So then, following on from my well overdue first round Blog last week i decided it’s high time i got cracking with this one to bring you fully up to speed with all the going’s on from Oulton park. Being a bank holiday round i was getting a bit jittery on the friday waiting to travel up, i’d gone up to Oulton and back the previous week and had a 7 hour journey up and a pretty savage trip back too so i wasn’t looking forward to another long day in the car, typically me i’d arranged all sorts of bits and pieces that i’d either not got round to or simply forgot about so my mate Wag and i ended up leaving about 3 hours behind schedule, in fact at the time we finally left i was meant to be meeting my friend and sponsor in Milton Keynes to collect my new bicycle!!!
i think actually a quick shout has to go to Sean from Mavic for sorting said new bike for me, as you probably know i’m a bit of a fan of cycling when it comes to my training and Sean and Mavic sorted me out a properly amazing deal on a new Pinarello Dogma, the same bike Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome won the Tour dr France on, i wish it could make me pedal like those boys but unfortunately it won’t, that said i’ll now look flipping cool even if i’m dolloping along getting overtaken by milk floats lol!!!!
Anyway, finally we arrived at Toddington services to meet Sean and collect the bike and after all the excitement of seeing it and having a quick blast around the service area car park it was back on the road again for Wag and i.
Eventually, unfortunately a good few hours later we finally arrived at Oulton park!!
I have to say that all the way there i was thinking about how tough the weekend was going to be, sure we’d been fast in all testing etc but and we won the first two races of the season but we were heading deep into yamaha land, that bike is so so strong there and i knew i was going to be right up against it trying to beat Josh there, i also knew Josh was super pumped and very hopeful of results similar if not better than previous riders, this was going to be far from a walk in the “Park” if you pardon the pun!!!!!
Having tested at the track as i mentioned earlier we were already semi up to speed on the saturday morning free practice session, we had a few ideas after looking at the data of the direction we’d need to work in and made a few appropriate changes throughout the session.
To be fair my bike was working really really well, throughout practice sessions my crew chief Johnny and Chris my K Tech suspension man chipped away and chipped away and the bike just got better and better, free practice three came to an end with me having a run out on a new rear tyre and going 0.6 clear of the entire field and managing my first 1.34 second lap, i was pretty chuffed with that considering it wasn’t a perfect lap and i got a bit of traffic too, let’s see what qualifying brings then…
We started Q1 with a new front and a new rear tyre and the plan was to use the new set in Q1 and Q2 then go new front new rear for the final session, with that in mind i did an out lap and one flyer to initially go P1, the time wasn’t that fast but i knew it’d be more than enough to get through to Q2 so i sat out the rest of the session.
Q2 i went out on the same tyres as i said before and managed to get back into the 34’s again, a 34.9, Josh had done a 34.9 in Q 1 then a 34.8 in Q2 so i knew it was going to be tight in Q3, i dug in and put in a pretty good lap, it wasn’t perfect but pretty good and when i saw 1.34.5 come up on my dash i was chuffed to bits, i actually thought if you go faster than that you can have the bloody pole lol!!! As it turned out i’d done enough to take Pole by .3 of a second so my first royal London watch was on route ;-)
We had a plan for morning warm up regarding race tyres, i felt we’d definitely done our homework on the harder (safer) option but there was a possibility we could make the softer tyre work for the race, especially if the temperature got up a bit more, our plan however was scuppered by overnight rain and far cooler track temp so unless the temperature really picked up we knew exactly what our tyre choice was going to be..
Race 1 then, as i’ve said, i wasn’t really expecting to be starting from Pole but was happy to nonetheless, i got a decent ish start and lead initially but pretty much straight away the course car came out, obviously being at the front you never know the reason until you come back around to where the incident happened and i have to say on that first pass at the top of cascades we went through what vaguely resembled a motocross track and i looked at Josh as if to say this race needs stopping, we peel in to the top of cascades touching the rev limiter in 4th gear so probably approaching 130-140mph and i didn’t really want to be the first guy to find out if they’d cleaned all the mud and dust etc sufficiently!!!
fortunately however atet another couple of laps behind the course car the track was looking pretty good, as the course car pulled off i got on the gas and away we went, i was pretty cautious the first few times across the top of where the mud had been but nevertheless started to build up a bit of a lead, at one point the lead got up to 1.5 seconds and with about 4 or 5 laps to go i concentrated on staying consistent, the gap started coming down and i thought hmm, i know who that’ll be but rather than panicking and trying to pull away again i stayed calm and maintained my rhythm, for the last few turns i rode a little bit more defensively then exiting the final turn i drove hard to the finish line to hold off Josh to take the first race of the day.
The only thing that was going to affect us for race two was going to be track temperature but with that not changing dramatically we just made a little change to the rear of the bike and were good to go for race two, Josh had lapped slightly faster than me in the first race so for this one i would start from second but i was cool with that so it was a case of sit and wait for the lights to go out and… go go go!!
Once again i got a decent ish start, and slotted straight in to 3rd, i made a move on James Ellison into the fast left hander Island bend as Josh was in the lead and i didn’t want him sneaking away, that move worked and a lap or two later i tried the exact same move on Josh, he never gave way though and held his line but ran slightly wide so i passed him into Shell oils hairpin, on the way i the i heard a horrible scraping noise and honestly thought i’d clipped him or he’d just caught my bike on the way in and he’d gone down, it was weird because i never for some reason got fully on it on the exit of the turn and i was trying out of the corner of my eye to see if there were yellow flags across the track on the entry to Shell showing a rider down, then bugger me as i peeled into the Fulstons chicane Josh came back past me and caught me well off guard, there i was thinking oh no, i’m sure my move was clean, it wasn’t my fault blah blah blah and the next thing i knew he was overtaking me!!!
To cut a long story short i followed him from there on in for the whole race, there were plenty of places i was faster but a particular section that he was able to pull a bit on me, i sat there for the last few laps planning my attack, i knew i’d have to pass him real early in the lap or he'd be in with a good shout of passing me back but i just couldn’t get enough of a run early enough in the lap to make a pass, on the last lap i had a proper go, Josh was under pressure and making a few little mistakes but trying hard to capitalise i made a mistake myself, i set myself up for a big run to the line as Josh had gone in tight but the Yamaha had the legs off that turn and Josh pipped me by exactly the same amount as i’d beaten him in the first race, 1 10th of a second.
Now i have to admit i’m never happy to finish second but i’ve taken a great deal of positivity from the Oulton park weekend, my bike was great, my Pole time was real fast, i won the first race, our times in race two were super fast and consistent and finally we ran Yamaha who’ve dominated there recently so so close and almost had another double, for me that was a massive weekend, believe it or not i’m actually gutted we’ve got such a big break now as i’m really enjoying the season so far!!
That said we have a couple of nice breaks planned now, we’re off to Czech republic for a week to see the in laws which should be great, usually Petra and i nip off to Prague for a day or so while the grandparents have the kids so i’m really looking forwards to that, i’m also hoping to get a load of training done to ensure we come back for Snetterton in tip top condition, i can’t wait to get going again, hopefully see some of you at Snetterton, take it easy, Shakey #67
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