see on the data exactly what I was describing so I left them to come up with a plan, headed back to the motorhome, had lunch then my usual half an hour power nap, hopefully that'd make everything better for race 2!!!

For race two the guys came up with a plan, a totally different front fork setting and my usual front tyre, now the rest was up to me, go figure!!!

I hot a good start and lead into turn one from 3rd on the grid then tried rally hard to stay smooth, I pushed hard for a lap or two and had + 0 on my board so I thought right ok, try to save your tyres for a bit and see what happens, the course car then came out for a crash and stayed out for 2 or 3 laps and with 11 or 12 laps left I thought right lets do this, my bike was feeling better, not perfect but better and I had more confidence in the front because of it so I went for it again for a lap or 2 still got + 0 despite a couple of pretty fast laps so once again I just settled right down for three or 4 laps, with 5 laps to go I started to dig in a bit, got to +.3 and thought this could be the brake I needed then with 2 to go it went back down to +.0 by this point all I could do was try to be fast, smooth and hot every apex perfectly to maximise my exit speed, I did just that and rode slightly on the cautious side for the final lap, I made a small mistake going into the final turn and thought no no no, that's it, I've blown it but fortunately I held on to take the win!!!

To say I was happy is a bit of an understatement, I was absolutely elated, it wasn't so much the win, just the fact I could ride better, not perfect but better, that to me is what it's all about, Birdy pays me to race his bike for him yet I felt like the 1st race I was out on my priceless pride and joy that I didn't even want to get a fly splattered on let alone race, I might as well have done that race with one hand behind my back and a set of L plates on, that's how useless I felt and that's why i was so frustrated, I pride myself in giving 100% at everything I do and that's precisely why myself and PBM get on so well, they know I'll always give my all and give theirs in return.

I think it's very fair of me to say now that the little bit of top speed advantage we once had with the Kawasaki over some of the bikes in the field has now been well and truly negated by the others, Josh in particular moaned all year his bikes not fast enough but in race one my biggest problem with him was that despite the fact I could maybe run into tighter corners a little bit quicker I couldn't put myself in a position no matter how hard I tried to be alongside him to carry that speed into making a pass and 5 rounds in isn't the time to be making desperate out of control lunges from 3 or 4 bike lengths behind, the team now need to go and do some homework to try to improve our bike so that we can at least get alongside in order to be able to attempt to pass rather than using any advantage just to catch back up to the bike in front, they know that, I know that and everyone saw that so fingers crossed as I'll be giving 100% training wise between Snetterton and Brands they'll be working the same trying to improve our bike too.

Once again my apologies for the swearing thing on tv, hopefully you now have a better insight into my frustration, fingers crossed now that it's onwards and upwards again, roll on Brands hatch,  I can't wait, take it easy, Shakey #67