Snetterton.... Frustration and Elation!!!!

It has to be said that after getting the opportunity to test at Snetterton last week ahead of this weekends BSB round I was really looking forward to getting back to the track and getting back on my bike to continue the work we'd started.

The test itself didn't exactly go to plan in some ways, don't get me wrong a test's a test and that's what you should use it for but when pretty much the whole BSB grid is out things inevitably start to get competitive!!!

We had a good plan for the test, a schedule we needed to work from and to, basically starting with some stuff we learnt at Knockhill then working towards last years set up and trying some new spec K Tech front forks.

As a team we've been making good progress with the bike this year and the new forks were something that had me quite excited, unfortunately however about a million red flags throughout the day saw our schedule go a little bit south, we did however get the chance to fire the new forks in right at the end of the day and the results were interesting, they were much better in some areas but worse in others, work in progress I think we'll call them!!!

To start the first session on the race weekend we stuck with the new forks, at the end of the day these are going to be a step forwards so wasting a session on the old ones didn't make a lot of sense, unfortunately for me though despite having plenty of time to go over all the data from testing and starting with a different setting in them the new forks were still giving me a bit of grief, we ended the session however after a few changes in P2 just a 10th off of Alex and he and I were nearly a second quicker than the rest so it wasn't a total drama!!

For the afternoon session we made some more changes, the team worked real hard and we started to make a bit of headway, I still wasn't happy and felt we had lots more work to do, it wasn't so much a problem of the bike doing this or that but more that I felt like I had much more to give than the bike would allow and as soon as I tried to push on it just brought on uncertainty and a lack of feel, I basically wanted to ride it like I stole it rather than wobbling around on the thing like its my pride and joy which I don't even want to splat a fly on the front of!!! We ended session two well, a new pair of tyres saw us go P1 by just under 0.6 of a second but as I said I knew I wanted and needed more!!!

We made some changes overnight to try to cure some of our problems, a gearing change and some geometry changes and we found a better feeling, I did over race distance on used tyres and my rhythm was still good, we still had a little bit of work to do but the fact I was now pulling an extra 3 bar of front brake pressure was an indication that I was starting to feel more comfortable and be able to push the front harder, I actually went a bit faster too in that session but Alex pipped me by 2 100ths of a second, the pair of us 6 10ths faster than the rest!!

Qualifying Saturday afternoon turned into a bit of a nightmare, the first two sessions were not what we were looking for, we were constantly changing the bike to try to get a better feeling from the front but seemed to be chasing moving goal posts, every time we made a little change a variable, a tyre, the track temperature, traffic or something else seemed to hamper us, I was actually hoping after two bad sessions that it would be 3rd time lucky in the final session, however despite my fastest time of the weekend I was still a bit off what I hoped and thought I'd be able to do and my final lap got blocked by another rider so 2nd it was! Front row's a front row though so I was happy enough.

We had a few changes that we wanted to test for the morning warm up session after sitting down after qualifying and going through the data but morning warm ups track temperature was only 32 degrees track temperature so we'd have to wait to see what conditions the races brought and with temperatures forecast to rocket we were in for a tough old day...

Unfortunately for me time had run out, we'd tried a soft bike, a hard bike, a long bike, a short bike and just about every permutation of the lot of them and nothing we'd done had given us the feeling we were looking for going into the races, there was only one thing left to try... Something I hadn't tried in just over two seasons, the harder front Pirelli tyre, I really wasn't happy about this, really wasn't happy but he track temperature was getting higher and higher and the data showed that the reason I'd been struggling all through practice and qualifying was that basically the front tyre was getting seriously squashed with the amount of load I was trying to put through it and that was why I couldn't get any feel from it, basically it just wasn't consistent.

I went out on the sighting lap with the harder front in and came straight back into pit lane to get an extra lap on it, before taking to the grid, my crew chief asked me "what do you want to do?" What could I say, in effect this was the only variable we hadn't tried, I had to give it a go didn't I...

My confidence was far from high when on the warm up lap at about 50-60% of my normal pace I flicked the bike into Oggies and completely lost the front and nearly went down, I thought to myself Christ if this happens at that pace what's it going to be like next time through here at race pace... I guess I'd soon find out!!!

As the lights went out I got a bit of an awkward launch and unintentionally veered left slightly, Josh had got a good start too and I happily rolled into turn one behind him in case I pushed the front too hard on the way in and crashed, not exactly my usual battle tactics but I already knew this was going to be a race of attrition and that I needed a few laps to try to figure things out, I'm not going to mince my words or lie, I ABSOLUTELY HATED the race, all 16 laps of it, there wasn't one part of it that I thought, that's better, or, it's not doing that anymore, it was simply right, get it in to the corner, hope, then get out again, I honestly felt like I could only give about 60% of me in that race and that was a little too much, thinking let alone trying to give 61% would have seen me on my ear, basically I sat in 3rd trying hard not to try hard and despite getting a good run on Josh out of the final turn my bike just didn't have to speed to out drag or pass him before the line so 3rd it was.

After the race I was furious, the whole slow down lap I was sitting thinking how crap I'd rode, I was so frustrated though, it's not that I'm a bad loser, I'll finish 2nd, 3rd or 5th even happily as long as I know that I've given 100% but today for that race I just couldn't.

I have to apologise for my post race interview, saying Shit on live TV isn't cool and I know that, all I can do is say sorry and that it's a good job I'd had a whole slow down lap and the rostrum area to calm down a bit otherwise it would have been safer to not even do the interview full stop!!!!!!

A long, get to the bottom of everything debrief followed, I told my team exactly what the problems were and they could see on the data exactly what I was describing so I left them to come up with a plan, headed back to the motorhome, had lunch then my usual half an hour power nap, hopefully that'd make everything better for race 2!!!

For race two the guys came up with a plan, a totally different front fork setting and my usual front tyre, now the rest was up to me, go figure!!!

I hot a good start and lead into turn one from 3rd on the grid then tried rally hard to stay smooth, I pushed hard for a lap or two and had + 0 on my board so I thought right ok, try to save your tyres for a bit and see what happens, the course car then came out for a crash and stayed out for 2 or 3 laps and with 11 or 12 laps left I thought right lets do this, my bike was feeling better, not perfect but better and I had more confidence in the front because of it so I went for it again for a lap or 2 still got + 0 despite a couple of pretty fast laps so once again I just settled right down for three or 4 laps, with 5 laps to go I started to dig in a bit, got to +.3 and thought this could be the brake I needed then with 2 to go it went back down to +.0 by this point all I could do was try to be fast, smooth and hot every apex perfectly to maximise my exit speed, I did just that and rode slightly on the cautious side for the final lap, I made a small mistake going into the final turn and thought no no no, that's it, I've blown it but fortunately I held on to take the win!!!

To say I was happy is a bit of an understatement, I was absolutely elated, it wasn't so much the win, just the fact I could ride better, not perfect but better, that to me is what it's all about, Birdy pays me to race his bike for him yet I felt like the 1st race I was out on my priceless pride and joy that I didn't even want to get a fly splattered on let alone race, I might as well have done that race with one hand behind my back and a set of L plates on, that's how useless I felt and that's why i was so frustrated, I pride myself in giving 100% at everything I do and that's precisely why myself and PBM get on so well, they know I'll always give my all and give theirs in return.

I think it's very fair of me to say now that the little bit of top speed advantage we once had with the Kawasaki over some of the bikes in the field has now been well and truly negated by the others, Josh in particular moaned all year his bikes not fast enough but in race one my biggest problem with him was that despite the fact I could maybe run into tighter corners a little bit quicker I couldn't put myself in a position no matter how hard I tried to be alongside him to carry that speed into making a pass and 5 rounds in isn't the time to be making desperate out of control lunges from 3 or 4 bike lengths behind, the team now need to go and do some homework to try to improve our bike so that we can at least get alongside in order to be able to attempt to pass rather than using any advantage just to catch back up to the bike in front, they know that, I know that and everyone saw that so fingers crossed as I'll be giving 100% training wise between Snetterton and Brands they'll be working the same trying to improve our bike too.

Once again my apologies for the swearing thing on tv, hopefully you now have a better insight into my frustration, fingers crossed now that it's onwards and upwards again, roll on Brands hatch,  I can't wait, take it easy, Shakey #67

Knockhill!!

Knockhill, at one point in the big break we'd just had it felt like it was never going to come around, 5 weeks or so off after just three race weekends came pretty tough, you're just getting back into the swing of things and the next thing you know it's over, however, taking the car to Wolverhampton then collecting the motorhome and cruising up soon knocked the edge of that 5 week break, it's almost like the M6 forgets to stop and just carries on going!!! 

We stopped off at Penrith of the way up to go to see the team and Birdy took a few of us out to dinner which was nice, after that it was back in the motorhome for the last bit of the journey but as we got towards our exit it was closed, a few calls later we were recommended not to take the diversion signs as it went through lots of tiny villages etc so after going up to what felt like John o groats and back we finally arrived at the circuit at about 12-30am in the morning!!!!!

Getting there on the Wednesday night left us all day Thursday to kick back and get sorted so me, my mate Wag and Keith headed into Dunfermline for a bit to get a few bits of shopping etc for the motorhome and more importantly to kick back and have a coffee!!

I think it's pretty fair to say that Friday mornings dry first session didn't exactly go to plan at all, for a start my wife had been rushed in to hospital and was looking at facing yet another operation, fortunately for me i have a top boss and he laid on the use of his helicopter should i need it to rush back down to Kent to be by her side, fortunately for us both friday she managed to avoid an operation, as if that wasn't enough however I knew I'd had a long time off of the bike but things just didn't feel quite right, the bike felt a bit slow and also felt tight, I only managed about 6 or 7 laps before I knew something pretty bad was coming so I decided to park it to not risk any BIG damage so our 1st session left us with a grand total of 7 laps which with the knowledge that a load of teams tested here last week plus that Honda had a two day test her recently definitely put as a little bit on the back foot!!!

The boys worked hard to get the bike sorted for the afternoon and I was real happy that with such a little amount of track time we were immediately on the pace, I ended up about a 10 th of a second off which I was more than happy to settle for, the boys did good, we knew we needed to make a few changes to the bike though as there were areas on the track that I was really struggling with so Friday night we sat down, went through the data and my comments and worked out a good plan to go forwards with.

Typically Saturday mornings session was kind of wet, by that I mean it wasn't fully wet but at the same time it was far from dry, i could have really done with it being dry with the changes we'd made to the bike but having said that in the time that we spent on track I was more than competitive but it ended up being one of those kind of who's bravest across the damp patches on slicks will be fastest, we didn't even bother going out for the last part of the session so dropped down the order a bit but the session wasn't that important so we were cool with that.

Qualifying came as a bit of a surprise, not as in we actually had to do it lol just that after getting through to the final session we fitted new tyres, I went out, did a warm up lap to get some heat into the tyres then I went for it, pushed real hard, hit all my apexs, crossed the line and boom 48.9, I couldn't believe it, I'd gone faster than that on used tyres, it really annoyed me but with no time to come in and change tyres etc i had another stab at it, result, 48.3 YEEEESSSS!!! I cruised it for a lap or two thinking that has to be enough surely, Josh came past and I semi attempted to follow him but I think I'd lost too much temperature out of my tyres as I was all over the place, eventually though despite him getting very close I got the Pole position!!

Warm up came and went without drama but straight after I got a text from my wife saying the doctors had decided they were going to operate on her as she wasn't getting any better and was still in way too much pain, Sod's law said it had to happen on my race day didn't it!!!

Fortunately for me literally about 5 minutes before I put my helmet on to start the sighting lap my phone rung and it was Petra, she must have just come around or been on proper strong painkillers as she didn't really make a great deal of sense but she did say " this is the 1st time in 8 years together I've ever missed a race or not been there for you, my operation went well, now you do well, be safe and call me after the race"

That sent me into the race in a totally different frame of mind, I felt like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders, lining up on the grid I was determined to have a good result, as the lights went out I got a good start but so did Josh, perfect I thought, let him lead, I'll follow, he was a tiny bit steady into turn 3 though so I ran up the inside of him, he passed straight back and got his head down so I slotted in behind and thought perfect, I'll watch my pit board for a bit and let a few laps unfold, with about 6 or 7 laps to go the lap times dropped off a bit so I thought now's the time to capitalise, I lined up and made a pass down into the hairpin but I got slightly crossed up on initial braking and had to release a bit to get everything back under control but in doing so I ran in a bit deep, Josh did exactly what I would have done and cut back and we collided on the exit which caught me up a bit and meant I had to shut off a little, I quickly got myself together though and on the following lap I made a good clean pass then got my head down for the remaining laps and opened up a second or so advantage to take the win, after the race I dedicated the win to my wife and figured it would give her something to smile about, we knew we needed to make some small changes to make the bike better for the second race so we sat and chatted about those then I did my usual, have lunch, have a sleep and prepare myself for race 2!!!

With there only being 3 per row on the grid at Knockhill and me getting the 4th fastest lap obviously I had to start from row 2, I always say that if you make it through to the hairpin at the end of the 1st lap then your generally safe but getting that far can sometimes be tricky, if ever I needed a good start this was the time however my bike had other ideas, as I exited the hairpin to line up on the grid I couldn't get the bike into neutral for love nor money, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 1st, over and over, I thought no, this is all I need, I kept trying and trying but it wasn't having any of it, I held the lever in as far as possible and kept thinking please don't drag, please don't drag, as the lights went out I released the clutch and got a mega start, that good I lead into turn one, I surprised even myself lol!!!

Getting such a good start and leading wasn't exactly in the script so I thought right dig in, put some decent laps together and let's see what happens, immediately I was in 48 second laps and I maintained them too which saw a lead start to open on my board, I carried on for about 10-15 laps at that pace and by that point I had a 2.5 second lead which around Knockhill is big, by that point though maintaining such a fast rhythm was taking its toll a tiny bit on the tyres and I started having a couple of little moments, I decided to concentrate on making every lap a low 49 and see where it got me, just a level or two down from all out attack mode, by lap 20 the gap was down to 2 seconds and I knew that if I maintained my pace I'd be safe and still have something in the locker should Josh get too close so that's what I did, stuck at low 49's and took another double win, sure Josh got close but it was kinda cool, calm and collected on my part, I have to admit though I was pretty impressed with him firing out the fastest lap of the race on the penultimate lap and I wasn't aware he was quite so close but anyway if you win by 0.0001 it's enough and a wins a win regardless so all cool.

I think that 2nd race was almost like being in imprisoned, I know I wasn't and I'm truly grateful to Paul for laying on his helicopter but the minute I took that chequered flag all I kept thinking was YES, I can get back home now, racing is my life but I was so so desperate to get back to Petra and now the job was done, i thanked all my team for all their hard work all weekend, had a quick shower, sorted the motorhome then Wag and I headed straight to the airport.

Thankfully the hospital allowed me to pay Petra a quick visit despite the fact it was about 12-30am by the time I got there but boy did it feel good to see her, hopefully now with some rest she'll soon be brand new.

Looking ahead now we have a test next week at Snetterton ahead of the race, I'm fairly sure the majority of the paddock will be there too so it's not like it'll be an advantage but I know we have some new stuff to try so I'm really looking forward to that, generally speaking we have some real good tracks coming up so for now let's stay head down, bum up full gas and concentrate hard on marinating the form we've shown so far, for now though, I'm outta here, take it easy, Shakey #67 

Quick Blog for you!!!

I've not exactly been up on these Blog things of late I know, choosing to either Blog after each race or keep you guys and girls updated with what's happening on in Planet Shakey via social media sights like Twitter or Facebook, even the latter of those I'm pretty useless with to be fair lol so I thought to myself whilst I'm sat on the train to London I'll fire out a Blog to kill a bit of time!!

We've been having a bit of a rough time of things lately on Plant Shakey, we were due to spend the whole of our break in Spain but we've been having a few dramas then to top things of my wife got a letter confirming an appointment at hospital for a hysterectomy to be performed, I feel real bad for her because over the past few years we've been doing all we could to help her with some (women's) problems she's been suffering with and despite everything it seems the only way to fix her was this operation, typically Petra she did another 10km running race a couple of days before the operation because her doctor had said fitter people tend to recover quicker lol!!!

The operation really knocked her for six and recovery wasn't helped when she caught a urinary infection whilst in the hospital so she's pretty delicate right now, I've taken up a full on daddy day care roll at the moment which has been pretty full on, in fact it's been that full on I have to get my mum over for a few hours most days so I can get out cycling just to have a rest lol!!!!

On the racing front we had a test up at Cadwell park the other week which went really well, obviously, I never got many laps last year due to the shoulder injury but with one full day on track I more than made up for it completing 90 odd laps throughout the day and as anyone of you who's done a track day there will testify it's pretty damn physical around there, I don't mind confessing to aching a little bit the following day, we've known since the beginning of the year that we have a couple of fundamental problems to fix on the Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki but they're really not the kind of thing you can start changing at a race meeting as usually with everything you change there's always something else that needs fixing so things tend to drag on a bit, we DEFINITELY made some good steps though and got a number of chassis parts tested and have a plan going forwards!!!!

Looking ahead now we've got some races coming up that I'm really looking forward to, Knockhill, Snetterton and Brands hatch GP are all tracks I like and hopefully with the improvements we've made we'll be strong at those as well as the rest of the upcoming races, it's definitely once again a case of slowly slowly catchey monkey, we're building up and building up ready for another full on assault at the Showdown, I know the team have some plans for the bike on the run up to that so it's all good.

Don't know about you guys but I watched both Moto GP and the TT races yesterday, it's kind of scary how they set off in 10 seconds intervals at the TT yet the races (both Moto GP & the TT) look similarly spaced out at the finish!! Don't get me wrong, Moto GP is the pinnacle, the guys are all so so fast and absolute legends but close racing.... What about poor old Valentino too, entering the 3rd corner at the race he's probably been looking forward to more than any he has a collision and gets taken out of the game, that was a shame, I was gutted for him, on the flip side, Cal, what a job he did, another podium, fair play, surely something good has to come for him next season, reeling in the factory Honda at the end of the race, the boy's on it!!

As for the TT, what can you say about that, I really like John McGuiness, a lot, he's a top man who lives for that place so I was gutted he only got a third, I don't mean that as in a third's no good, just finishing around there is an achievement but I know he would of wanted to win that race for his idol whom his bike, leathers and helmet commemorated Joey Dunlop, quite fitting in a way that it was Micheal Dunlop that won it! What about Josh too, 127 odd mph average, bloody hell that's motoring on around there in your first attempt, fair play I say!!!!

Right, this Blog has now gone from a train ride to London, 10 minutes or so before a meeting and I'm now finishing on the train on the way back so for now, enough's enough, talk to you all soon, take it easy, Shakey #67

 

Oulton Park Round 3 2013

As per usual I was really looking forward to going racing heading into the Oulton park round, we managed to get a test in there the week before but only on a track/test day and whilst we ticked a couple of boxes it was difficult to get anything too meaningful done, we did however box off a couple of bits and more importantly we made a plan for the start of the following weekend of what we wanted to test and the schedule for testing them, then, what happens, we get there and I can’t help but ask what is going on with BSB rounds this year… its becoming almost customary to loose a session during the weekend, Oulton park never disappointed on that front, it had been dry then literally about 5 or 10 minutes before the session started for us the heavens opened typically just about enough for wets but with a whole weekend of dry weather forecast quite a few of us opted to stay in the pits.

That wet session kind of put the mockers on our plan because as with anything to do with racing it’s never usually a case of bolt something in and it’s immediately better, generally, you’ll put something in, get some positives and negatives, follow a path to try to improve overall then see where you end up, well, basically we had two paths to follow and not much time to follow either so we opted for the safer one.

In the afternoon session I got out and rode the bike pretty much how I finished up at the test then we bolted in a new spec shock and got to work, it was weird in a way because the modifications to the shock were exactly what I’d asked for back at Thruxton one because of my overall feeling from the bike and two because exactly what I explain when I ride is exactly what the guys see on the data, BUT, and it was a pretty big but, it didn’t feel very good at all initially, sure there was potential but it would require some more work, with that in mind we had a big debrief and talked through things with the team and K Tech and set a plan for the following morning.

Immediately on Sunday morning the bike felt much better, the changes the guys had made were real good, not fixed but much better so we decided to continue on that route.

We made a few more changes throughout the session but our pace was good, I think I did 16 or 17 consecutive 1.36 laps and the next person did 4 so things were looking pretty good but it’s never good to start counting your chickens…unless of course you’re my boss lol!!

Qualifying went pretty good, I’ve never been one to worry about pole positions, don’t get me wrong when they come I’m happy but realistically the first row is perfect, we had a plan, Keith my team mate had been struggling a little over the course of the weekend so I towed him around and through all three sessions, he did well to be fair and ended up P4 for the first race, Alex Lowes did an amazing lap for Pole, I take my hat off to him, that boy can chew the screen for a lap, I was really chuffed with my lap time, ¾’s of a second faster than I managed last year, which, I think is a bloody good jump, and was under the official lap record from when Superbikes had full electronics so wasn’t hanging about!!!

For morning warm up we continued refining the bike a tiny bit just checking that we hadn’t compromised tyre life etc in the interests of one fast lap and all seemed fine, I did a 1.35 in warm up over my laps too so it seemed our pace overall may have been improved too. 

I was pretty nervous as usual for the start of the first race, due to the way I ride in practice and qualifying ie on my own and not trying to follow people race one is always where I find out exactly where we’re at, I got a great start as the lights went out and lead into turn one, Alex shot passed into Island so I thought perfect, lets sit here and see what’s going on, Alex was riding good and his pace was strong but it was about the same as my practice pace so I was feeling pretty good and relaxed, I got to see the areas where my bike was strong and where it was weak which was exactly what I expected so that was ok, I followed him for a good few laps and could see that we were just starting to break the guys behind so I started thinking about where on the track I’d be able to make a pass, I semi lined up a few places, to me it seemed I was quite strong in the 1st and last sectors but Alex was real fast in the 2nd sector, one place I thought I might be able to strike was out of the foulstons chicane, over hill top and down towards Hizzy’s, we ran in towards the chicane and I remember looking at the rear exhaust and swingarm of Alex’s bike and then the next thing I knew I was looking at daisies in the grass after a real weird loss of the front, I wasn’t expecting it at all, indeed the data logging showed no difference in speed, line, lean angle, nothing, very strange and very frustrating too, we’d have our work cut out now for race two….

The boys got the bike fixed up in no time, I guess if there’s a place to crash at Oulton you’d go for there or the entrance to the tight left in the middle of Hizzy’s for minimal damage, I’d had the 2nd fastest lap from race 1 for race 2 so lined up 2nd, I got a mega start as the lights went out and lead for a bit, after a few laps Alex passed me but I could see it wasn’t possible for him to get away and felt more than comfortable sat behind him, I have to confess to being pretty steady through the chicane for the first few laps just to be sure lol!!!

As the race wore on I got back in the lead as I could see that the guys behind were right on us, I pushed to maintain the lap times and at one point about 3 laps from the end I got a tiny bit of a gap but as we went into the last lap my board said +.0 again, that lap I tried real hard to do three things, go fast, be protective and make no mistakes, I kept seeing the race from last year when Josh got me at the final turn so I made a real conscious effort to nail druids and stay right down the final straight, I braked as late as I could without risking running too deep, got the bike stopped and turned then fired it out of the turn towards the finish line and managed to hold on for the win, a perfect way to say sorry to my boys for all their hard work in between the races!!!

I was absolutely made up with the win, it made me real happy, I couldn’t envisage anything worse than going into the long summer break on the back of a bad weekend so to pull it out of the bag was good for us as it keeps the momentum going. I’m really hopeful of a test or two in the break in order for us to work some more on the bike, we know exactly what we need to do and hopefully with some decent weather and a decent track with an open pit lane we can properly getting the Kawasaki turned from a good bike to a great one, I feel there’s a lot of untapped potential there and it’s only going to get stronger so roll on those tests and in some ways these 5 weeks too, I can’t wait to go racing again, next time it’s north of the border for Knockhill, should be good!!! 

Take it easy, 
Shakey #67 

Thruxton Round 2 2013

Thruxton, round 2, how much was I looking forward to this one, it’s funny you know because although we only raced literally a few days ago already it’s back in you, that drive, that desire to get back out on the bike, I literally couldn’t wait, obviously the fact that Thruxton is the fastest race of the year and probably one of my favorite tracks in the UK’s pretty cool too and fired the desire even more lol!!!

To be perfectly honest though the weekend didn’t exactly get off to a flying start, we had a bit of a guess at what we’d need from the bike for the first session and with it being wet this would be the first time trying the bike in the wet with the new K Tech suspension.

To be honest my first couple of exits were far from the raging success I’d hoped they’d be, it was brutally obvious that we had lots of work to do on our wet setting, I came in after just a couple of laps and wasn’t even in the top 20, I wasn’t bothered because we had lots to do and I knew it, fortunately my team and K Tech got the issues semi sorted pretty quickly and after a couple of adjustments we were up to the top 3, that in itself boded well though as we still had a fair bit of work to do before I knew I could start pushing.

The afternoon session was nearly dry, the weather couldn’t really make its mind up what it wanted to do and the session started as I said pretty damp in places so I didn’t even bother going out for the first 15 minutes or so, I simply sat and waited for the lap times to come down to a level where things were starting to get sensible then off we went, straight away literally after about two flying laps I went P1 by quite a chunk but instead of doing the in out in out thing I stayed out and just kept doing laps on laps on laps, in fact I only came in because I got an in board and the boys said I would’ve run out of fuel, we made a couple of small changes whilst I was getting fuelled up then I went straight back out, I ended up doing over race distance on the tyres yet my last flying lap was good enough for P5 I think on the timesheet for the session!!!!!

Free practice three on Saturday morning turned into a bit of a non event, in the Supersport session that ended before ours my team mate from last year had gone REALLY fast, faster in fact than anybody including us Superbikes the previous day so we knew the track should be good, we’d made some changes to the bike from the day before and I was really looking forward to getting out there but literally as our session was starting it started to really lightly drizzle, I decided an out lap should be quick enough to be able to push just hard enough for 1 flying lap to try the new settings so I went pretty quick on my out lap then went for it but immediately coming onto the start finish straight the rear let go a bit and my immediate thought was the tyre must still be a little bit cold, that should’ve warmed it up though so I carried on, through turn one it was all cool, up into the complex no problem, through the complex all good but on the exit of the complex 3rd gear I got on the gas and had a BIIIIGGG slide, bearing in mind this was only free practice 3 I kind of semi committed from there on in until the end of the lap but was pretty damn careful at the same time, after crossing the line there was no information on my pit board to say who’d done what so I did a cruise lap as I wasn’t prepared in free practice to fire the bike at the scenery by pushing too hard but fortunately despite the fact I was pretty careful I was still P2 but the most frustrating thing was I couldn’t push hard enough to tell if the changes we’d made to the bike were an improvement or not, whilst the drizzle got worse it never quite got to the point of being worthwhile going out on wets so it was a complete waste of a session, oh well, roll on qualifying…

Well, roll on qualifying indeed, basically rather than wear out my fingertips typing this qualifying never actually happened, basically we had so much rain that the track literally had rivers and BIG puddles running across it so it was deemed too dangerous to ride so the grid for race 1 was determined by the fastest lap times throughout practice effectively placing me 3rd on the grid which I guess was cool enough, I’m gutted we lost the dry session that we so badly needed to catch up with from the morning but one thing we can’t fight is mother nature so we’d have to wait to see what the weather did on race day.

Morning warm ups track conditions looked far from ideal, dry in a sense but plenty of damp patches thrown in the mix, with the session only being 10 minutes long we let the boys go out and I figured I’d just do one or two flying laps to try to get a feel for the changes to the bike then do a practice start and that would be us done, I did just that so from then on in it was just a case once again of waiting to see what mother nature was going to throw at us..
For the start of race 1 the weather looked ok, the track was dry but it kind of felt like things could go horribly wrong at any point with a few very light spits of rain in the air, I got a cracking start as the lights went out and lead through the short run through to turn 1, the good thing was Alex passed me pretty quickly which for me was the ideal scenario after getting humped after leading the race last year then losing out in the final three laps, however pretty damn quickly I found myself at the front but no sooner was that the case it stared spitting pretty hard with rain so the marshalls were displaying the slippery surface flags, perfect….NOT!!! About two or three laps in just to make matters even more fun I started to really suffer with some heavy vibration on the brakes, I thought I’d glazed the pads but that would’ve been almost impossible having already done warm up and a few laps but there was a pretty big issue and it was causing some issues with getting the bike hauled up as you will have probably noticed if you saw how many times I went in too wide to the complex, it wasn’t me making mistakes I just couldn’t stop any faster if I tried!!!

Fortunately the rain eased ever so slightly but just after it did the course car came out closing us all right back up again, this posed a bit of a problem as originally it was Alex and I that had pulled a bit of a gap so I figured it’d be a battle between he and I but after the last course car laps things grouped up again, I tried to ride very precise but my braking was so hit and miss that it was difficult, on the final lap I ran way deep into the complex and Josh passed me, I thought no way, I’m not getting humped again, I sat on his back wheel and got a real good run through the fast Church corner that leads onto the back straight, drafted him for a bit then went passed, Josh though had other ideas, he went back up the outside of me, I let my brakes off slightly then re applied them but the vibration was pretty bad and I struggled to slow up because of it, fortunately though despite running in hot I got the bike stopped, slowed up the middle part of the final chicane to straighten my exit then fired the bike to the line to take my 43rd and record equaling race win, happy days!!!!!

We knew after the first race that we had some work to do I order to improve the bike, there were some key weaknesses for us in the race compared to some of the other bikes so the boys along with K Tech came up with a plan, with the races having such a short turnaround it seemed like about half and hour or so later we were back on the grid, after setting the fastest lap in race one I would start race 2 from pole with my team mate alongside me!!
As the lights went I got a good initial jump but I bogged my engine ever so slightly which put me a tiny bit on the back foot, I managed to get around Keith and decided to have a dig from the word go, I really wanted to win this race and I wanted to win it BIG!!
A few laps passed and just as I was starting to get a bit of a gap the pace car came out, when it went back in the same thing happened again, I got a gap then boom, out it came, the next time, I pulled the pin again, another real good lap, just got going, started to find my rhythm then bugger me the red flag came out, I was almost starting to get a bit wound up!!!, however, I knew what we needed to do for the restart as the changes we’d made in race 2 had improved some things but not helped in others so I rushed back to the pits to give my team the most amount of time to check the data against my comments so that we’d have an even better bike for the restart but it wasn’t until we pulled into pit lane that I got waved straight into the podium area and I found out the race had been declared a result so it was a double win to become the most successful ever rider in terms of race wins in the history of the BSB Championship, a wonderful achievement however, a laurel I don’t intend to rest on!!!


All in all Thruxton was a decent weekend however it’s very obvious that we still have some work to do, I know we’re hoping to get out for a ride somewhere before Oulton in order to work on some of my issues but I already can’t wait to get there and get back racing again, hopefully it’ll be a dry weekend, that would make a pleasant change lol!!!
Sitting down earlier I worked out that Paul Bird has given me motorbikes that have allowed me to take more than half of those 44 BSB victories whilst riding for him so I’d just like to finish up today by saying a massive thank you to both him and the whole of the PBM team, long may the wins continue!!!

Take it easy, Shakey #67 

Brands Hatch Round 1 2013

Finally it’s that time of year again, I get to type a race blog for you guys!!!.. I know I’ve been a little bit quiet in terms of general blogs about what I’ve been up to but to be honest if I round it up into a nutshell, it goes a little something like this, well three days a week it does, get up, take my son to nursery, go straight to the gym, try to get back by about 12-30 or 1pm take my wife and daughter out for a couple of hours then get back to the nursery for 3pm to collect Zack, take them all home, maybe go for a run, have tea, bath the kids, watch tv then go to bed so hardly rock and roll if you catch my drift!!!

So then Brands hatch, well, it certainly never got off to a flying start that’s for sure, in fact, so slow a start it was that the most exciting thing I did all morning was to eat a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes, I’m not even kidding, that track temperature in the morning session reached the balmy heights of 1.7 degrees so nowhere near warm enough for us to ride, I think only 5 people went out on track in that session and at least one of them crashed!!! You probably can’t even begin to imagine the frustration, you wait all winter to get out and ride your bike, take it to Spain with a completely different ECU on it get back to the UK hoping to work on solutions for your problems then all you get is no track time at all because of the great British weather!!! 

Fortunately for the afternoon session the track temperature got up a little, well, by a little I mean up to about 7 or 8 degrees, which is far from ideal but at least gave us a chance to have a little blast around!! The session went ok for us, I was pretty steady to be honest and more than a little aware of the fact the track was so cold, the bike was working well but I think it’s fair to say we were far from pushing to the limits but nevertheless we ended up P1 so it was work in progress albeit at a half sensible pace.
Saturday was a much nicer looking day, bright blue sky and sun but boy o boy was it cold!!! The weather’s a funny old thing isn’t it, sometimes you can look outside and think do you know what that even looks cold but Saturday could have quite easily have been 30 degrees from looking out however I can assure you it wasn’t. As a team we’d sat and looked through the data from the session the day before and found a few things that we thought could help us out so I was keen to get out and try them, we also started on the tires from the day before as it’s important to see how you’re doing longevity wise as 30 laps around the short circuit drags on a bit and there’s no point being really fast for 15 or 20 of those laps but then having tires so rooted that you can’t go fast enough at the end, fortunately we were looking pretty good in that respect as were my lap times, we ended the session P1 again but as is always the case the faster you go the more problems you come up against so it was back to going through data ready for the next session which was qualifying.

During Q1 we tried a slightly different setting, did a good flying lap, good enough to be fastest then parked it, the different setting had some positives but also some negatives so it was back to the drawing board for Q2.

Q2 went ok, a different setting helped a little and I went faster again, we had a bit of a plan to tow my team mate around for a few laps and with me pushing the new setting I went quicker again but with Keith right on my exhaust he actually went faster than me so it was a rapid solicitors 1-2 in that session lol!!!

For the final session, the important one we’d made another little change and now it was time to push, to be honest a front row would’ve done me just fine, I dug in and my 1st flying lap was my fastest of the weekend, then I pushed a bit harder and went P1, then, just out of interest Keith came past on a flyer with Kiyo getting a tow so I thought I’ll jump on the back and see what’s going on, I did that and just spent the lap watching and went quicker still so Pole Position for the first round of the season it was!!!!
We had something different geometry wise to try with the bike for morning warm up which even on used tires seemed to help the bike, we ended that session fastest too after a bit of a push towards the end of the session with a pretty fast lap time so I was pretty happy going into the races although I have to admit I was a little nervous!!!

Lining up on the grid brought all of the emotions that you feel flooding back, the stomach aches, head aches, nerves, you name it, they all kicked in with full effect before the start, they always go the 2nd the lights go out but up until that point, well….!! 

Talking of the lights, they went out and I got a real good start, holeshoted in to the 1st turn and lead for a few laps, the problem was this was totally against my strategy, I wanted someone else to lead for a few laps to give me a bit of a chance to suss out my opposition, I was riding lap times wise that slow that I may as well have been riding to the shops to be honest so I was quite relieved when Josh finally passed me, I sat behind him more than comfortably for about 15 laps with my pitboard telling me that Alex was running P3, then, I got a board saying Keith had got to 3rd so I thought now’s as good a time as any to try to pull a gap so I went for it, Alex did get back to 2nd eventually but fortunately I held him off to the flag to take the 1st win of the year!!!

For race two we once again had to make some changes to the bike as I suffered a bit over the course of the race despite the fact I’d made an incredibly conscious effort not to use too much rear tire throughout the race, I once again got the holeshot and lead into turn one after probably an even better start than I’d had in the first race, I lead again for a few laps with exactly the same game plan as the 1st race, this time it was James Ellison that came passed me so I got on the back of him and away we went, I was pretty impressed by the race pace we were running, pretty much every lap seemed to be in the 45’s which is bloody fast race pace wise, if I’m honest I sat there watching my lap timer and watching him thinking right sooner or later this pace is gonna ease up a bit then I’m gonna go for it, however, as it turned out the pace stayed the same right through to lap 27, I knew I could pass James and that wasn’t the issue, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go any faster to gap him once I did pass so I figured best to leave it late then just try to defend my lines, James had a bit of a bobble coming out of bottom bend and I saw my chance, I got alongside him ready to pass into Surtees but then James peeled in fairly early and I had nowhere to go, I jammed on my brakes and just clipped James’s back wheel with my front but both of us stayed on however I had to run straight onto the grass, fortunately for me, James, myself and Alex had such a strong pace that we’d put a massive gap into everyone else so I got back on track and recovered and finished 3rd, a bit gutted to be honest but happy at the same time as it certainly could’ve been worse that’s for sure.

After the races I sat down with the team as we know what we need to do in order to improve, I’m really looking forward now to Thruxton, in fact, I can’t wait for it, we’ve got some stuff to try there which will hopefully help us out big time so fingers crossed for that.


All that’s left to say now is a massive thanks to Rapid Solicitors and PBM for a great bike, to all of you who cheered and supported us throughout the weekend and for now, onwards and upwards!!!! Take it easy guys and girls, Shakey #67 

Holy shiiiiitt!!!!!!

Don't know about you guys but I tend to just kind of float along doing one thing or another totally content 99% of the time then there'll come a point when something will happen that kind of jogs your memory or makes you take stock of whatever situation you find yourself in then all of a sudden you're like, oh shit, I didn't do this, I haven't done that, I was meant to call such and such and so on and so on, well, basically I tried a second ago to log into Dropbox to recover some photos form a phone I lost and couldn't log in because of an invalid e mail address so to cut to the point I tried to log into Blogger using the same address and like I just mentioned I realised I hadn't done.... a Blog since Brands hatch, oooopss!!!!
To be perfectly honest with you there's not really been a great deal to report, those of you that follow me on twitter @67shakey or on Facebook 67shakey will know pretty much everything that's been going on anyway.
Obviously the main thing that's happened is that I resigned for the Rapid solicitors PBM Kawasaki BSB team and that's something I'm truly really happy about, it's the first time in my career that I've ridden for the same team two consecutive years and I personally see it as a massive boost in my quest to become the all time most successful BSB rider in history. I had the very fortunate opportunity to have a great guy who spends shit loads of his own money saying to me Shakey, you just tell me what you want to do and whatever you choose I'll back you 100% but please just have a ride on my CRT bike before you make your decision, not easy being me lol!!!! Unfortunately the opportunity to ride the CRT never materialised due to the weather at the Valencia test but both my heart and my head were leaning towards the BSB side of things anyway, after all, I had a good bike, one that we know with another winter of development we can improve quite a bit, a fantastic team and a great competitive championship to race in which every weekend when I line up on the grid I know I'm in with a good shout of at the very least a podium finish and that ladies and gentlemen is what I go racing for, of course I understand that by racing in the UK I'll never achieve my goal of becoming a World Champion but I'd far rather fight for another title in BSB than fight for a point or two in MOTO GP or a top 5 or whatever in WSB, don't get me wrong, I truly believe I could fight for a title in WSB but nowadays in that paddock it's becoming increasingly like MOTO GP where only the top bikes are capable of winning, I mean look no further than probably the greatest rider of all time's last two seasons and that's with a manufacturer who have a remarkable eyebrow raising amount of money to play with.... I rest my case..
Anyway, moving on, last week was the Motorcycle live show up at the NEC in Birmingham, it was a good show, I had a lot of fun and met some nice people which was good, next week we're off to the Czech Republic for a bit, we're off to see the in laws for a few days then they're gonna look after the kids for a few days and I'm taking my with to Praque for a few days to a real nice spa hotel so we can finally totally wind down after the season.
It's been a weird year this, if I'm honest which to me there's no point not being this is the first year ever that I've taken a bit of time out after the season finishes, you could probably count the amount of times I've trained since the season ended on both hands but I've just wanted to rest and heal up a bit, I worked so hard this year getting back to fitness after the shoulder injury and then with the stress and pressure the whole showdown format puts you under I made it, I won and then I stepped back and relaxed, that's not something I'm particularly good at though as I like to keep busy.
I brought myself another Harley recently, a Sportster 48, they're making 2013 models with a Gold metal flake tank on and after getting my championship winning helmet in the same colour and always fancying a 48 anyway I figured now was as good a time as any, not only that my other Harley is down at Shaw speed and custom being tricked up to the absolute max, and I mean the max, in fact they contacted me the other day about the bike going to a bike show in Italy and maybe the London excel show when it's done so its obviously gonna be pretty rude if they're thinking of stuff like that for it, I can't wait but in the mean time if the temp ever gets above what feels constantly like minus 20 then I have the 48 to cruise about on!!
I've got a meeting pretty soon with an ex Olympian who may be helping me with some training ideas for the winter to get me in tip top condition for next season which will be cool, my approach will be the same as this year it's just that I want to make even more effort and cover even more bases, a 4th title would mean the world to me and that's what I'm 110% focused on trying to achieve, come along and enjoy the ride!!! Take it easy guys and girls, lets catch up again before Christmas, Shakey #67