Brands hatch round 5 2014

To say i was looking forward to getting to Brands hatch for round 5 of the championship is a bit of an understatement, ironically i’d spent a bit of time there on the run up to the event doing an MSV track day on the monday then starting the 241 mile bicycle ride i did with a lap of Brands the tuesday before the event!!

I have to confess to having a bit of a secret about going to the GP circuit for this round, there was a lap time that i’d set myself as a target for the weekend, i never mentioned it to anyone and as i’ve said a million times before i’m not overly fussed about Pole Position’s but the lap time i had in my head, with the new 17” Pirelli tyres i thought would be doable..

I also have a confession, for no unknown reason whatsoever despite the fact we had our better engine in my bike felt like a ZX3 not a ZX10, there was no reason, it just didn’t seem to pull at all, i did 3 or 4 flying laps in the 1.28’s CONSIDERABLY off of my target time and pulled straight back in to the pits to say to the boys what on earth is up with this thing, they checked all the data and couldn’t really see anything and straight away i thought bloody hell this is gonna be a long weekend then!!!

I ended that session in 2nd which was ok but i was far from happy overall with our performance..

The boys did some work after studying the rest of the data from the 1st session and we improved marginally for free practice 2 to the tune of half a second a lap but again, power or the feeling of a massive lack of it was doing me no favours whatsoever..

Overnight the boys made some more changes including the engine but the final free practice session was wet to start then semi dried up, i did a few laps but as it got less and less wet i saw little or no point in destroying a pair of wets so i sat in the box and watched the rest of the session as the boys were still nearly 3 seconds a lap off the pace even right at the end of the session.

Obviously the mornings condition’s never gave us the chance to continue to improve the bike so we ended up doing just that throughout the qualifying sessions, i ended Q1 safe enough around a quarter of a second off where we needed to be but i was trying to fix the bike rather than driving myself mad about a lap time, Q2 again we never really had anything and things weren’t looking especially good, i just couldn’t find the feeling i was looking for from the bike and was really struggling still to push harder, we got through to Q3 though so i had to try to make that count regardless!!!!!!

I completely and utterly threw caution to the wind in Q3, i pushed to my absolute max and somehow managed to do enough to take Pole Position,don’t even bother questioning how because i don’t really know myself, i was far from expecting it i can assure you and as for my secret lap time, well, no where near it, to be fair everyone’s including my Pole time had been pretty crap all weekend which was strange, sure the ambient and the track temperature were high but blimey, i fell well over a second short of my target time, very strange…

We made some more changes in overnight ready for morning warm up and got out with a plan of banging in as many laps as possible in the 15 minutes in order to get a feel for what the bike was going to be like but bearing in mind the slightly cooler morning temperatures we went out on the harder rear tyre, after just a few laps though i decided to come in and try the softer option too as i figured covering all bases at this point was critical, we were far from happy really so needed to make the best of whatever was thrown at us, i ended the session 4th and a quarter of a second off so i knew we’d be there or thereabouts we’d just have to wait to see what mother nature had in store for us..

Race one at least ended up being dry, dry but much cooler than the first day which we figured made the harder rear tyre the way forward, i got a good start and lead initially, i could see and hear James Ellison was right on my tail though and figured there was zero point in trying to drop the pack but giving it 100% as i simply wasn’t going to get away, after about 12 laps though a challenge came from elsewhere, Kiyo came passed, initially i thought i must have been sleeping or something because he came past me so fast on the brakes into Paddock that i thought there was no way he’d get it stopped but he did, we ended up having a great battle over the remaining fee laps and i had a good feeling that although he’d passed me i thought i had enough to pass him back before the last turn then it’d be a drag race to the line, i got a great run on him through and out of Stirlings the penultimate corner but he blocked ever so slightly my run on the exit causing me to roll the throttle a millimetre or so, i knew the pass was on but that roll cast a tiny bit of doubt, i got alongside him approaching Clearways but it would’ve been a massive lunge rather than a clean pass due to the roll so i turned tight and drove as hard as i could to the line but Kiyo out dragged me and beat me by a tenth of a second so i was a bit gutted but a 2nd’s 20 points and 3 podium credits so no massive drama really..

We sat down after the race to go through the data to try to formulate a plan for race two after learning what we’d learnt during race one then i left the guys to go for my usual lunch, power nap and chill out before race 2, the weather was closing in thick and fast though so we were desperately hoping it would remain dry, having got the fastest lap in race one i was once again on Pole Position and i can assure you the view up towards turn one was like the scene out of a film set, angry looking big black clouds everywhere, it didn’t look pretty at all!!!

As the lights went out i once again got a great start, it was almost as if we all just wanted to get the race done and were in a real hurry because of it!!, James Ellison came past and lead for a lap or two but his pace was comfortable to follow so i figured i’d give it a few laps there, keep a good close eye on the weather, hope we made at least 2/3rds race distance in the mean time then get back to the front in case the race got stopped but that all went to pieces when James ran real hot into Westfield, he missed the apex by about a metre and i thought this is a good chance to outdrive  him down the hill which i focused on, i noticed way out wide though he was still way out wide then as i was getting the run on him on the inside i thought uh oh, he’s gonna run out of track.. the next thing i know he went down big time but immediately his bike dug in and started bouncing, now at that point it has to be said you make a split second decision because that’s all you've got and if you get lucky you avoid that bouncing bike and if you get unlucky, well cast your minds back to 2006 with Tom Sykes and the late Karl Bomber Harris, i made my choice and it looked initially like it was wrong, in what seemed like slow motion i thought oh nooooooo, this is gonna be massive, James’s bike flicked up, hit my bike and smashed my fingers but unbelievably and through far more luck than judgement i stayed on the bike and continued on my way, shortly after however the race was red flagged, mother nature was determined to play her part wasn’t she!!!!

We had a good shower of rain after the race was stopped, it looked like lots more would be coming too, we had to restart the final start with wet settings, for the first time all weekend i actually hoped to not lead into turn one and have to lead in the properly sketchy conditions but as the lights we out that’s exactly what happened, i lead for a bit then a few guys came past, Kiyo being one of them so i kept pushing and eventually passed him back, Josh Waters came through and looked on rails so i thought i’m not even gonna bother trying to chase you lol, then i got involved in a bit of a battle with Richard Cooper and Keith Farmer, the thing was those two at the time were battling for a podium they’d never had and were knocking each other wide all over the places, i actually rode there thinking blimey you two keep this up and i’ll have an easy second, eventually however, Tommy Bridewell past me and i ended up crossing the finish line in 5th, sure it wasn’t a podium credit finish but i beat my main rivals and stayed upright, exactly what we needed.

Coming away from my home race having not won was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow but at the end of the day i got beaten by a 10th of a second in the first race ad was feeling good for the 2nd race, unfortunately that ended up getting stopped and in the iffy conditions my results over the two races meant i accumulated the most points over the course of the weekend and was awarded with the Monster Energy King of Brands trophy which i’m really chuffed with!!! Another track i love coming up next, the wickedly fast tarmac motocross track that is Thruxton, i can’t wait, hope to see some of you guys there, take it easy, Shakey #67 

Knockhill round 4 2014!!

Well didn't round 4 start well, Knockhill it's fair to say is a fair old way from from Kent but fortunately for me my team boss Birdy booked me a private plane to fly me up from my local airfield, that definitely made the trip a bit easier lol!!

I have to say I was really looking forward to racing north of the border again, last year the track was real good for us with a double win and whilst you can never take anything for granted I was certainly hoping for more of the same this weekend.

The strange thing was that whilst I got straight up to speed and was lapping pretty flipping fast immediately I couldn't seem to get comfortable on the bike, I seemed to be struggling a bit with feeling for the front tyre, I wasn't panicking as we as I said were fast and ended the session 1st or 2nd so I figured we'd look over the data and get things sorted for free practice 2 later that afternoon..

Little did I know this feeling issue I was having was somewhat more terminal than I'd anticipated, we tried some things to fix it and ran in to various other problems but at the same time we were under my lap record pace and lapping so consistently it wasn't even funny, things were, how should I say, looking very well on the outside but feeling not very good at all on the inside..

After a night to pore through all the data we'd gathered throughout the first days practice we went into free practice three hopeful of a cure for my issues however, and trust me this is going to start sounding like a broken record, whilst we fixed some parts we made others worse, for some unknown reason we just couldn't find a setting that would let me push the bike, sure I was giving 100% but it was 100% as hard as the bike wanted to go which I frustratingly felt was only about 80 odd % as hard as I felt I could go if we got things sorted..

Going into qualifying we found ourselves still chasing a set up that would give me the confidence to push as hard as i knew i could, we’d be thinking we’d sussed it then after a couple of laps realise actually we hadn’t, it was bizarre to say the least as like i mentioned before we were going fast, just not happy doing so!!

For the final qualifying i was hopeful of an all out attack, i knew what lap time i thought i’d need to do in order to fight for the front row and to be honest a big part of me was surprised i hadn’t already achieved it but regardless with the feeling i had i knew i’d need to dig deep, as we headed out for the final session mother nature had a bit of a sense of humour failure and decided now would be a good time to throw a bit of rain our way, i pushed on as much as i dare and came round to see a lap time WELL off where i knew i’d need to be, i never actually checked my position but i couldn’t help but think there’s only 10 of us out here, do i need to be firing it at the scenery for the sake of a row or two… after another semi steady lap to try to establish what was going on the rain stopped and it was time to dig, i pushed hard and did a few decent laps but my team mate followed me and done a time to go faster but fortunately i kept pushing and got a better time to end the session front row in P3, that’s absolutely fine by me i thought to myself riding back in to the collecting area!!!!

After going through all the data from qualifying and explaining what i was looking for the boys and i spent quite a while going through the data searching for an answer, the problem was that all the changes we were making were not big at all but were having such big effects on the way the bike was working… It’s definitely a little window that my baby works in that’s for sure!!!

Morning warm up was pretty cool temperature wise, we tried the bike with a different setting again then during the session i came in to try to modify it further, all things considered my rhythm was real strong despite the fact we used old tyres so while things weren't perfect we went with the settings fro race 1.

Knowing how many years i’ve been racing now i can’t believe i made such a rookie mistake during the start of race one, talking to myself waiting for the lights i was like “come on Shakester, we need this start” but looking up i could’ve sworn the was a problem with the lights, they were taking ages to come on, i panicked a little and looked at the starter Anabelle then noticed a set of lights on her hut just over Josh’s shoulder, as i clocked the lights they went out and i totally blew the start then got a bit ruffed up in the first few corners dropping me down to 5th or 6th, i was so angry with myself as i knew i’d need to be right at the sharp end to have a chance to fight, it took me quite a few laps to get through to 2nd and once i did i pushed hard to try to bridge the gap that Kiyo had already built at the front but all i could do was match him but he was 2 seconds up the track and the harder i tried the more problems i was having with the front of the bike, so many times i felt like i was going down but stayed on, eventually i took a 2nd which is far from a bad result but i was annoyed with myself for letting the win go away, one consolidation was that i had the fastest lap in race 2 so i’d start from Pole position for race 2…

We once again sat and had a long chat after the race about how to make the bike better as i knew there was no point in going with what we had again, the boys came up with a plan and before we knew it we were lining up for race 2, i wouldn’t be making a mistake this time off the start, that’s for sure lol!!!!

As the lights went out i got a great start and lead from the word go, let me tell you 30 laps around any track is almost enough to make you dizzy but when it’s 30 laps around a track as technically demanding as Knockhill it’s even worse.. the place just grinds you down as there’s literally not a seconds rest around there, nonetheless i kept my head down and pushed as hard as i could the whole race and despite a pass from Kiyo whom i managed to re pass a lap or so later it was 30 long laps leading but the right result at the end, i.e. a win so i was chuffed to bits with that, i think we learnt a lot as a team that weekend, we struggled a lot more than our results showed so to come away with a 2nd and a win was unreal, i was that happy i even brought Michael Rutter and Stuart Higgs a beer in the airport that evening lol!!!

Anyway, now it was onwards and upwards, well downwards depending on how you look at it to my home track, brands hatch, i can’t wait!!!