Assen.. Let the games begin!!!!!

Well... He we are, the show down.. It's funny you know because having been on both the good and the bad sides of the showdown I'm actually feeling remarkably relaxed this time around, I guess that looking at it realistically I had a decent lead in the normal part of the championship and that's been recently whittled down a little but as it stands I now have just a 6 point lead in the championship because of my podium credits so I simply have to treat these next three rounds exactly as I have the rest of the rounds so far this year, work hard on Friday, ride fast on Saturday for a good grid spot then try to win races on the Sunday, simples!!!!

We had a test on the Wednesday before Assen at Snetterton, a track that for one reason or another doesn't seem to suit our bike so well and despite the track being really slippery for some unknown reason it was a good chance to test and try things that you just wouldn't want to risk trying in a 40 minute BSB session, I managed about 8 laps around there with my new team mate Nori Haga and both of us got through a rake of stuff.

Typically moving forward Friday morning was a bit damp to start, I actually missed the first 15 minutes or so of the session as the lap times were way off what they should've been so we sat and waited, when I finally got out the track was pretty much dry so work started from en on in. I really like the Assen circuit, it's great fun to ride, fortunately my bike felt pretty good, I knew we would need to improve a bit in some key areas but for a first free practice it was steady away!!

For the afternoon the team had made some changes to the bike, basically in the morning session the bike was great on the front end but running wide on corner exit and in the afternoon we over compensated a little and the bike felt a bit nervous on the front but the rear felt solid so the thing held a line like its life depended on it, however been so solid I lost a lot of side grip and feeling from the rear tyre so Saturday morning would see some more changes!!!  

To say that Saturday free practice went well is a bit of an understatement, my first flying lap put me P1 then the following lap I went half a second faster again, the changes the team had made to the bike had definitely improved it, I'd found a second a lap overnight and felt really comfy doing the times, in fact I managed an 8 or 9 lap run all I'm the 37's so I was made up with life, I lead the whole session but after pitting to make some small changes I had a problem with the bike and had to sit out the final 8 minutes of the session while the boys fixed it but it was all good!!

Qualifying went really well, we were still making changes to the bike all the way through the sessions and in Q3 the important one I came round after my first flying lap and did a 1.36.6, I was chuffed to bits with that having qualified last year on a 1.38.3, I had a stab at another lap but made a mistake exiting the hairpin and whilst it was still a 36 it was slightly slower, Alex managed an incredible lap, 2 or 3 tenths quicker than me so fair play to him for that but having seen my race rhythm earlier in the day then qualifying a close 2nd to Alex I was in a very good frame of mind to say the least!!!

We knew that from qualifying we could still improve the bike a little bit so we tried a different setting in morning warm up but somewhat typically for us while the bike was better for me in certain areas and indeed the main area that we made the changes for in the first place namely braking and corner entry stability it quite dramatically affected the bike in a big way in other areas which meant that the negatives unfortunately outweighed the positives about 70/30% so it would be back to qualifying's settings for race 1!!!

As has been the case pretty much all year I got a good start as the lights went out, I did however slightly mess up my braking for turn 1 allowing Alex to nip up the inside, that pushed me a tiny bit wide and I lost another place, quickly however I got it all together and settled in nicely!! 

After a few laps I started to make some moves and eventually I found myself at the front, I felt real comfortable at the pace I was running and although I had +0 on my pit board I figured there was no point driving myself mad and using up my rear tyre trying to brake away as no matter what lap times I was doing I wasn't making any head way in that respect, Alex came past me eventually and I sat behind him realising he didn't seem to be able to go any faster so I passed him back, then with a lap and a half to go he passed me again so I thought right, it's on now!!! We had so much fun on that last lap and must have passed each other ten times, it was great, the only problem was he ran up the inside of me at the penultimate turn and in turn ran a bit wide which left me no opportunity to pass straight back again so after trying to get a run on him though the final chicane I ended up second. 

For race two we had a little bit of a plan, no major changes just a few little tweaks to hopefully improve the bike just a little, as the lights went out this time I got a great start AND never messed up my braking into turn 1, I lead past the Sthil power award board too which is good as I'm currently leading that little challenge, funny how a £500 power tools voucher can get you all excited isn't it lol!!!

I lead for the first lap or so then Alex came past but I soon re passed him and the scene was set for another Assen battle, unfortunately though on lap 4 Alex attempted a run on me up the inside at the FAST turn 15 but the gap just wasn't there and he hit the side of my bike at the back so hard that it literally knocked me straight off the bike at 270km/h according to the data on my bike, now as strange as this might sound literally the instant it happened all I could think about was John Hopkins and Toni Elias who both crashed at that exact same spot and both broke their legs badly, I was literally sliding along thinking slow down, slow down, needless to say I eventually hit the gravel, rolled over what felt like 20 times and eventually came to a stop, now obviously at this point I didn't even know what had happened, there were no other bikes there, no other riders yet I knew I must've been hit because I certainly hadn't made a mistake..

Eventually I ended up in the medical centre and heard what actually happened, i already felt like I'd been run over by about four trucks, slugged it out for 12 rounds with Mike Tyson and knew I'd hurt my left leg which as well as being as dead as a dodo had a cut across the back of it, I couldn't see the race anywhere and heard that Alex won and I thought oh no, 24 points, that shit's gonna be tough to pull back but then some guys from my team and my wife came in saying the incident was under investigation, so I'm laying there in the medical centre and the next thing I know the phone rings in there and a medic says it's Stuart Higgs, BSB series director, he says are you ok, to which I replied not really, what happened he said, I replied you tell me!! He replied the incident's under investigation and when you're done in the med centre we all need a meeting, ok I said and that was that..

Myself, my team guys and Alex and some of his team guys along with Stuart, a data logging man, a load of CCTV, some on bike footage then sat down and to cut a long story short went though everything and the final outcome as you'll already know was Alex was excluded from the result, I was neither hoping nor wanting that to be pushed from my side but obviously it keeps my championship alive, I'm now thinking of nothing other than getting myself fixed up and coming back stronger for Silverstone, I genuinely believe Alex when he said he made a mistake, his data logging shows it and without gloating I'm happy about still being in front, now however we have to put all of that behind us and hope for more luck at Silverstone and Brands hatch because I certainly didn't come this far to give up on a 4th BSB title now, everything's crossed now that I'll be as fit and strong as ever when I line up for Silverstone's races, here's hoping we can jump back up on that top step of the podium...... TWICE!!!

Take it easy guys and girls, Shakey #67

Donington park!!

It seemed like a long old time ago since my winless round back at Cadwell park and I'm not gonna lie that winless round was a statistic that I wanted to put to bed as soon as possible, Donington though would be an interesting round as I never got to race there last year because of the shoulder injury at Cadwell so we'd have to wait to see what this year brings!!

The start didn't exactly get off to a flyer, as you will have probably seen on the news there was a MASSIVE 120 odd car pile up right near my house and it threw the surrounding areas into absolute turmoil, I'd planned to leave mid morning, head to Milton Keynes to see the guys at Corley cycles and meet up with a good mate for a coffee then get to Donington, to for a bit of a cycle for a couple of hours or so then drop into race weekend mode, with the accident though that all got thrown clean out the window and I never even got to Donington until around 6pm then it was straight into a Eurosport interview then straight out to dinner with the team and the guys from K Tech!!!

Having arrived in like 29 degrees temperature in shorts I was a bit disappointed to wake Friday morning to the sound of pouring rain, it was that bad in the morning that we never even bothered getting changed into leathers and just watched the session which was a bit of a non event to be honest, it was so frustrating because I just wanted to get out and get riding!!

Things didn't look a whole lot better for the afternoon session but quite a few of the boys headed out onto the track so I left it until about 15 minutes from the end of the session and headed out for a look, initially the bike felt dreadful, Donington however is notoriously slippery in the wet so with that in mind I did a lap or two to bed in some new brake pads then popped back into the pits to make some changes, unfortunately with the time we had left there was no time to make a big enough change as I felt we were quite a long way off setting wise and because of it I was having to ride to about 50 odd % of my wet riding ability but the small change was ever so slightly better so I improved a tiny bit riding wise and finished only 1.4 off of the front which considering how useless I felt I was pretty happy with!!

As you can probably imagine waking Saturday morning to sun shine and a dry track I was in a pretty good mood and really looking forward to getting out on track, free practice 3 actually went really really well, I used one pair of tyres to check race distance duration and for the majority of the session I remained half a second faster than everybody else, right in the dying minutes a bunch of guys fired in a new pair of tyres dropping me to P3 but I was feeling really good and really positive about our performance.

Throughout the qualifying sessions we made a few more little steps with the bike and in all fairness what I asked the team and K tech for they gave me its just that in doing so for the final session when I knew what time I was capable of the changes we made basically just made my bike a little bit too unpredictable, sure, we increased rear grip which was an area we needed to improve but in doing so I felt a step behind the bike the whole time and ultimately it cost me, I was happy enough with P4 thinking that's a front row that'll do only to find out that the organisers have now made Donington for some unknown reason a 3 bike per row grid, I get it at places like Cadwell and Knockhill but Donington... REALLY?????

The other thing which really annoyed me was not making the lap time I thought I had in me but hey, there's no points or podium credits for qualifying so lets get morning warm up out of the way and see what the races bring!!  

Saturday evening we sat down with the team and K tech to make a plan for the following day, we knew we needed to make a step with the bike and it wasn't going to be a click or two of compression or rebound damping so after going through the data together and me explaining my feelings we formulated a cunning plan...

Morning warm up went ok, not great but ok, our bike is quite sensitive to change and typically when we throw something new at it we need time to balance things and maintain the new positives whilst improving any negatives, after warm up k tech and the boys In my team sat down and then came up with a big plan, let me tell you when your crew chief says before the 1st race "right this race day is now going to be one big test" you know they've gone big lol!!!

I got a great start of the 2nd row and slotted straight into 3rd, exiting turn one I went under James Ellison into the top of Craner curves and as soon as I did I thought crikey I'm committed now, I hope these bloody changes work!!!

Fortunately yes was the answer to that question!!, after a few laps getting to grips with the differences the bike just seemed to get better and better and it was almost like I was some sort of novice trying to learn, understand and push the limits as the race wore on, after about 6 or 7 laps I'd found a real good rhythm and had worked out exactly what was what, I knew my strengths and I knew also where I wasn't so good, towards the end of the race with a lap to go I decided to try to make my move, I got into Coppice real good, got turned but then had a big slide being a bit over eager on the throttle so I knew it was all going to come down to the last lap, I lined up for exactly the same manoeuvre, got in good, got turned good, got on the gas good, got a mega run through third gear, just started thinking yes this is gonna work, shifted to 4th and bang, a false neutral, a word beginning with B and ending in ollocks came out rather loud and it was all I could do from there on in to get to the line in 2nd, I was real happy though and definitely had a big smile on my face, believe it or not after a long debrief with my team including the K tech guys I left them to make a plan and was really looking forward to race two!!

For race two the boys had once again made some changes, it's funny you know the whole trust thing, you see if I'd explained my feelings on the bike to myself and came up with the conclusion that my boys did I would have thought no don't be silly but seeing as we'd made such a big improvement since morning warm up I figured I'd just roll with it!!

I got a great start once again and to be honest I could pretty much get away with just saying I went bloody fast, half a second a lap faster than I qualified and 3 or 4 10th"s faster than my best in race 1, I stayed in 2nd pretty much the whole race, managed to pass Alex who lead the whole race on the last lap, get passed back then nearly drag him to the line but ended up 2nd again, that'll pretty much cover it lol!!

To be perfectly honest I was made up after the two races, we weren't in good shape after warm up so I'd like to thank my suspension guys Chris and Nash from K tech, my crew chief Johnny, Keith's crew chief Brains and the teams data guy Angus for all their hard work, I'm gutted I couldn't win one for them but it wasn't for a lack of trying, the boys did great and whilst I'm never happy to not win I've never been happier with two seconds, we earns them that weekend and achieved them through nothing other than hard work and determination!!

Now it's onwards and upwards, the show down is here and my championship lead has been cut due to podium credits to just 6 points, we've got to now treat each race weekend as we have all year, work hard and try to win, 6 points means f all and seems cruel after 3/4's of the season being so successful but it is what it is, I can't wait to get going again now!!!!! Thanks so much for all your support all weekend, it means a lot, take it easy guys and girls, Shakey #67   

Cadwell park

Well for some reason things didn't get off to a very good start where Cadwell park was concerned, mind you the brunt of that was purely down to getting a few bits and pieces boxed off at home before I left and the rest was purely down to the bank holiday traffic, to be honest I'm not really sure what this bank holiday is for but after my trip up I'm guessing it's for national drive like an idiot day or maybe national stay in the outside lane at no more than 55mph, who knows, maybe one of you guys reading this can fill me in and bring me up to speed on what it's really for lol!!! 

Anyway, enough already, we're here now and that's all that matters, Friday night was quite amusing, we always go out for dinner in the evening but usually there isn't a fun fair at the track and when we got back to the circuit myself and my crew chief did a reverse bungee jump, he was so funny, screaming for about 60% of the time we were on it, I liked it that much that I had another go straight after with my team mate Keith lol!!

Somewhat typically the first session of the weekend was hampered by wet weather which was far from ideal as we have some stuff we need to try to test, as it was we went out to try the bike in the wet, we haven't actually done that many wet laps this year so now was as good a time as any, the session went well despite a couple of little moments and a not ideal feeling from the front of the bike but the biggest problem came when I pulled back into the pits.....

Basically to cut a long story short, a few days ago I leant into one of our cars and took my daughter out but I immediately swung her straight up in the air above my head and the instant she went up something went in my back, I gently carried her in and explained what happened and after a couple of days as good as forgot all about it, now though I'd done a 10 or so lap run in the wet, pulled into the pits, swung my leg to get off the bike and completely locked up, eventually I got off but I don't know if you've ever had the same thing where you try to straighten up but every time you lift up you literally can't get a breath, not ideal!!

We called it a day for the rest of the session and headed to the circuit physio's to try to get loosened off and to be honest it initially didn't have anywhere near the affect I was hoping it would, I was in a bit of a bad place!!

As the afternoon wore on some tablets and the Physio had me feeling a bit better, the afternoon track session was dry and to be honest I figured that just getting to the end of the session would be a massive improvement on last year lol, the bike was working pretty good in the dry so we stuck at it out there on one set of tyres to ensure taking them over race distance, a couple of guys fired a new set of tyres at their bikes towards the end of the session so we dropped from 2nd down to 4th but it's all cool.

We knew we could improve the bike going into the final free practice and we had a good plan, I started the session with a new pair of front forks that had a completely different setting in compared to my usual ones and despite the track having quite a few damp ish patches from the overnight rain I immediately improved my time from the day before, the bike was a definite overall improvement but as is so often the case the setting needed some work on it to get the most out of it so I came in and the boys made a change which to be fair made things a little worse so one final quick fix saw us end the session P2 to Alex who'd tested here last week or whenever it was so it wasn't all bad.

Qualifying ended up going pretty good to be fair, we were still chasing set up all the way through with the new forks and stuff and trying different rear shocks etc, we kind of got it all sorted or so we thought then Q2 we seemed to struggle for grip a bit, we put it down to a possibly iffy rear tyre and cracked on for Q3 and despite earning a decent and somewhat important 2nd I was very disappointed with my lap time and felt we had a much better lap in us, maybe it wasn't the rear tyre then was the conclusion....

Race day came and with it so did some decent track temperature, I went into race one feeling pretty good, we knew Alex was going to be strong and fully expected him to try to go the second the lights went out but as the did and he did I got on the back of him and just sat there, I love watch Alex riding apart from obviously when the chequered flag's about to come out lol and Cadwell was no different, Alex set a real steady pace, and with that pace I saw him having the odd little moment here and there and I was sat behind at like 80% thinking this is absolutely perfect, to be honest the only thing that would have made Ot slightly better would be +1 or something on my board so I knew it was just he and I but unfortunately due to the pace my board said pretty much the whole race +0, after sitting there and conjuring up a cunning plan I decided to leave it till four or five laps from the end then try to pull the pin and go, the only problem with my plan that I'd underestimated however was that Alex had the same plan so there we were 5 laps from the end doing high 1.28's on cruise control and when I went to go we start knocking the best part of a second of a lap off the times for the final four laps, the concerning thing for me was how my bike reacted to that speed difference so after collecting 2nd to Alex I had a chat with the boys for a plan for race 2!!

With some slightly different settings in the bike that my crew chief was as good as certain would give me a race winning package I lined up on the 2nd row in P5, my problem had been that I'd sat behind Alex and made no effort for a fast lap so I got a bit caught out and ended up on row 2..

I'm not going to drag on about race 2, I got a decent start but it all went to pot from there, 2 or 3 corners in I realised I had a problem with the bike, basically the setting was great but the only variable wasn't, I must've got a bit of a duff rear tyre because I got dropped by the front 4, finished 4th because of Josh's crash and the rear tyre looked like it hadn't done 5 laps let alone an 18 lap scrap around Cadwell park, I was so unhappy as you can probably imagine, I tried so so hard in that race too, I just didn't have any feeling for what was happening underneath me, fortunately though when the team got the bike back they down loaded the data and could see immediately that the tyre was the problem so whilst it was incredibly annoying the only blessing was that it happened now and not in the showdown because at Cadwell it cost me 3 podium credits at the most but in the showdown that would have been 12 points... a BIG difference!!!

I'm now really looking forward to getting to Donington, Cadwell has been the first round all year that I didn't win at least one race so hopefully we'll get that little glitch ironed out there!! Take it easy guys and girls, Shakey #67