Donington park...

I always have really good intentions when it comes to doing my race weekend Blogs, every time I get to the circuit I think right, I’ll do rough notes or run through the Blog as the weekend goes and then have pretty much everything I need in order to fire the story up asap!! However, to be fair they normal start and finish exactly as I said…Intentions!

Well, enough already, lets get on with it and let you know how the weekend went from my view, as you’ll probably remember from my last Blog about Cadwell Park we treated that whole weekend as nothing more than an extended test in order to get us into as good a position as we could possibly be heading into the Showdown part of the series, I quite obviously wasn’t overly ecstatic with leaving Cadwell with a 20 odd points lead in the Championship yet heading into Donington Park 7 points behind but all of that was completely irrelevant as we just needed to get out there, get on it and do our best to beat the rest, that, was the cunning plan!!!

It all started off good to finishing the 1^st dampish session right near the front after with a fairly decent initial feeling from the bike despite the iffy conditions.

The afternoon session was completely dry and immediately I went quite a bit quicker than the morning session to the tune of about 2 seconds per lap but with that increasein lap time came a bike that felt really good and pretty relaxed to one that felt like being sat on a razor blade i.e. you were gonna be jumping off pretty quickly!!! I couldn’t believe the difference and to be honest if I didn’t know better I would’ve thought I was on two completely different motorcycles, I wasn’t overly worried though as the fact we were once again right up there gave me comfort and I knew Chris and the boys would only make the bike better as the weekend wore on.

We spent a fair bit of Saturday’s morning session waiting for the track to dry out as overnight rain had made it far from ideal, we learnt a couple of bits and pieces from the session though and continued working chassis wise to get things closer to where we’d need to be for the afternoons qualifying sessions.

All tucked in!!!

Heading into the first session we were trying a slight modification to the chassis to help me to get the bike turning better, I’d been complaining a bit that on the brakes hard or with a lot of weight on the front tyre the bike would steer good but as soon as I released the brake or flicked the bike in without loading the front good the bike just didn’t want to hook around a corner causing me to run wide by the apex then even wider on corner exit, when I got to the garage before the session and Chris explained what he’d seen on the data I decided to go two steps rather than one and during the first session made small additional steps too.

The second session was quite frustrating, I knew I had a good lap time in me, certainly fast enough for a front row but after just one flying lap it was obvious it wasn’t going to come in this session, that said we did enough to get through to the last session so hopefully it would come in the 3^rd and final session.

Unfortunately it was once again blatantly obvious after just one flying lap that this final tyre wasn’t to be the one either, I was laying 4^th so on the front row at that point in time but I pulled in straight after the first lap as I wasn’t sure if there was anything to do to help my problems and Chris made a quick change but despite this on my out lap down through Craner curves and into the Old hairpin the rear started to once again chatter and skipped around on me, the inconsistency lately has been shocking, I wasn’t a happy boy I can assure you as by the end of the session I’d dropped to 5th!!

For the first time pretty much ever I think we used a new rear tyre for morning warm up as it was important to press on to a certain degree to check out our latest chassis changes and the session went pretty well, you cant read a lot into morning warm up lap times but we were right on the money regardless so fingers crossed for the races..

Talking of which I had a plan for the races, it’s not very often I can state that, generally if you asked I’d simply say yeah, the plan is to win but this time round I knew that the Yamahas of Tommy and Michael as well as Hopper were particularly strong, my plan was to just get stuck in, proper, I knew that if they got clear track they’d be difficult to stay with so I knew I had to be a massive pest in the early laps then see how things shook out later in the races, that was the plan anyway!!!

Well as the lights went out to start race 1 you could definitely say things went completely to plan, starting 5^th on the grid so 2^nd row I got a good launch and made my way towards the inside on the run into Redgate, I waited until the guys just in front braked then braked myself as hard as I dare and ran up the inside of everyone to take the lead, perfect, that’s part of the plan sorted, over the 1^st lap I had a bit of a dice with Michael Laverty and got in behind him for a lap, our 1^st flying lap was my fastest of the weekend which boded well, I managed to put a pass back on Michael down into the Old Hairpin and lead from then right through to about lap 10 I think, Tommy Hill put a move on me into Goddards (the final turn) that sent us both wide and allowed Michael and Hopper to pass the pair of us which was a bit frustrating as by this point I was already suffering a bit with some rear grip issues and vibrations, immediately I re passed Tommy into turn 1 and even had a look at Hopper too on the exit and run down through the top of Craner curves, a lap or so later Tommy had another lunge but this time we nearly went to the edge of the track so the front two got a bigger gap, by this point things had gone down hill a bit more for me and I couldn’t keep the pace so I dropped back and ended up a fairly lonely 4^th which was really annoying, after the race we checked the rear tyre and it had spun on the rim throwing the wheel out of balance but not only that it had actually cold torn a little bit too, sounds daft I know but basically we had to make some changes for race two to actually make the tyre have a slightly harder life so that it didn’t rip up so bad…. Either that or I needed to try harder ha ha ha!!

With the changes made to the bike I was ready once again for action, race 2’s plan was identical to race 1, be a pest initially then see where we were at after a while, because of the lap times from race 1 I was starting the second race from P2 behind Hopper which gave me a much better shot at making my plan come to fruition, I got a good start as the lights went out and matched Hopper on the run down to turn one, I was on the inside of him thinking I’m not braking until you do, I’m not braking until you do and the instant he hit the brakes I hit mine and ran up the inside of him, I went in there pretty quick but still got turned for the apex and was already thinking good drive, get good drive when I felt a big bang in the side and suddenly found myself riding a Swan Yamaha as well as my HM Plant Honda towards the gravel trap, I couldn’t believe it, surely that never happened…

The moment it all went so wrong :-(

as we came to a standstill with my clutch in and engine running I jumped up quickly checked my bike which apart from a bent brake lever seemed fine and got back on track as quick as I possibly could, this people was gonna be damage limitation taken to a whole new level, I got up to speed as quick as possible, repassed the course car into the esses and from then on in just had it lit, I set the fastest lap of the race on lap 2 despite a moment down Craner Curves which in hindsight I’m glad happened, at the moment I have to concentrate too hard on riding my bike rather than racing the track and I’ve explained that to the team ona number of occasions this year so me in full on attack mode racing the track not the bike caused the exact problem I’d been telling them about all weekend, quite often my comments are that I can only ride the bike to 100% of its ability but not to mine which might sound a little daft but basically it’s me saying I could change direction quicker but it will do that or I could flick the bike in faster but it would to that and the moment at Craner was a prime example and showed the team on the data exactly what it is I’m talking about when I say it, funny enough the exact same thing happened at Cadwell the other week!!!

Using all the track and more trying to catch back up!!!

Anyway, moving on I just kept going and going as fast as I could and kept a much better rhythm than I had in race 1, the changes Chris had made definitely improved things a bit, I treated every lap that I wasn’t lining up people like an all out Superpole lap and eventually got up to 8^th position, obviously this was Very far from ideal, we were or should I say are well and truly on the back foot Championship wise which is a bit frustrating, don’t get me wrong I hold nothing whatsoever against M Lav, he along with the rest of us fighting for the title are being forced to do things and put under unnecessary pressure because of the stupid championship format, how a championship that’s run over 12 rounds or whatever it is can then be decided over 175 points is beyond me, it’s going to induce risky maneuvers and guys pushing over the limit because we have no choice if we want to be Champion but hey ho, hopefully there’ll be big crowds at the final three rounds to see it all unfold…..

I feel particularly gutted for my HM Plant team over the course of the weekend, both Kiyo and myself struggled a bit through practice then Kiyo had a problem with his bike which meant a retirement from race 1 and I had the drama in race two which only netted me a 4^th and an 8^th, not what we turned up for at all bit on a positive note hopefully that’s our bad luck been and gone, sure we’re a good chunk of points behind now but anything can happen and I promise I’ll be coming out swinging at Silverstone trying my absolute best to get things turned around!!

A massive thanks for all your support over the course of the season, and thanks to to my Team and everyone around me, I guess the biggest thanks has to go to my wife for not firing out our 2^nd child whilst I was in the middle of the races and on that note I’ve got to get cracking as we’ve got a baby to have now in between now and Silverstone…hopefully!!!

Take it easy, Shakey #67

Testing, testing, 1,2,3 testing!!! Cadwell Park

I have to say Cadwell park was destined to be a strange weekend from the word go, fortunately for me and the HM Plant Honda team we’d already qualified for the shoot out part of the season but with some new parts failing to turn up the week before for the test we had the weekend was pretty much going to be all about testing and putting ourselves in the best possible situation going forward.

For pretty much the 1^st time ever too I was actually alone all the way up until Sunday afternoon as Reg my driver/right hand man was away on holiday and my wife’s so pregnant now that we could literally be becoming parents for the 2^nd time any minute now so she stayed home to rest. It felt really strange being at a circuit alone, certainly made me realise what goes into the whole weekend!!!

The 1^st session was a strange one indeed, we started with the bike as we’d finished the test the week before and within a lap and a half I’d both gone pretty fast and also been off the bike nearly 4 times including a big run on at the bottom of the mountain, I pitted pretty much straight away convinced there was something wrong with my front tyre as I’d never nearly lost the front so many times in one weekend as I did in that lap and a half!!!! I exited again with a new front tyre and settled in a little bit slower this time working through a few bits and pieces throughout the session.

Hi mum!!! ;-)

For the afternoon session we were due to test our new swing arm, well, mother nature had other ideas, half way through the day it absolutely lashed down, I’m not talking about a spot of rain I mean proper rain so obviously any dry time on the track was all but impossible, when the afternoon session started we sat it out for all but about 5 minutes from the end, to be honest the majority of the track was dry or at least had a dry line but the last two corners, well, I would’ve been faster around them on a jet ski!! Despite the fact we had an intermediate front and a used slick rear I got a bit of a feel for the new swing arm and that was about it, that said I did up P1 after about 3 or 4 flying laps so it wasn’t all bad!!!

Rubbing my hands at the prospect of the trick swing arm!!

That evening I went round to see Gary Mason for a bit and Rat Boy (Stuart Easton) came around, it was real good sat talking to them, listening to some of the shit that Rat Boy’s had to go through was unreal, the way he told his stories had me in stitches, funny now obviously but far from it back when he got hurt….

Our final free practice session was dry and gave me a bit more of a chance to evaluate things chassis wise, the session went ok but whilst I was sure there were some good points to the new swing arm there were also a couple of slightly weaker areas too, we spent the session working through a few changes to the bike in order to help out but it became as I said at the head of the Blog obvious that this weekend was going to become the test that we never got to carry out the week before!!!

Bit of air over the mountain!!!

For the afternoons qualifying sessions it was time for a bit more chassis work, we knew we’d easily be cool for the first session to get through to the 2^nd session and that we’d also probably be cool for the top 8 too so we treated all sessions in exactly the same way, somewhat disappointingly for me I could only manage 6^th place in the final session for a couple of reasons, one because the new swing arm didn’t complement the softer tyre and two because the final soft rear didn’t seem quite as good as the other two I’d used previously.

After the superpole sessions we didn’t have long to get ready for the 1^st race, we worked through the data from qualifying etc to come up with something to help with rear grip and decided to give it a go in the race.

Who you looking at!!!????

If you watched the race you will of seen that I got an absolutely dire start, it was kind of my fault but also a technical problem too, basically to make a start I have a sequence of lights that need to be lit to assure me perfect rpm, well, I was trying to get them lit but no amount of throttle seemed to light them to the point where I already knew I was well past where I normally am throttle position wise, whilst concentrating on the dash and trying to sort everything everybody just went, I wasn’t even looking at the start lights at the time!!!! Needless to say I got a dreadful start and settled in around 8^th I think, I managed topick of a few immediately and got myself on the back of the battle for the podium being led at a pretty slow pace by Michael Rutter, Josh Brookes was immediately in front of me but every time I looked at passing him he was looking at passing Rutter which was making things particularly tricky!!! I kept seeing Josh look at Michael into Hall bends but Michael was pretty strong into there, Josh looked on four or five laps before getting a particularly good launch over the mountain and looking like he fully meant it this time, I was right on the back of the two of them and to be honest my immediate thought was result, that’s at least a podium for me, it’s not that I wanted them to go down I could just see they were going to tangle and the chances were one if not both of them would run off track as whilst Josh had a good run and more momentum than Michael I think he just didn’t quite get alongside enough for Michael to see his wheel and either a) let him through or b) try to defend hence the reason there was such a big collision, I think Michael never actually knew he was there, anyway, to cut a long story short not long after the race got red flagged whilst I was lining up Josh so I ended up 4^th, however, later that evening I learnt that Josh had been excluded so I ended up with 3^rd.

We made yet another plan going forward for the 1st race on Monday after testing a couple of bits and pieces in the morning warm up session and all I really wanted was a good start, this time I got it and ran well, I made a pass at the end of the straight to get into third and was highly relieved when the two Yamahas didn’t disappear off into the distance, I managed to pass Michael Laverty and was sitting 2^nd watching Tommy’s every move tryingto suss out a) where we were stronger and b) what else we could do to improve our bike, Michael eventually passed me back but I finished literally a couple of seconds off of the win so I was relatively happy. One of my biggest problems was corner entry instability and after studying more data Chris decided on a completely different plan of attack which involved a completely different spec of rear shock which had helped us in the past and different fork springs, the final race was once again going to be interesting!!!

For the final race I started P2 due to the lap times from the earlier race and I felt much better sat on the front row, I got a fairly good start although not perfect so held my position up through the first couple of turns, M Lav had grabbed the holeshot but I managed to slip past him and lead for the first lap and a half, to be honest I already knew early on that we’d gone the wrong way rear shock wise but I figured if I just kept consistent and tried to make no mistakes we should be on for at least another podium, I thought that just as I back shifted 2^nd to 1^st into the tight chicane after Mansfield corner and the next thing I knew the bike went quiet and I realised I’d hot a neutral, I’ll not swear now but a word beginning with B and roughly sounding similar to trollocks went through my mind immediately!!! I rejoined the track in 4^th and unfortunately that’s where I ended up, a pretty unhappy 4^th, not even a podium!!

In the lead albeit very briefly!!!!

Looking on the Brightside we were in an extremely fortunate position to be able to test so much stuff over the course of the weekend, Chris and I have spent loads of time in debrief as well as a load of time on the phone to each other to try to push things forward as quick as possible with the swing arm and I believe the team have already come to a conclusion and spoken with the manufacturer who agrees totally with them regarding what modifications are required in order to push forward and improve the bike, I’m really happy that we got to run so many different settings through the swing arm and got a good chunk of the development done before heading into the Showdown part of the championship. One thing I am pretty pissed about though is that despite the fact I’ve lead the Championship all year I actually go into the Showdown 7 points I think behind Tommy, that said I guess the pressure’s on him now so if we can continue working on the HM Plant Honda and luck goes our way then things could pan out pretty good, I’m certainly feeling fit and up for the challenge so bring on the next round, the gloves are off now!!!!!

Brands Hatch GP....

Brands Hatch GP circuit, one of my favourite race tracks in the world, I simply couldn’t wait to get out on track for my 1^st ever triple header weekend, well, couldn’t wait until Saturday should I say because on the Friday all we had all day literally was one half an hour test session on the short Indy circuit!!

Friday was the strangest day ever, we’re so used to having two sessions one in the morning and one in the afternoon that sitting around all day until about 2-30pm or whenever it was we got out was almost more tiring than actually riding, it just didn’t seem right being there but not actually being out on track.

Some deemed the half an hour session on the short circuit a waste of time and Hopper for instance didn’t even bother venturing out but for me and my team this was a pretty big opportunity, after Oulton Park my crew chief Chris cameup with a completely new chassis setting that we needed to test, when I say completely different I mean completely different, now you could say that testing it on the short circuit wouldn’t really tell us much but the thing is we raced there earlier in the year so we knew what lap time was sensible and by using the half an hour session we’d lose no time should it be no good and be able to start Saturday with our more conventional setting so for us it was a win win situation, as it turned out the new setting felt pretty good, obviously with such a drastic change it was never going to be perfect straight away but there was definitely potential there, a few tweeks throughout the half hour session saw us finish up P2 I think or maybe P3 but my fastest lap was my last on tyres that had done the whole session showing that obviously we were making progress, I know Brands Indy is tight but to end up just 1 10^th of a second off I felt pretty happy and confident that the following day we could make some bigger changes and really start heading in a good direction but little did I know…..

Without being negative I almost feel the less said about Saturday the better, it started, continued and ended being one of those days you just want to end as soon as possible before anything else went wrong!!

We had problem after problem in the two morning sessions and myguys worked incredibly hard to keep us in a position to get out on track, the big plus initially was that despite the fact we struggled to get more than two consecutive laps in at a time when we did hit the track we went immediately P1 so it wasn’t all bad!!

Having the race on the Saturday couldn’t possibly have worked out worse for us, I’m not kidding when I tell you that I’d maybe done 20 laps all day Saturday before the race and to make matters worse it started to spit with rain just before the race was due to get underway, because of this we got a 7 minute wet practice session which I decided to use to take a look around and understand the condition of the track, I’d decided that it was wet enough…just for wets and if the rain continued it was only going to get wetter so I went to the grid on wets, typically though the rain stopped, my guys got enough time to change the rear back to an intermediate but ran out of time to change the front, this was going to be a long old race now!!!

As the lights went out I got a pretty good start and went around the outside for the lead,

I lead for about 2 or 3 laps but with the rain stopped my front tyre felt like chewing gum, I knew a decent result was out of the question and that I was only going to go backwards so I pitted and used the change of tyres rule to try for a fast lap on slicks so that I’d start the 1^st of Sundays races from a decent grid position, this worked out perfectly and we managed P3 for the following race, I couldn’t believe the amount of controversy my race caused though, a whole bunch of people kicked off because I re passed the podium battle, the problem was that after being in the pits to change tyres I had no idea who was in what position so I was simply trying to un lap myself and make up as much time as possible…

Unfortunately for me Sunday morning started off pretty much the same as Saturday had, ie with problems, we used the tyres from the day before in order to go beyond race distance so that we knew we’d be ok but I was hampered big time by chatter from the rear end of the bike, because we’d made some changes for the warm up we couldn’t be sure whether it was the changes, the track temperature, the surface after the heavy rain or what it was that was causing it so we went back to what we had the day before and crossed our fingers for the 1^st race..

As the lights went out I got a pretty good start, Lascorz moved across on me which blocked me a little but nevertheless I exited turn one comfortably in 4^th, after a lap or so Rutter put a move on Lascorz and pushed him a little wide so I managed to sneak up the inside at the exit of Paddock, a lap or so later I passed Rutter up into Druids before setting off after a fast starting Tommy Hill, I caught him in a couple of laps and felt more than comfortable riding behind him, I knew I could lap faster so I lined up a move and managed to pass him into Surtees at which point I chewed the screen, shut my eyes and pushed hard for a few laps, I did indeed lap faster but the problem was Tommy tagged on the back of me and no matter what I did I kept getting +0 on my pitboard,at that point I figured the thing to do was to settle down a little to preserve my rear tyre for a few laps, I dropped down to like mid to low 1.27’s with +0still on my board. With 7 laps to go I went for it again and immediately dropped to mid 1.26’s to try to break Tommy but again my board said +0, with about 3 or 4 laps to go Tommy put a move on me into Paddock but it was almost an exact replica of my move on him back in Easter and he immediately ran wide, I got straight back up the inside and pushed to the max again for the last few laps and managed to hold it to the chequered flag to take my first win since way back at Thruxton, I was absolutely delighted and felt it was just what my team deserved after such an incredibly difficult weekend so far!!!!

Post race celebration!!!

Post podium pose!!!

Rolling out towards the grid for the sighting lap of race 2 of the day something just didn’t feel right, I had in two new tyres and immediately I felt a bit of vibration from the right hand side of the rear tyre, I mentioned it to Chris on the grid and to be on the safe side we fired in a spare rear just to be sure. I got another reasonable start and slotted straight in P3 behind Tommy and Hopper and do you know what the most frustrating thing in the world is….knowing your doomed from there on in, the new rear tyre had exactly the same feeling like the one we took out, don’t get me wrong, Tommy set a better pace in the first few laps but initially I could keep up but as things got worse as the race wore on I knew it was going to be difficult to even stay on the podium let alone fight for another win, I pushed as hard as I could around the problem to try to keep Michael Laverty behind me and just about pulled it off to hang on for third, it’s really funny in a way though because when you won the first race you feel almost gutted about a third, I know I couldn’t possibly have done anymore with what I had though and feel pretty confident that we could’ve ran with Tommy and Hopper if we hadn’t of had the problem.

Looking forward now I’m hoping we’re going to be able to improve a little, I believe there’s some new parts coming for our bikes which should help in a few areas and should allow us to more comfortably follow the chassis setting route I mentioned earlier so I’m looking forward to that, I know we have two evenings testing coming up ahead of the next round at Cadwell park so hopefully we’ll be able to make some positive steps there.

In a way I guess I’m pretty happy with our weekends work, it certainly felt good to win again for the first time in ages, I’m happy that we’re the first ones through to the shootout, I’m happy that we may have found a good direction with the bike but above all that I’m a bit annoyed that something so simple and so out of our control can once again have such a big effect on the outcome of a race, with this shootout being run over 6 races lets keep our fingers crossed that this issue doesn’t arise again!!!

Thanks as ever for all the support track side, thanks to my HM Plant Honda team, and I hope you enjoyed both the racing and my take on it all in this blog!!!

Take it easy, Shakey #67

Oulton park, round 7!!!

Well I think its fair to say that round seven never went quite to plan!!! In fairness our second visit to Oulton Park this year got off to a far better start than the 1^st but as you’ve probably already seen the end result of the weekend was far from what I was hoping for.

Getting back to the beginning of the weekend our first free practice session was dry and I was relatively happy to end the first session P3, that was probably frommemory about 10 places better than the first visit here!!!, that said we still had quite a bit of work to do, we fired a new spec shock into the bike that we’d tried briefly at Thruxton and decided to stick with it as there were some definite positives to be had from it corner exit wise but the problem with it was that it was making the bike transfer it’s weight in a slightly different way making getting stopped and corner entry pretty tricky.

We continued working on the shock in the afternoon session although we tried going in a slightly different direction with it but what we tried didn’t really work that well, yes we got a bit of feeling back for the front of the bike but we lost a bit of the original benefit on corner exit, what with that and the fact that a few of the other riders started throwing soft tyres at their bikes we dropped down the order a little to about 8^th I think, this was going to be a tricky old weekend!!!!

Pushing on out of Druids...

Saturday mornings session came with the forecast rain well and truly in effect, about 6 or 7 of the top guys including Kiyo and myself all fell off pretty much on the out lap, I couldn’t believe it, I’d had a big moment on my out lap and nearly high sided at about 20mph so I thought I’d do one lap just to check the lake that usually forms at turn one then come in to check that everything was ok with the bike as the near miss I’d had shouldn’t in normal wet conditions have happened, the lake I mentioned wasn’t too bad at all so I thought rightI’ll pull in this lap and get the guys to check everything, as I arrived at the Shell Oils hairpin I gently rolled in, went up the bank a bit in case anyone was on line and going for it then when I saw no one behind I went back on line, gently touched the throttle and then the next thing I knew I was up over the high side and pirouetting round and round, the funny thing was though as I spun around and was pointing in the direction I’d just come from I saw James Ellison doing exactly the same thing in tandem with me, fortunately both the bike and I were fine so I picked it up and rode back to the bits, not an ideal start to the session!!!

Two times i nearly fell off on the out lap here, 2 times!!!

The boys fixed my foot peg etc that had got damaged whilst the organizers looked into a track inspection to see why on earth so many riders had fallen and eventually the session was restarted and we got back out, it took me a bit of time to get going as I had massive rear grip and feeling issues that gave me no confidence whatsoever, I even wound my traction aid right up to pretty much max and that was doing absolutely nothing to assist me as the slides and out of the seat moments were happening so fast on such a tiny difference of throttle percentage that the system had no hope, we made various changes throughout the session and eventually I think we ended up 4^th or somewhere around there but I was far, and I mean farfrom happy!!!

Fortunately Superpole was dry, this however threw up it’s own little problems aswe hadn’t had a chance to fix the bike in either the wet or the dry so setting wise it was going to be a bit of a gamble, that said we knew we’d be fast enough on a race tyre to give ourselves a shot on one rear shock then to make a decision as to whether or not we needed to change again, we got straight through on the harder race tyre but did need to make some changes for the second session, as well as the changes we needed to try the softer tyre too in order to pull back a bit of time, the only problem with that was that sometimes as was the case at Snetterton the soft tyre really effects our bike in a strange way, it brings on big problems corner entry wise but then has real good grip on exit, fingers crossed that wouldn’t be the case here!!!

Over hill top, i improved here this time around...

Well with the softer option tyre we managed a pretty good lap time in Superpole 2, the tyre did give us a little bit of chatter but to be honest it was difficult to know if it came from the tyre or the increase in lap time, either way though we were through to the final session which as you’ll know for me is sometimes not possible as twice this year I’ve thrown the bike at the scenery before going through!!!!

I knew that a front row was going to be difficult as the two Yamaha’s were working incredibly well as was Hopper along with a couple of others but fortunately for me it all came together quite well so we did indeed end up P4, in all honesty I was extremely happy with that and its not very often I say that about 4^th place!!!

Cracking on on route to P4...

For the morning warm up we had a little bit more work to do, we needed to test another setting to be sure we had a good race setting for the dry but the weather had some other ideas, the rain came before we went out so we got a bit more time to work on our wet setting instead, to be honest I never drove myself too mad during the session as I once again as was the case in the previous wet session had more than my fair share of moments so I built up real slowly..

It was looking like the weather was in for the day and with only anhour between the start of morning warm up and the start of race 1 we had our work cut out trying to improve our rear grip and stability but I knew Chris my technician would come up with something!!

As the lights went out to start race 1 I got a real good start, I ran into turn 1 behind Hopper but he got in a little deep so on the run down to Cascades I managed to sneak past and from there on in I lead for the first few laps, I have to tell you I was more than having a little chuckle in my helmet, as you will have see if you watched the race I was absolutely useless and the setting we’d chosen for the rear of my bike just wasn’t working at all, I don’t think I’ve ever been out of the seat so many times in one race and was almost convinced I’d end up going down at some point, I couldn’t even touch the throttle mid corner let alone wind it on so god knows how I lead the race,

I have absolutely no idea how i pulled this off!!!

Hopper came past and I managed to get him back but eventually he made it stick so I just tried my hardest without over stepping the mark to hang onto him, eventually Tommy Hill came past too and after that the course car came out for a few laps and that’s when my biggest problems started because the slower pace behind the course car allowed my rear tyre to lose what little temperature it had in it so when the car went in for three laps it was like being on ice, after we got going Rutter passed me but I got him back but with only a few laps remaining and me struggling everywhere I knew he’d be back past by the end of the race the drive he was getting on corner exits would make it impossible nigh on to keep him behind, sure enough my weakest area on the track Druids (the penultimate corner) I had a reasonable exit but not perfect, I moved to the right a little to protect my line but Rutter passed me into the final turn, I knew there was no way I’d out drag him to the line but I had a good go and got spat out of the seat again coming onto the start finish so that was that, a pretty shit 4^th place, that said though considering how utterly useless I felt and how I had to ride I can’t believe we finished as high as 4^th!!!

For race two we’d made a plan and a fundamental change setting wise was fired into the bike, it was blatantly obvious from my rear tyre which still looked like new that the bike was putting nowhere near enough force into the tyre so it basically wasn’t getting hot so it was like riding with no grip whatsoever, I was really looking forward to the second race as I felt I’d be able to lap at least a second or so faster if I could actually use the throttle to drive the bike off the corners but it wasn’t until a fair bit later that due to the continuing rain the meeting had to be abandoned as the track was pretty flooded which was a big shame as I was right up for putting things right in race two!!!!

The team and I had a pretty long debrief after everything had settled down about what we needed in order to move forward a bit with the bike and I’m sure the guys are going to come up with some stuff pretty soon, I’m not sure anything will be ready for Brands but hopefully not long after so I’m looking forward to that.

On reflection Oulton wasn’t really too bad for us, if the Championship was run in the correct way i.e. over a season then I would’ve extended my actual lead but it isn’t so it means naff all which is bloody annoying but I’m still tied at the top of the podium credits with Tommy so from that point of view its all cool too.

Now it’s back to my home circuit, Brands Hatch long circuit, hopefully we’ll be well and truly back to winning ways there!!!!! Take it easy, Shakey #67

Snetterton...

I think every rider including me must be looking forward to the first race here at Snetterton on the new "300" layout. Our weekend got off to a pretty good start with a dealer event at Honda in Norwich, there must of been around 100 odd people that showed up to meet Kiyo and I so we had a really good evening.

As far as riding goes the 1st session went pretty much to plan, we knew what we needed to try and used tyres from the previous Knockhill round to get dialled in, there were no surprises at the top of the time sheets with Hopper going fastest straight away withhis team mate right with him, those guys tested here last week and that obviously stood them in good stead, I split them for a bit but dropped back to 5th at the end of the session when a few riders fired in their new tyres. We knew what we wanted from the bike and my engineer Chris could see the issues I was having in the first session so I looked forward to the afternoon session!!

Session two was both good and bad in equal amounts really, pretty much immediately I went P1 on a fresh set of tyres 1.2 seconds and remained there until most of the way throughout the session but after a good few laps I started to run into some issues with chatter from the rear tyre which were pretty difficult to ride around, at the end of the session we put in a new rear tyre and I had no doubt whatsoever that I'd be able to go a fair chunk faster, on my first flying lap I got badly blocked in the "car park" section and then I pushed hard on my second lap and ran pretty much immediately into the same chatter issues that we'd had on the old tyrebefore which wasn't at all what I'd expected, quite a few of the boys fired in new tyres at the end and the fact that I never improved lap times wise dropped me down to about 8th which wasn't ideal at all however ideal times wise put me third fastest and a tenth of a second off so things are far from doom and gloom!!

Contemplating our next plan of attack!!!

Saturday morning things started to take a bit of a turn for the better to a certain degree, from a race tyre point of view I used the tyres that I'd used the day before and immediately dropped into the 1.48's which was good and then I maintained a run of low 49's for a good few laps which overall is a pretty good rhythm. Towards the end of the session we planned to use the softer rear tyre in order to see what it would do for us lap time wise, we knew that a lot of the others had been doing race runs and then banging in the soft tyre to jump up the order at the end of the sessions and needed to see how it would work for us, I banged it in and felt very confident I could go a very good chunk faster however whilst it had much better grip entering the corner onto the back straight I closed the throttle to peel in and the bike bounced from the rear almost right around on me, I just managed to catch it then peeled in again and it did exactly the same thing, I ended up not even going as fast as I had on the race tyre and together withmy engineer weknew that if we wanted to make the bike work good in Superpole on the soft tyre we definitely had more work to do!!

For the first of the three Superpole sessions we started with a new front and a new soft rear in order to see if the chassis changes we made would make the bike work the softer tyre better, I was pleasantly surprised when I found we'd gone a good way to fixing the problem and found around half a second, It was a good enough lap time to match Hopper and Kirkham with the three of us on 1.48.5.

For the second session we fired in a new rear tyre again and I started my first flying lap, everything was going really good, I saw a yellow flag just after the stadiumsection because someone had run off track, I looked around onto the back straight and saw it was Peter Hickman, unfortunately though I don't think he saw me, as we approached the chicane at the end of the back straight Peter was neither on it or off it and I had to barge my way through pretty aggressively totally unimpressed with the fact he was on line but not pushing hard, my next flying lap though was mega, I hit every pretty much every apex and absolutely totally for the first time all weekend loved it, sure the lap could've been a tiny bit tidier and I could still go a bit faster but when I saw a 1.47.8 or whatever it was I was made up, I even did an extra lap to see what my pitboard said and sure enough it said P1, that was the first 47 of the whole weekend so I was properly pumped and ready for a big attack in the final session!!!

For the final session we started with two new tyres and as I said I was right up for it,after a steady ish warm up lap I got onto the start finnish straight and thought right this is it, let's go, as I got on the brakes though for turn 1 and shifted back to 4th I flicked the bike in and it chattered a bit, not terrible but enough for me to think oh no, please tell me it's not gonna be the same as the morning session tyre, before I knew it I was chattering my way into turn two, then three, four, five and then entering turn 5 the whole bike chattered so bad I almost fell off, I knew then due to the short final session it was going to be touch and go to get back and get another tyre so I completed the lap only to see a 1.48.9, I was absolutely livid and got back to the pits as quick as I possibly could without falling off, when my boys told me in the box there was no time to fire in a used tyre I lost the plot a bit and left the box, I felt so pissed off for me and my boys, we'd worked so hard since the morning to get the bike towork on the soft tyre then get let down with a tyre problem that makes you just about stay up and lap 1.2 slower than the previous session, needless to say my position was far from the pole I thought we may be capable off but a thoroughly disappointing 6th place, I was not a happy boy at all!!!!

For morning warm up we headed out on the race tyres we'd be using for the two races and had a pretty good run, I went P1 pretty much immediately and did a consistent run in mid to high 1.48's which was my best race pace so far for the weekend, the only problem was though we were stiff suffering a little bit from vibration from the rear of the bike so we knew we'd have to make a few little changes for the first race then kind of suck it and see and make any necessary changes if needed for race 2 after looking at race ones data.

To be perfectly honest with you I almost feel the less said about race one the better,don't get me wrong, we got a podium but there was no satisfaction from it for me whatsoever, in the beginning of the race I felt fine and the bike was working good but after the safety car incident I really started to suffer, my bike lost all grip from the rear in the entry to pretty much every corner and I just started dropping further and further back, let me tell you there's absolutely nothing worse than seeing your two biggest current championship rivals starting to pull away from you yet sitting on top of a bike that if you try to push even a 10th of a second harder you'd end up on your backside, I was not a happy boy after the race whatsoever and Chris and I immediately sat down to discuss the changes we'd need to make to the bike in order to be both more competitive as well as getting better tyre wear from the rear of the bike.

Us three seem to be spending a fair bit of time together lately ;-)

Race two had to be a totally different affair for me, I wanted to come out all guns blazing and get back on the top step, the only place I felt my team and I deserved after all the hard work we'd put in over the course of the weekend, however my eagerness cost me dearly off the start when I pretty much dumped the clutch and bogged the engine as the lights went out, you knob head was all I kept telling myself on the run up to turn one, you know how to make things difficult for yourself!!!

After a couple of laps I'd slotted myself into 4th place but then shortly after before I'd had a chance to make any more progress the red flags came out so the race was stopped.

The bike had felt ok in the first few laps so with the organisers deciding that part two of the race would be run over 10 laps we never changed a thing.

For the restart I got a better start and had a couple of turns tussling with Kiyo then next on the horizon was Josh, I passed him after a lap or two and then set offafter Hopper who'd already put a bit of a gap into us all, the lap times I was doing were almost hard to believe and it didn't take too long before I was closing in on his back wheel and taking a good long look at potential passing places, there seemed to be plenty of places I could make time on him but his bike was a little bit stronger than ours on the straights so I knew I was going to have to get pretty creative to take the win.

A few corners after this it all went wrong!!!

On the penultimate lap I put a move on to him up the inside at Coram which worked perfectly, fortunately I kept a good tight line and made the pass clean, I made a pretty wide entry onto the start finish straight to try as hard as in could to get maximum drive otherwise I knew he'd pass me before turn one and that worked out cool, turn two I entered slightly tight and again all was cool, I got a decent run through three and fully expected him to try to pass into the Agostini hairpin which he did but fortunately he ran in too deep and I got back underneath him, my run through turn 5 was good and I set myself well for turn 6 and then the next thing I knew there was a bang and we collided, unfortunately for me Hopper got into turn 6 so hot that he punted me out of the track and into the grass, as you can probably imagine right there and then I was far from impressed, Hopper and I had a second or so over the guys behind and were almost creation of a one two and an extended championship and podium credit advantage but for me anyway all that was gone and I ended up 4th with Hopper 3rd.

I found out afterwards that I'd done the fastest lap of the race but to be honest that wasn't really doing much in the way of consolidation, at least though Kiyo took the win so I was happy for the team in general.

Hopper came to my motorhome a little while after to apologise for the coming together so we had a chat and everything's cool now between us, I felt gutted that we ended up 3rd and 4th though as this had been apart from maybe the first Oulton round probably the hardest we'd had to work all year to be competitive and I have to say a massive thanks to Chris and my boys for all their hard work, I'm gutted I couldn't give them a win but it wasn't for a lack of trying!!!!

Abou the only consolidation of race 2, The fastest lap!!

Take it easy guys and girls, Shakey #67

Knockhill...

After the previous round back at Thruxton I was really looking forward to getting out on track at Knockhill, we gained some valuable information at Thruxton that we hoped would give us a good step forward in the dry, however it had to be in the dry and typically dry it wasn't!!!

I spent all weekend like this... in a coat!!!!

I have to say before I go any further how impressed I was with what the circuit owners have done since I was last there, if you watched back in 2008 you'll recall the big crash I had at turn 1, quite literally the instant I touched the brakes I was off and after sliding down the track I hit the curbs, took off and flew straight into the tyre wall, well now they've really opened that section right out so when you do have a moment or run straight on you can spend more time getting stopped before needing to turn which is much better, they've also built a proper pitcomplex with garages too which was somewhat of a necessity, also not that you can see it but they've done a whole load of drainage work too to stop all the rivers that run off the track in the wet turning into oceans so like I said I was well impressed!!

I've got to admit that we didn't exactly drive ourselves mad during the first days practice sessions, I went P1 pretty much as soon as I got out on track and stayed there both times until the last few minutes or so, we knew we had a pretty good wet setting from Thruxton although that said due to the nature of Knockhill and the drop in grip compared to Thruxton in the wet we had to soften the bike off a little bit more just to get some feeling, the biggest problem was actually rear corner entry grip, basically everything was cool until you peeled into a corner off the throttle and off the brakes then just as you thought all was cool the rear end would try to come around all on it's own making things a little bit tricky at times, especially at turn 1.

Using all the track in the wet, this would catch me out in Superpole!!!

Final free practice went well, the track had pretty much a dry line the whole way round, I really enjoyed the session which actually got extended due to ever improving conditions, I was quite comfortably fastest even though I concentrated on a few little issues, I knew we still had some time left both in me and in the bike too so this was positive heading into the next sessions which obviously were for grid position.

To be honest with you with you by this point all I really wanted was some full on dry time on track, I knew we could be competitive in the wet but with race days weather forecast being dry we needed to be sure we had a decent dry setting to, this however wasn't to be and the drizzle slowly but surely started to return.

Head down and tucked in!!!

We managed to blast through the first session easily using intermediate tires but it was going to be a race against time to get through all the sessions in this manner, I got straight though superpole 2 too also on the inters but there was no way that was going to happen in the final session when the rain started to come down far more heavily.

Quite a cool shot that!!!

We changed the bike back to a "wetter" setting and I headed out feeling positive, Hopper was about a second or two up the track and I planned to follow him using him as a marker, I did one flying lap basically just to get a feel for the circuit and the conditions then on the start of my next lap I thought right this is it, lets get on it, I had a good run down through turn 1, then the next couple of turns too, then a good drive up to the chicane, changed direction, picked up the throttle then BANG, down I went, I literally just caught the edge of the white line with the front tyre at the same time as the bike transferred a bit of weight towards the rear and that was it the front tucked and down I went, what a dick, that was all I could think as I barrel rolled through the wet mud and gravel, such a rookie mistake but at the same time a mistake that I’d gotten away with throughout the first two superpole sessions, gutted, nothing like making things difficult for yourself, mind you on a positive note at least I lasted all the way through to the final session this time around!!!!

Morning warm up was by far the driest the track had been, again it was a fun session and one that went pretty well for us, all we had to do now was sit tight and wait to see what the weather was going to do…

Well, the weather got drier, and drier, to the point where the track was completely dry for race 1, we had to gamble a bit setting wise and went with a setting very similar to the one that we used at Croft, obviously I couldn’t risk trying the settings we wanted to test that I mentioned at the beginning of this Blog but we figured we’d go safe and then try to make any necessary changes for race two.

Starting form the third row of the grid at Knockhill was never going to be easy, its completely different making up time and places somewhere like Thruxton compared to Knockhill, the latter being pretty one line in a lot of places with just the one big passing opportunity at the end of the lap into the hairpin.

As the lights went out for the start I rode straight down the outside towards turn 1, I got a fairy decent run through the first couple of turns and made up a couple of places to slot in around 6^th I think, I had Josh Brookes just in front and lined him up in a few places before making a move a couple of laps later into the hairpin, the only problem was that when I passed I got a bit crossed up and had to let the front brake off a bit to get straight and with that I ended up running wide and costing myself a load of time, a couple of laps later I made the pass again and that time made it stick, then it was a case of trying to bridge the gap up to the guys up front. With Knockhill being such a short lap it took a good few laps to catch and pass Gary Mason and with about 6 or 7 to go I passed him down into the hairpin and then immediately set about bridging the small gap to John Hopkins, I think my 2^nd to last lap was my fastest lap of the race and I did indeed manage to get on his back wheel, he was making a few little mistakes and I thought I would maybe be able to sneak 2^nd from him but in the end he held me off, luckily for me though my run through from 9^th earned me the 2^nd fastest lap so at least for race 2 I’d be starting from the front so I’d have half a chance of a good result.

We made some small changes to the bike for the 2^nd race as we’d really struggled for rear grip exiting the hairpin, it was so difficult to put the power down to the ground so we needed to work on that as with a good exit from there you can sometimes make a pass up over the start finish line.

I got a pretty good start and slotted immediately into 2^nd through turns 1 and 2 before nipping up the inside of Hopper into turn 3,

from there on in I tried to pull the pin and pretty much immediately opened up a second gap, I remember thinking bloody hell this is going to be a long old race, 30 laps with no margin for the slightest error, then a few laps in the course car came out, initially I was gutted because that broke my gap but when the lights went out on the course car I lined up for a good exit from the hairpin and managed to hold my lead, after I crossed the line though I saw the course car flag again and initially thought the marshalls must have not put them away yet but at turn 1 they were waving and as I dropped through turn 1 I saw Hopper trudging through the mud, this obviously made a big difference to the championship as he’s 2^nd to me at the minute, with racing resumed again I changed my start again by this time not nailing it immediately on the exit of the hairpin and instead waiting because I didn’t want anyone getting the jump on me, this plan worked too and I held the lead for a good few laps more, Tommy then passed me down into the hairpin but I got him back just driving back out, I lead again for another couple of laps and exactly the same thing, I just managed to get back passed on the run down to turn 1 but the third time Tommy passed me he held me off, he and I had already bashed fairings the whole way up the start finish straight a few times and with Hopper out I decided 2^nd and 20 points plus 2 podium credits was the best option, the Yamaha’s just seemed to be working that bit better than our bike at this track, to be honest it’s exactly what I’d expected and not every track is as stop start as Knockhill so things will even back out for sure, Tommy got about 2 seconds on me which he held but I had my hands full with the other Yamaha of his team mate M Lav, he kept me honest right until the end of the race so I ended with a 3^rd and a 2^nd which was far from dreadful but somehow things just don’t feel the same when you don’t win at least one!!!

After the race the team told me about Jason’s accident and it sounded pretty nasty so I had a quick shower and headed straight down to Dunfermline with my team boss to go to see him, unfortunately though it was pretty bad and when we got there he was being prepared for his initial operation to have his spleen removed so we didn’t get to see him.

The next morning though he was awake so I nipped in to see him before we headed off back down south, he was in good spirits if not a little groggy, he has to wait a few days to stabilize before they fix his broken leg and ankle so I guess the way to finish this blog is A to say a big thanks to HM Plant Honda for all their hard work over the weekend a B to say a massive get well soon to Jason. Take it easy guys and girls, Shakey #67

Holiday...NOT!!!!

Hey guys and girls, thought i'd post a quick blog to bring you up to speed with what's been happening since after Thruxton. We were due to head straight back to Spain for two weeks holidays, that was the plan but a few bits and pieces came up that delayed our departure by a day or so which was a bit frustrating!! By the time we finally got home we'd been gone for 48 days, it doesn't sound a lot does it but turn it into almost two months and it sounds a bit longer, that amount of time without your own bed or away from your pets, in fact that amount of time away from HOME full stop grinds on you a little, it definitely had an effect on both my wife and I that's for sure because I don't think I've ever done so much grafting around the house as I did during this supposed break, I've been like a proper Jack of all trades, painting spare rooms, clearing some parts of a completely over grown garden including stabbing myself to bits trimming palm trees, tidying up my garage and generally sweeping up and tidying full stop. It was kind of weird because both Petra and I got back to Spain thinking we'd be flat out relaxing and getting some sun shine, enjoying a bit of a break but the weather for pretty much the whole 2 weeks was pretty crap, I got in no more than two or three cycle rides due to seemingly constant rain and thunderstorms and whenever the weather did brighten up a little I seemed to find myself battling through the jungle that used to be our garden!! In a funny kind of way though that sort of manual labour feels quite rewarding, I'm always right up for going at things like a bull in a China shop but generally don't get on with more detaily bits but this time around I was right amongst everything!!

We had a chance to get in to see our Dr who confirmed everything's going well with the pregnancy which was good news, I'm quite looking forward to the final 4d scan which we'll be getting soon in the UK, they're incredible, we still keep a photo of our son from a 4d scan that we had with him!!

I had a bit of a mission loading the Vito the other day ready to head back up to the UK, I think it works out another 5 or 6 weeks we'll be gone this time which makes packing a bit of a nightmare, that said we got it sorted and made our way north towards the UK, we had a complete and utter ball ache of a drive up though due to traffic around Paris but we got to the UK in the end, now though I'm hearing the seat belt sign and preparation for landing message on our flight up to Edinburgh so I've got to crack on, I'll keep you posted on Knockhill as soon as, take it easy, Shakey #67