So then here we are back racing again, finally!!!, crikey it seems like a bloody long time ago since Oulton park doesn’t it??, so then, bringing you up to speed, as much as i would have rather carried on racing after the great start to this season i’ve actually really enjoyed the time off, we went over to Czech Republic for a week and also had a couple of weeks over in Spain where i managed to get plenty of cycling in so now we’re back, arrived here at Snetterton and feeling fresh, fit and raring to go!!!!
The weather it has to be said was absolutely perfect for the first free practice session, lovely and warm and not a lot of wind, we had a tiny problem with the bike initially but after just one flying lap i went P1 before pulling straight in to resolve the issue, as the session went on we got faster and faster and at one point i had a clear 1 second advantage, we tried a couple of things with the bike towards the end of the session but they never really worked so we just used the 1 set of tyres but still finished nearly 4 10ths up on the rest so it was a good start!!!
For the afternoon session we had a bit of a plan to work through, there was the other rear tyre option that we had to get some laps on as well as a few little chassis changes that we wanted to test too, i got straight out and had a bit of traffic and a few guys looking for sneaky tows which meant i actually did 3 or 4 laps before getting going but still when i finally got some clear track i managed a pretty decent lap time, i stuck at it and reeled off a number of laps to check the rear tyre but it became apparent that we still needed to work on our corner entry as with the rear i was testing the feeling was exactly the same as the other, after maybe 10 laps or so i came in to try to find a cure for my problems, at this point i was just under 1 second clear of the rest of the pack, i knew time was counting down and that soon pretty much all the others would be fitting new tyres and going for lap times but it was really important for me to test the changes we’d made with the same tyres so that we didn’t get a false indication, the good news was though that when i went back out the guys had certainly made a good step with the bike, it wasn’t completely fixed but it was a good chunk better and i really enjoyed riding the bike for the first time all weekend, in fact the changes were that good that with over race distance on the tyres i went just 0.1 second a lap slower than my best from the session so hopefully that’d bode well for the races on sunday!!!!
Saturday morning we had one more free practice session which again went well, we were trying to be sure that whatever the conditions track temperature wise we had a bike that we knew we had a good rhythm on, it’s funny in a way because we always get two different types of rear tyre an SC0 and an SC1, 0 being the softer of the two, basically the 1 works well when the track’s cooler and works well up to a certain track temperature then there’s a cross over point where the 1’s getting to it’s upper limit and the 0 to it’s lower limit then obviously the warmer the track gets generally the better the 0 works but that said the characteristics of the two tyres are different so the way you set the bike for them can differ too!!
Going into qualifying, whilst i was confident of a good lap time i wasn’t sure what the pace would be, i started Qualifying practice 1 on the 1 rear tyre and set a lap time more than good enough to go through to QP2, then in QP2 i used a 0 rear to see the difference, again, i went through to QP3 and with a new pair of tyres i went for it and pulled off a pretty decent lap to go Pole position, to be honest and you may think i’m lying i never care for Pole position’s, what’s the point? races are over 16-30 odd laps depending on the circuit so what’s the point in only being fast for 1 lap lol!!! When my lap time popped up on my dash i was absolutely chuffed to bits and to be honest if that time had of only got me 2nd or 3rd i’d be happy with it, the fact it put me half a second clear of the rest, well, that was just a nice little bonus!!!!!
For morning warm up we had some new brake disc and pads to bed in and after a couple of steady laps to start off with i got going pretty good on a pair of used tyres, we knew we had decent race pace so it was now pretty much just a case of sitting back and waiting to see what the track temperature would do and choose a rear tyre accordingly.
So with track temperature kinda falling right in the middle of the crossover point i spoke about earlier but the weather not looking too much like the sun was about to beat down on us in the imminent future we decided to go with the harder of the two rear ryes, as the lights went out i got a great start and lead immediately but very shortly after a course car came out due to a couple off accidents, I tried as hard as it's possible to keep some heat in the tyres as I knew when the car went in I had to try to make an escape and try to catch the boys napping, I got a good run when the car went in and pushed on a bit initially for a few laps which got me a bit of a gap but then in the interest of not rooting my rear tyre I backed it right off and tried really hard not to use any tyre at all, the only trouble was that my pace dropped just a couple of tenths or so too much in doing so and soon the boys were back on me, I figured at this point there was no point in panicking and trying to up my pace as potentially I'd risk having nothing left for the last couple of laps so I kept things pretty chilled until a couple of laps or so from the end when I got my head down hard again and got a small gap to take the win, I was made up with it even though I figured race two would be harder this was at least one out of the way, it also gave me the perfect chance to dedicate it to two great guys that we lost recently, Karl Harris and Simon Andrews, that one was for you boys!!
After a few small changes it seemed like no time at all before we were lining up on the grid again, my crew chief said to me "look, you've got this, you know the pace you can do, keep it under or around that and I reckon you'll build a buffer and be able to manage it"... Hmmm I thought, ok, let's give it a go!!
As the lights went out I got another decent start, slotted in and settled down, go to the front then started to push to my pace, once again my pace built me a small buffer but things were pretty tight at the front, I once again used my secret weapon which was the big TV monitor on the exit of the final turn to suss out how close the guys were to me and how hard to push accordingly and it seemed to be working a treat, my plan was to once again have a big dig for the final four or five laps to try to break the bunch and with about 3 to go it started to build then the next lap it was at like 3 seconds or something, blimey I thought, I didn't think I was going that fast!! Anyway the final couple of laps past and I crossed the line to take win number two, I was absolutely chuffed to bits to do the double, it was exactly what we needed and a great job by the whole team to get us there..
We knew that it was or is should I say way too early to be counting our chickens and any questions right now about Showdowns or championships seems miles and miles away but we were definitely on the right track, for now I just want to concentrate as hard as possible on racking up podium credits, ask me my aim at any race meeting and it'll be the same, obvious as it may sound it's to win but more importantly it's to rack up as many podium credits as possible because let's face it, it doesn't matter should we make it through to the showdown if we go there with a 200 point lead in the championship it means nothing if I have a 10 point podium credit lead as that's all we'll carry through, with that in mind it's head down bum up and maximum effort to keep them credits coming, let's hope we can rack up a good few more when we go north of the border in a couple of weekends time!!!!
Take it easy till then guys and girls, Shakey #67
