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
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