It's all been going on!!!

Hey guys and girls, sorry for another big delay in sending you a blog but in fairness i've had a fair bit on my plate just lately!! I don't really know where to start to be honest, in my last blog it was that time of year where everybody's talking and things are starting to happen regarding the following season but for me things were ticking along fairly steady, i think i mentioned last time my win win situation as i saw it, basically i may have got to stay in WSB with a good team which would've been real cool but if it didn't happen i had some mega options in BSB which would give me a really strong chance at fighting for another title or two back in the UK, well, as it turned out the good option i wanted in WSB went and the best option in BSB became a goer so that was that job done, HM Plant Honda it is for 2011 then!!

As i said win win situation, it actually feels kind of strange in a way because in recent years in BSB it was always going to be either HM Plant Honda or Airwaves Ducati as they were that were going to compete for the title, the two teams were both seemingly at another level and with Airwaves Ducati not being around anymore HM Plant was the logical choice, sure there's some real good teams out there now that may have stepped right up and bridged the gap but i'm more than happy with my choice and can't wait to get going, it's almost like the perfect wedding present.......

Speaking of which, last Thursday Petra and i finally tied the knot and got married, we had a mega day and an even better party that night, everything went absolutely perfect and i'm both extremely happy and proud to be able to call her finally my wife, i'll try to get some pics up on the site in the near future to show you all, she really did look like a princess and as for our son, well, he may only be two years old but he lit up the dance floor, he had everyone in stitches, i'm almost convinced somebody slipped a little bit of red bull or something into him, i've never seen anything like it :-)!!!!

We're kicking back in the Uk for a little bit longer, i had to go to a big Honda dealer conference the other day and have to go to the NEC show this sunday which will be cool, monday i think i'm collecting my new motocross bike from the team and that's the first chance i'll get to take a look at my new Fireblade for next year, i'm so excited i might take a pair of leathers and a helmet to see if they'll let me ride it around the car park for a bit ha ha ha, then at some point that week i'd like to actually go home for a bit, i can't wait to ride my new CRF250, i really enjoyed my last one a couple of years ago, i'll take it home for a bit then early next year bring it back to the UK so that i can leave it with my mates then i can come over to go riding with them and get them to prepare it ready for the next time we're going out, i'm not that good with all the cleaning and prep work, i just love riding the things!!!

Right for now i'm going to crack on, off out for dinner tonight with one of my cousins and her husband which will be highly amusing so i need to get moving, talk to you all soon, Shakey#67

Finally, a HM Plant Honda rider, team gear that fits on route ;-)

Chilling!!

Hey guys and girls, how are you all?, not a great deal to report to be honest, as you will of probably seen if you follow me on Twitter we're back home now for a few weeks, i've managed to catch a bit of a bug and now have a real sore throat as well as feeling pretty lethargic which is a bit of a bummer, hopefully it'll pass real quick!!

No news yet on 2011 but rest assured everything's under control so i'm going to spend this weekend chilling and hope to have some news by the middle or the end of next week, i'm in a really good mood regarding next season and feel really upbeat about the whole thing, the reason being the way i see it i'm in a win win situation right now, i still have a possibility or two to remain in World Superbikes which has to be top priority but i'm also talking with all the top teams in British Superbike too so if the WSB doesn't happen then i'm really excited about returning to BSB to try to fight for a title or two, in the ideal world it'd be two as both MacKenzie and now Kiyo have won three to my two so there's all the motivation i need to try to win a couple of titles, as i said earlier hopefully we'll have some more news next week so keep your eyes peeled!! Take it easy, Shakey#67

Updated Magny Cours....

So then, here it is, the final “Race” diary of the 2010 season, unfortunately it’s going to follow a somewhat familiar pattern to all previous one’s this year which is a tiny bit frustrating but here goes anyway!!!

The following day after Imola we dropped Petra at the airport before Reggie and I went on a bit of a road trip up to Zurich, we saw the funniest car you’ve ever seen on the way up through Switzerland, in fact if you follow me on Twitter at @67shakey you would’ve been able to see the picture I posted, the funniest thing was after about an hour had passed since we saw it we pulled into some services and the car was in there, lets just say we better hope there’s not a World War 3 if that car is all the artillery we have in England ;-)!!!

After spending Monday night and pretty much all day Tuesday in Zurich we got back in the motorhome to make a steady start on the trip towards Magny Cours, that ended up turning into an all night affair though as Reg ended up driving all the way to the circuit, the last two hours or so were a little bit of a worry, we used Tom Tom to guide us there and obviously it fails to recognise the fact we’re in a 40ft long motorhome, we followed the directions and the roads and villages etc got smaller and smaller and narrower and narrower, I said to Reg after about an hour at it all we need now is a low bridge, can you imagine that, I would have been fuming ha ha!!!

As ever around this time of the year the paddock was rife with all sorts of gossip about who was going where and typically by the time you’d got from one end of the paddock to the other the story had changed completely which always amuses me!!

Riding wise I’d be lying if I said I dislike the circuit because I don’t it’s just something about the place that I can’t get on with, last year I struggled a bit there but this year I was determined to get on with it and try to work it out, let’s face it, it was the last two races of the year so now was as good a time as ever for a good result!!!

Despite having a much better feeling with the bike than 12 months ago I finished the session a little bit down the order, we were still in the top 5 or 6 but a little bit off and the bike never felt too bad at all, sure there were things we could improve but it wasn’t like we were miles out of the ball park, this theme continued right through all the practice and qualifying sessions but if you saw the results and lap times it was absolutely unbelievable, in one session there was 0.7 of a second covering the top 16 riders, that is just out of this world, no other championship in the world is ever that tight, it’s so cool to be a part of, it’d be even better if I was at the top of the tables though ha ha!!

In Superpole I got straight through the first session using just race tyres which usually bodes well, in the second one initially I went 7^th but by the time I’d got back I’d dropped out of the cut, I decided to use my 2^nd qualifier immediately but unfortunately I entered an empty track and had no option but to do a lap alone with no one to chase, I did a faster lap but ended up missing the cut off by about 2 10^th’s and finished up in 14^th, as I said earlier in this diary, following patterns……

Knowing that I was lining up on the grid for what was to be my final races with Althea I was determined to do a good job, as the lights went out I got quite a good start and made up 5 or 6 places through the first couple of turns, everything was going to plan until sector 3, basically in morning warm up for the Superstock class someone blew an engine in a big way and dropped oil all the way into the fast chicane, it was possible to go inside it or around it but definitely not where I had to go on the first lap, across the top of it, I ran on straight through the chicane but had to really anchor up hard to make it back onto the track through the designated entry road back onto the track so I dropped to last place, F’in great that’s all I need, I managed to get back on track and picked up as many places as I could before the end, I got stuck behind Tom Sykes which was real frustrating as he was like a bit of a road block, parking his Kawasaki in the middle of the track at every corner before firing it out down the straights, I passed him a few times but every time I did he simply out drove me on the exit so I ended up a pretty disappointed 9^th right behind him.

For the second race I was determined to get a better start and to try to get straight in front of Tom, I actually pulled it off too but lost a place to him when I lined up I think Lanzi on the brakes into the hairpin, Tom got in front and it took me a good while to get back passed but this time I finally managed, I then set about chasing down Carlos who was a couple of seconds up the track, I managed to catch him and get passed but ran out of time to do anything else so that was it, 8^th place in my final race of the year, far from a stunning weekend.

Now though a couple of days have past, I’m actually feeling pretty chilled at the minute, I’m kinda down that some of the guys are already starting their preparations for 2011 in Magny Cours but I’m actually quite relieved that this season’s over, it’ll sound corny I know but I’m already ready for 2011, I have no idea yet what it’s going to bring but I’m ready regardless, it’s weird because right now I feel free and like a big weight’s off my shoulders I guess you could almost say I’m having a week completely off and away from it all!!!! There’s been plenty of stuff to try to get sorted both racing and non racing wise though so I’ve been pretty busy anyway, as far as the racing thing goes right now I have some possibilities in WSB, options in BSB so I’m off up to Oulton Park Saturday to pursue them and a couple of possibilities elsewhere too which we’re working on so I’ve no doubt something will come together quite soon, you can rest assured I’ll let you guys know exactly what’s happening so all that leaves me to say is a big thank you to all of you who’ve followed me this year, in the words of Vinny Jones or should I say Bullet tooth Tony…It’s been emotional!!!!!!

Big thanks also to my guys in my side of the garage this year, Alberto, Fabrizio, Pino and Luca, you’ve been mega thank you, thanks also to Genesio, to Shoei, Alpinestars, Express insurance, William and the boys at Stobart and finally S.I.S Science in Sport, lets hope we have far more to cheer about next year. Take it easy guys and girls, Shakey #67

Day 1 Magny Cours

Hey guys and girls, just a real quick one, not especially good news to be fair, just finished provisional qualifying and ended up down in P13, sounds like a drama i know but on the upside my last two laps today were the only ones i enjoyed as i struggled to get a good feeling and i made big mistakes on both of those laps anyway, not only that i may well be P13 but i'm only 0.5 second off of pole so it's not all bad, work to do tomorrow but we'll be pushing!! Take it easy, Shakey#67

Faster, faster, faster!!!!

Imola!!

Blimey, just woke up here in Magny Cours, it’s Friday morning which means practice is going to start later and I haven’t even told you about Imola yet, I know what I’m like, if I leave it even a day longer I’ll get myself all in a pickle and start forgetting what happened where so here goes for Imola!!

I like the Imola circuit, I enjoy the layout and looked forward to the race there which by all accounts was a little bit touch and go at some points, the test mid season had gone well there right up until the point when Leon’s bike took a particular fancy to mine so it was all systems go, we started the weekend with one bike set exactly the same as we had the bike in Nurburgring as we’d made a bit of a step there setting wise and the other bike was set exactly how we had it at the test earlier in the year.

The 1^st session went really, really well, I immediately felt comfortable especially on the bike with the test settings in and ran P2 to Carlos right until the last 15 minutes or so, we put our second set of tyres on and went P1 by a good few tenths, I thought that was enough and indeed it was until Carlos did a final flying lap and pipped me by a 10^th again so a good start to the weekend.

We had some more work to do in provisional qualifying, I wanted to try to take the strong points from both bikes and create one real good one, we were once again running right at the front when with about 15-20 minutes to go the boys gave me the BOX sign, we knew where we were and all was ok so I said right lets just give it 5 minutes before we head out, I was confident I could go quite a bit faster but I didn’t want to do it too early and get pipped like I did in the first session, we used that final blast to try a different front tyre which generally works real well but for some reason I pushed real hard and only managed to match my time from earlier in the session, in fairness I didn’t put together the best lap and did get a tiny bit held up but I guess if nothing else it told me that that type of front tyre wasn’t the way forward, I dropped to 5^th I think by the end of the session but I was ok and still felt confident that with the decent front tyre I could’ve improved both time and position wise.

Saturday brought mixed conditions, pretty much everybody sat out the whole morning session, I did literally 1 flying lap on a set of intermediates just to scrub them in case of needing a set for Superpole!!

I’ll go on record saying that Imola has to be THE slipperiest surface I have ever ridden in the wet, for Superpole I went out on a bike set for the wet but it felt like a stiff dry bike, I had no feeling whatsoever, I was amazed that I finished 2^nd in the first session, I felt like I might as well get off and push the bike around, I’d probably of gone quicker!!

For the second Superpole the guys softened the bike right off and on the out lap it felt a tiny bit better, by that I mean the suspension actually compressed!! I did the warm up lap then exited the chicane and thought right Superpole 3 here we come, on the run up to turn 1 I noticed waving yellow flags, I entered the chicane and out the corner of my eye I noticed a bike on the exit, I entered the left, changed direction just took a minuscule glance at the stricken rider to make sure he wasn’t in my path and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air towards him, Cal had exactly the same crash, as in the end did many others but he’d got up and managed to ride to the pits, I ran to my bike which at that point was still running, I went to grab the clutch to pick it up but the marshall bench pressed the thing up right before I grabbed the clutch and it stalled the engine, I was fuming. I managed to get a lift bag on the back of a 250 year old Italian on his scooter and to be honest it would’ve been quicker to walk, I got out on the other bike which was set up for the dry and missed the cut for Superpole 3 by nothing, and I nearly had another massive near highside in the process, I wasn’t happy!!!

I really struggled for some reason in morning warm up, the track was still slightly damp particularly in the fast down hill run to the chicane so after a couple of warnings early on I decided that there were no prizes for being fastest in warm up!!!

My start for race 1 was far from ideal and I got a bit humped being on the inside running through the 1^st chicane, I pushed real hard all race but until the fuel load had gone down a bit I found myself really struggling to stop and turn the bike, I ran off track trying to pass Guintoli and lost 4 seconds to him but a good pace in the last half of the race saw me catch and pass him on the last lap or so. The result, 8^th, wasn’t particularly impressive but my pace at the end was real good so all we needed to do was compare the data from the beginning to the end to make some changes to ensure the bike worked the same in the first part of race 2 as it had at the end of race 1, easy a!!!!

I got a slightly better start in race 2 and managed to get through the first chicane a bit better, the race was pretty tight at the front, ok Carlos got the lead and cleared off but the rest of us were close, about half way through Haslam’s bike blew and I was completely blinded, the smoke was so think that I literally couldn’t see a thing, I kept thinking please please don’t let anybody fall in front of me, I might just as well of shut my eyes because I would’ve seen more!!! Fortunately despite running off track we continued on but it broke the group right up, I was left with Lanzi who finished 2^nd in the first race about 3 or 4 seconds up the road and I managed to catch and pass him to take 6^th at the flag.

Obviously reading this now you’ll know that I’m not going to be continuing with the Althea Ducati team, it’s a real shame, the team are going to focus on Carlos who let’s face it has done an awesome job this year and may consider running another rider should one with a big personal backer come along so I’m out, I have a few irons in the fire though and all is not lost, I’m not sure what I’m going to do next year but rest assured as soon as I know you’ll read it right here. Take it ease, Shakey#67

Nothing like using all the track ;-)!!!!

Nurburgring.....

I'm not going to make this the usual full on race report i normally try to do after a race weekend, the reason, i'm frustrated, so, so frustrated with the way things are going right now, i know the saying is you make your own luck but bloody hell give me a break, if that saying's true then i need to find a new recipe for my luck because mine seems to be all bad!!!

I guess in someways the support and comments i get from you guys go some way to makingthings a bit easier to deal with i mean lets face it, i'm riding in a World Championship not a club meeting so to go from pretty much last and come through to 9th and 10th isn't terrible but you need to understand how badly i want to be racing at the sharp end, fighting for podiums etc, that's what's important to me not how many people i manage to pass on my way to a top 10 position, i wasn't out of the top 5 all weekend in Germany, in fact i lead sessions, ran top 3 and generally had a real good podium position pace the WHOLE weekend so to get the results i did all because of a crash that came out of nowhere, aaaarrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh is the only word that springs to mind!!!!!

One thing that was good about the weekend was the fact that we further improved the bikes chassis feeling, in Silverstone we made good progress with the way we had the bike turning and in Germany we made another good step, i'm really hopeful that we'll be able to start with a real good bike in Imola plus we have the setting we got in the test there earlier in the year so it should be all good.

The final real good thing that happened was the lap we did of the Nordschliefe after the race, bloody hell, what an eye opener that was, it turned out quite amusing because with a Fiat Punto we smoked a GSXR 1000 rider , i used him as a bit of a guide in the first instance then through one real tricky part of the circuit we passed him, i'd love to go back there with an instructor and a quick car, the place is awesome!!!

We headed back to the UK monday to collect Zack then the following day we went off home, i'm looking forward to getting some more training in whilst we're here and desperately hoping for a far stronger end to the season, this definitely hasn't been a year to talk about with the grand kids has it, mind you, i haven't got them so it's all good!!! Take it easy and i'll catch up with ya soon, Shakey #67

Hard at it!!

Race two after passing Troy..

How cool is this pic!!!!

Just about to start a highly amusing lap of the Nordschliefe!!!

Nurburgring day 1...

Hey guys and girls, just a really quick update, good start so far, started this morning and lead pretty much the whole session, we only used 1 set of tyres for the whole hour session as we wanted to fix the bike rather than fire new tyres at it, we dropped to 5th by the end of the session when everybody else used their second set but it was all good.

Provisional qualifying we went one step better, i was actually pretty disappointed as Carols and i had been P1 and P2 all session but right at the end with new tyres i never improved my lap time and a few did so i ended up provisional front row in P4, if i get a chance i'll update you guys again tomorrow, take it easy, Shakey#67

Not the most impressive pic i know but it's the only one i have right now!!!

Holidays are over!!!

Well people, this is it, the summer break is now officially over, i'm sat here in the motorhome typing this on Thursday morning here at the Nurburgring, shortly i'm off over to see the guys in the garage to get the low down on what's been going on during the summer break and i might see if i can get taken around the famous circuit in one of the fast taxis, they have things like M5's that you can get driven around in so that should be amusing!!!, i can't wait to get back out on the bike tomorrow, last year i really liked the layout and flow of the track but the races weren't two of my best but hopefully this year we can rectify that a little!!

It's been a real good break and i've really enjoyed the time out and actually getting to spend a few weeks at home without having to jump on a plane or drive up to the UK, it's made a pleasant change i tell you!!! I managed to get a fair bit of cycling in over the break, had the in laws down, had mum down for a little while oh and pick up some kind of stomach infection that wrote me off for about 8 days which wasn't at all good but i think we're out the other side of that now, sat right now watching Reg making a dick of himself trying to learn some new motocross game i brought for the PS3 which is quite amusing!!

Right for now i'm gonna crack on for a bit, i'l update you guys again real soon ok, i know this update's been a while coming but don't worry, i'm on it!!! Talk to you soon, Shakey#67

Silverstone...

I have to admit things had been pretty manic on the run up to Silverstone, we had to come to the UK a few days before the event as there’s a number of important things that we needed to try to make some headway with so we spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday rushing around boxing a load of stuff off.

Thursday morning however it was off to work we go, the weekend started with an interview at Whittlebury Hall just near Silverstone with fastbikes magazine, it seemed kind of weird in a way doing an interview for them, back in the day when Colin owned it and I was wheeling across the South of France an interview with them would’ve been the last thing I’d imagine doing, ironically the journo Simon Roots last interviewed me at the end of 2003 but for Superbike magazine, he explained the differences from a journalist point of view of the whole road testing thing and by all accounts it’s not the fun it used to be, in fact, far from it!!!!

After an hour or so of reminiscing the past we talked a bit about the present and possibly the future however I’ve no idea yet what the future holds so that part of the interview past fairly quick, a fairly rapid close to the interview and we were rushing off to the circuit for the press conference.

After all that kind of stuff was done I got on my scooter to get out and investigate the new layout, to be honest I was really pleasantly surprised with what I saw, on the tv the track looked really really fast which is potentially a big problem for us and whilst it wasn’t exactly slow it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought.

Free practice was always going to be about getting the gearing sorted out, fundamentally chassis wise we knew we’d be there or thereabouts as the bike always works to a degree it’s just a case of refining the chassis for each circuit, we tried a few different options gearing wise and never quite hit the nail on the head but that was only to be expected at a brand new track where lap times were tumbling by the session, by the end of the session we finished 5^th or 6^thwhich was a decent enough start, we knew we had plenty more to come it’s just that at that point nobody realized just how much more we’d need!!!

1^st qualifying also passed without any dramas, we found just over a second but managed to slip back to 13^th which I was pretty pissed about, once again though we had more to come for the following day and just being in the top 20 ensured a place in Superpole so it was all good.

Saturday’s morning qualifying was in pretty crap conditions, it had rained over night and there were a few damp patches and spots of rain about, I ended the session 5^th I think after leading nearly the whole session and I’d got to within a 10^th of a second of my lap time of the previous afternoon in good conditions so I knew we’d made some good progress.

Free practice in the afternoon passed again without drama and another chunk off my lap time, so it was onwards and upwards now to see if my prediction regarding whether or not I’d sussed Superpole was true or not…..

I managed to put in a good enough lap initially on a new pair of race tyres for P5 which took me through to Superpole 2 which pleased me.

In Superpole 2 I threw down a lap on my 1^st qualifier which initially put me P4 so I was well chuffed but I knew I’d need to use my second tyre as only 8 could go through, then, the revelation of all revelations happened, I knocked another .3 of a second off my best all alone on a qualifying tyre, as I crossed the line I saw myself P4 again, the chequered flag was out and I was so chuffed you wouldn’t believe, finally my shot at a front row and bang on time for my home race, I rode that in lap with the biggest grin on my face however my face changed when I was entering the pits and the grandstand position board showed me P9, I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry!!!!

Morning warm up went pretty good, we tried another setting change that worked really well and had the bike the most balanced it had been all weekend, that session came and went and it wasn’t too long at all after that my pre race nerves set in, my poor stomach was doing back flips, I did an interview on the grid for some radio station and the guys question was something like “so Shakey, home race, how are you feeling, what are your thoughts right now?” my reply was “to be honest with you, my only thought right this second is whether I sat on the toilet for long enough earlier, judging by the way my stomach feels right now I’m guessing not!!!” the guy didn’t look particularly impressed with my answer!!!!!

Anyway, enough of that, I got a pretty good start as the lights went out, they held us on the line for a long time but as I said my start was good and my run down to turn 1 was good, I got a pretty good run through turn 1 but got a little bit humped in the first few turns, my first lap through the stadium section was all it took to tell me it was pretty much all over before it’d even started, coming on the start finish the bike was sideways, something I’d not had a problem with all weekend, the rear tyre wasn’t working at all and I just kept losing valuable tenths at every corner exit, there was a point where I thought that’s enough, I’m pulling in but lets face it it’s not like I’ve got a million points behind me this year so I stuck at it to finish 9^th.

I got another good start in race two, in fact probably better than race 1, I settled in around 7^thbut this time despite not changing a thing other than the rear tyre.

I had a pretty good run to be fair and felt really comfortable in the group battling for 4^th place, it was absolutely imperative that I made a perfect exit onto the straight whilst in the group as it enabled me to get towed maybe a quarter of a lap down the straight which kept me in contention. With two laps to go I put a pass on Biaggi and was preying to keep my 6^th position, I thought come on, smooth, fast, no mistakes, it’s just two laps you can do it, I still believe I could however Max passed me down the back straight so f***in fast that I thought oh ok, maybe you can’t then!!! The long and the short of it was I rode the last lap trying as hard as I could to be on the back of the group, riding wide sweeping lines to take advantage of any mistakes but all of a sudden Sylvain came up the inside of me into the right before the hairpin, I immediately swept out wide to try to out drive him between the hairpin and the following left onto the last straight and so so nearly got him back but didn’t quite pull it off which meant I had to roll the throttle losing me any chance of attacking him so it was P8 for me then.

Obviously I’m pretty gutted with the weekend and the results, I’m real pleased for Cal Crutchlow, he rode mega and he’s a good kid but it doesn’t seem like 5 minutes ago that I was beating the likes of him, Leon, Leon etc week in week out so for them guys to be on the podium whilst I had to settle for 8^th and 9^th is a bit of a bitter pill to swallow but I guess it is what it is, we’ll keep on pushing as hard as we possibly can and see where it takes us.

Massive thanks this weekend to the British crowd, you guys all made me feel real special, it was mega to be appreciated that way and the words of encouragement made me feel mega and really cheered me up, big thanks also to my mechanics for all their hard work, they got my bike better and better as the weekend went on so good job guys!!! Take it easy everyone and I’ll update you again soon. Shakey #67

Full gas!!!!!

Brno...

Feels kind of weird sitting here typing this sentence because I’m just about to say that I’m relatively happy with my weekend despite the fact I finished 12^th and 9^th or whatever it was!!! I guess though all things considered whilst I had every intention to give it a go on Friday morning I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to ride, in fact if the truth be known if you had of asked me maybe Tuesday or Wednesday before the event I was pretty doubtful to be honest…

Prior to Brno we’d spent a few days over in the UK getting a few bits and pieces sorted out which for a change went fairly smoothly, generally we get like 5 minutes there and have 5 months worth of stuff to sort out so we never get everything done, this time though things were a bit less rushed which was nice!!!

Despite the fact it had been pretty warm whilst we were in the UK getting off the plane in Brno initially surprised me as it was only pleasantly warm at that point, it was soon to change to roasting however but it was lovely for 5 minutes!!!

Reggie had driven the motorhome up from the Ducati factory for me, this was his first race weekend this year so it was good to have him around again, plenty of people in the paddock had been asking where he was and my reply was always, “he’s gone A.W.O.L!!” anyone who knows him would understand my answer!!!!

I went to the medical centre as soon as we got to the circuit Wednesday evening but that was shut so I had to get up first thing Thursday morning to see the doctors in the clinica to see what we could do treatment wise to sort my hand out, fortunately Alpinestars brought along some larger left hand gloves for me which were stretched and adjusted to fit my still pretty swollen hand in, to be honest after my initial treatments things were feeling pretty awkward, the stitching on the top of the glove was pulling right across the top of the cut and every time I clinched my hand as if to hold onto the bars I felt inside the glove like my stitches were trying to pull themselves open, I thought there and then, hmm, this is gonna be a tough weekend!!!!

Unbelievably the first session went incredibly well, I felt really awkward and one step behind the bike but I still finished the first session in 6^th I think after running as high as 4^th at one point, the only problem was I could only really do 4 or 5 lap stints at that point as the swelling was making life a little bit tricky..

For the 1^st qualifying session I dropped a few places but to be honest I wasn’t bothered as running in the top 10 was more than good enough, my biggest problem was feeling still 1 step behind the bike, it was like the bike was riding me round the track rather than me riding it, we made a few adjustments to beat the feeling but to be honest nothing seemed to make any difference, in the end despite spending all the way from that session to race one changing bits and pieces I resigned myself to the fact that it was just me so I got on with it as best I could.

Saturday brought even hotter weather and with it even more problems feeling wise, I dropped further down the order and was seriously wondering whether or not I was doing the right thing riding like this in these positions, I wasn’t happy but then I guess racers never are but we cracked on anyway positively hoping that the next session would be the turnaround!!

Sessions seemed to be coming and going far faster than I could cope with and I really wasn’t making much progress so as you can probably imagine I wasn’t exactly looking forward to Superpole but ironically things initially turned themselves around a bit…

In Superpole 1 I got out behind Haga and despite the fact he crashed in front of me I managed my best race tyre time of the weekend around half a second or so quicker than my previous best of the weekend, it was good enough to get me through but we didn’t know it at the time so I used one of my qualifiers although I never got to follow anyone on that lap and only matched my time on the race tyre.

For Superpole 2 we fitted an new front and rear tyre and I went out to put 1 fast lap in before using my second qualifier to try to get through to Superpole 3, unfortunately though about 5 corners in it was obvious there was something not right front tyre wise, I lost the front into the 1^st of the double rights then again a few turns later, I rushed back to the pits to change tyres for my qualifier and a new front but there simply wasn’t time to change the front and with the qualifier rear in the bike just pushed the front even more. On a positive note though I think I finally sussed this whole qualifying thing, obviously I’m going to reserve judgement until Silverstone but I’m fairly confident I’ve found something.

Sunday morning’s warm up went very well indeed which helped me a bit, on used tyres from the day before I set my fastest lap of the weekend and felt pretty comfortable doing it, I actually managed about 6 or 7 laps on the bounce in that session which was about the most I’d done all weekend, the two 20 odd lap races were gonna be tough but the most important thing was not to rest and think we’d cracked it now as by the time the races came around the ambient and the track temperature would be way up, something that had caught me out in the past.

As we lined up on the grid for the start of race 1 I just felt the urge to get right amongst it, I was ready, or as ready as I could be anyway, I got a good or should I say a sensible start but I’m not joking when I tell you the exit of turn 1 pretty much told me all I needed to know about this race, it was going to be a bloody nightmare, I had no grip whatsoever and every time I exited a turn I’d lose a few bike lengths, I honestly considered pulling in to save my hand for race two but to cut a long story short I persevered and ended up 12^th, after the race the team could see my frustration and as soon as they downloaded the data from the bike they could see the problem, we just had to cross our fingers for race 2 and hope the problem would be gone.

I got a fairly sensible start again in race 2 and got much more amongst it, I nearly took myself out however trying to pass Guintoli and that cost me a bit of time and a couple of places but I chipped away and chipped away to finally come home 9^th, the top 20 position I’d dreamed of at the start of the week leading up to the race.

It’s important to remain positive right now and also to thank a few people for their hard work all weekend, all of the guys in the Clinica have been mega as always so big thanks for all your help and also to my side of the Althea Ducati garage, they never give up on me and despite the fact it was a difficult weekend they were behind me all the way so thanks you guys, Jarno form Alpinestars for sorting my gloves, Petra for all her hard work and Reg for taking care of everything else, you’ve all been mega, thanks to you all. Roll on Silverstone!!!!!!

Getting all tucked in!!!!!

Misano...

What's that saying, wrong place at the wrong time......Kinda sums up my qualifying performances doesn't it really!!!!!

With Misano being the venue for my only podium last season i was obviously looking forward to getting back there racing, that and the fact that we'd tested there literally the week before so we were up to speed had me well excited!!!

The weekend really got going well, we were constantly up and around the top 5 positions and feeling pretty comfortable with it, the test the week before had really helped, in fact it didn't take too long at all to get going every bit as fast as we'd been the week previous.

Obviously writing this like two weeks after the event some of the details are a little bit sketchy but in provisional qualifying friday afternoon i think i ended up 4th or 5th which was more than ok for now.

The following morning however in 2nd qualifying we got going even better and comfortably with a pretty shabby lap jumped up to P2, however in hindsight this was maybe a little bit of my undoing as with the session being in the morning i.e far far cooler track temperature wise the bike was feeling really good but that afternoon when i got out on track ready for Superpole the bike never felt much different, it seemed to be working the same and i felt fast and confident but the lap times just weren't coming, we were quite a way off, we fired in a new set of tyres just before the end of the final practice and i think i got to within half a second i so of my morning time with a chew the screen kinda lap, oh shit, this is gonna be tricky.......indeed it was.

We scraped through the 1st session using only race tyres which is always good but it was the second session that went horribly wrong for a change, i'm not even gonna bore you with details, the long and the short of it was i couldn't go as fast even with a qualifier as i'd been in the morning on a race tyre so i missed the cut to go through and ended up a totally disgruntled 15th.

Morning warm up the following day brought a turn around in fortune again, the cooler temperature saw me go P1 just a tenth off my fastest time of the weekend with no problem whatsoever, blimey, all i needed was a good start and first couple of laps, how many times have you heard that from me!!!!!

For once this year i did get a sensible start and i got stuck right in through the first chicane making up about 8 places, yeeessssss i thought we're on t, on the run down to the real tight rights i had a look at sneaking another place or two and nearly went in too hot but then Camier came up my inside even hotter sitting me up and for the next few turns i got a bit humped and lost about 4 or 5 places due to being a bit off line, i got myself together and started going forward again but then i made a mistake and run straight on a bit into Quercia losing a couple of spots, i got them pretty much straight back which was handy then set after the group in front i caught and passed James Toseland and Johnny Rea and finally ended up 9th, not great.

For race two i knew i needed to get involved early on and not lose any time, my start wasn't too bad and i ran in the top ten before finishing up a slightly better 7th however this time i was much much closer to the front, sure Max had gone but the group for 2nd were about 3 or 4 seconds up the track which starting for 15th i wasn't too unhappy about.

So to sum up the weekend i guess all i can say is i've got to get it together in qualifying, once again i showed albeit at the wrong times that i've got the pace over a single lap and i have real good race pace over race duration i just need to start from the front to run at the front, hopefully we're getting there, big thanks to the boys for all their hard work, on wards and upwards or downwards as the case ended up to Imola for the official Pirelli test......

Hi mum!!!!!

Salt Lake smiles...

Following my last blog yesterday you’ll know already that I’m in a happy mood and I’m smiling again, well I can tell you right this second I’ve got an even bigger smile on my face because not only did we get a free club class upgrade on the way to Orlando last week but we’ve been upgraded again free from New York to Heathrow so I’m sat here typing this in my club class bed, what a result!!!!!

I know yesterdays blog touched a tiny bit on how the races actually went in Salt Lake but I’m gonna take you through the weekend in detail anyway. As you may of read recently after the disaster that was Kyalami me and my team sat down to formulate a plan of attack, the funniest or coolest thing about the plan was that we were all on exactly the same page, I went away thinking do you know what, I’m not sure this ride by wire thing is working so good, I wish they’d just put me a proper analogue cable on so that I can get some feeling from this bike, when I sat down with them the first thing they said was, right we’ve been thinking and we think you should try the old system i.e. throttle cables in America and test this system back to back with ride by wire so that we can increase your feeling again with the bike. Talk about perfect, I couldn’t wait to get to America after Kyalami!!!!

We started out in the first session by doing an out in lap with the new throttle cable set up just so that the guys could download the data to get everything calibrated correctly, the only thing that wasn’t quite right was that there was no free play whatsoever in the cables so it was a bit sharp pulling away out of the pit lane, the immediate and I mean immediate sensation was like, ahhhhh, that’s better, mind you that said actually twisting the throttle felt unbelievably heavy compared to the super light ride by wire set up, I remember semi joking to myself about getting arm pump if I had to do more than about 5 laps but in terms of feeling like I said, ahhhh that’s better.

Straight after the out in I went out on my normal ride by wire bike and immediately over some of the bumps through turn 3 I thought bloody hell, this things a bit sharp, too sharp in fact, I did about 8 laps initially to get up to speed and the bike was working pretty good, I was enjoying riding and liking the track, after those laps it was time to head out on the cable bike for my first real go at it. For some reason the cable bike felt much faster than my ride by wire one, this was only an engine km thing but nonetheless the cable bike felt strong, the heavy sensation I mentioned of the analogue throttle wasn’t going away but at the same time it made the bike so much more manageable at the apex and allowed me to be smoother winding the gas on, fundamentally the bikes were set a bit different chassis wise, one was set pretty much how I had my bike there last year and the other still the same as our setting from Kyalami, it wasn’t until I got one more shot on the ride by wire bike i.e. the last years setting bike that I realised chassis wise it was a good step forward despite the cable one feeling better in terms of being able to feel more of what was going on. We ended the session with the 3^rd fastest time and went P1 for a little while, the first time I’d seen that in ages, I was really enjoying riding and everything was going to plan.

We made the decision immediately after the first session to set both bikes to the kyalami setting so that we had equal chassis’s to further back to back test the ride by wire/cable scenario and made short work of not only deciding which way to go throttle wise but also how to improve the bike further chassis wise, I made the decision to go analogue for the weekend so that all we had to do now was concentrate on finding a good race set up, we could see from the data the problem I’d been having all year on the ride by wire bike, the rear suspension gets too upset too early in the turn which loses speed and doesn’t do the tyre longevity any favours whatsoever, it was almost like the decision was there right in front of us in black and white THIS RIDE BY WIRE’S DOING THIS BUT THAT CABLE DOES THIS MUCH BETTER. Although we slipped from 3^rd to 6^th I was still very happy and certain we’d made the right choice.

Saturday mornings qualifying session went real well, I lead the session for a while and we concentrated on being consistent over a race duration, I dropped to 5^th by the end of the session but only because we didn’t fire in more tyres and concentrated as I said on durability, some more chassis changes were helping me out more and more and I was feeling good and confident that it’d be quite easy to make a big step lap times wise with fresh tyres so everything was still going exactly to plan.

We started the free practice session in the afternoon with the same tyres we’d been using in the morning as it was real important to go over race distance so we knew where we’d be at by the end of the races and the result was mega, my 24^th lap on the same pair of tyres was a 1.49.1 so we were right on the money to say the least, with a fresh pair of tyres in I lead the session for about 15 or 20 minutes and was happy to plug on with another load of laps rather than chasing a fast time at the end, I felt really relaxed and was enjoying riding now even more than at the beginning of the weekend!!!

For the first time in ages we got through the first Superpole using only a race tyre which was perfect, just what we needed, once again I was relaxed and feeling really confident.

The cock up came in Superpole 2, my initial 2 laps netted me P4 on my first qualifier, enough we thought to be safe to go through to the final session with another qualifying tyre left, perfect…….. As it turned out I got dropped to 5^th so the guys said right go out on your second qualifier, do an out lap exit the last turn only real hard and if you’re in the clear we’ll put BOX on your pitboard so abort the lap, right, ok, out lap, build up a little towards the end, nail the last turn hard, BOX P5, f***in excellent, now I’ve really really got a good shot at the front row, I completed the lap real slow so that I could save the tyre for the final exit, I had a real big smile on my face right up until the point when I pulled into Pit lane, the marshal guy waved me into the collecting area and I thought no mate, not me I’m through but then I saw one of my guys who looked like he was suicidal pointing to the collecting area so I got a bit confused, it turned out I was through right up to the point that the chequered flag came out so the guys gave me P5 BOX thinking I was through, I aborted my lap and course 3 or 4 of the guys pipped me by less than a 10^th of a second, I wasn’t happy to say the least but we were on it regardless even if it was going to be much much harder work from the 3^rd row….

Morning warm up passed without any dramas at all, we had to use some used tyres from the day before just to triple check on their performance and with morning warm up being a fair bit cooler track temperature wise the rear tyre didn’t work too well at all, we ended the session 3^rd or 4^th I think so if the temperature came up for the races we’d be in good shape. I did a practice start at the end of the session and it was my fastest ever start on a Ducati so if I could pull another one of them out of the bag, well…

My race one start was far from dreadful but it wasn’t perfect either and the long run down to turn 1 wasn’t helped when JT cut across the front of me so close that I had to roll the throttle to avoid a collision, I was there or thereabouts but Smrz’s bike blew unbeknown to him and he continued on all the way round the lap to the attitude turns, something that not even a minute or so later would cost me dearly, on lap 2 I entered the fast turn 3 left hander, threw the bike on it’s side and the rear snapped round so fast that I honestly thought I was going to have to hit the ejector button, fortunately or not depending how you look at it the bike snapped back in line sending me off track at high speed, I remember looking up and seeing the tyre wall heading in my direction at a pretty rapid rate of knots, I managed to slow just enough to make a turn but had to rejoin dead last, all I could do was get my head down and push as hard as possible to try to catch up so that’s exactly what I did and lap after lap I got further and further up the order, right at the end of the race I was on the back wheel of Troy Corser in 5^th and I looked at pulling the same pass on him as I had on a lot of the others, I think it was a bit too touch and go if I’d pull it off and after spending 20 laps busting my balls I’d feel pretty daft crashing on the penultimate lap or so I thought, I was so engrossed in catching troy that I misjudged the laps left and as we exited the final turn I saw the chequered flag and initially my heart sank, as I said I felt touch and go I could’ve made the pass but I was convinced there was 1 more lap which should of seen me be able to get pass to take my first top 5 of the year but it wasn’t to be.

The team were absolutely peaking when I returned to park ferme which was good to see, we’ve not had a lot to cheer about of late but it was nice to se them smiling and happy and long may it continue!!!

After the pace we had in race 1 I was really hopeful of a far better result in the 2^nd race, I knew if everything went to plan there could well be a podium up for grabs, my bike was fantastic in the first race and I actually had race winning pace, I lost 13 seconds on that second lap and finished 11 seconds behind the leader, you do the maths, I was feeling good!!!

I got another so so start and tried to settle in immediately, straight away though there was a bit of a problem, I had a bit of chatter from the rear tyre straight away and about 50% less grip on the corner exits, it really was a case of oh no, this is going to be a long old race, I battled the best I could but could only manage a 7^th after some difficult battles with some of the guys, that was far from the result I was hoping for but nonetheless it equalled my best weekend so far in Portimao, I’m really hopeful now that dropping the ride by wire is the way forward, I’m chomping at the bit to get out in Misano and keep the ball rolling, I really enjoyed that track last year and hope to emulate my results from ’09!!!

I’d like to say a big thank you to my team owner Genesio and to Ducati for arranging the cable throttle for me to test and to all my guys in my side of the box who worked so well this weekend, hopefully we’ve now turned a corner and can look forward to a far better second half of the season!!!!!

To do the most possible I arrived back at mums around lunch time this afternoon, got changed into my cycling gear and busted out 50 miles with one of my pals, jet lag and all, it wasn’t easy as I felt half asleep but it keeps the momentum going, bring on Misano!!!!!

Happy times...

Fun, that's the way i perceive life should be, Petra and i took a few days out before Miller and as you may well of seen from some of the pics i've posted we went to Orlando, it was only 4 days out but boy did it do me the world of good, you see the reason i write all this is because my job, i.e racing a motorbike is to me the coolest job in the world bar none, sure it could pay probably 50 times better then we might earn something like footballers but you see the thing is that's not what it's all about to me and it took those 4 days out to realise, the problem has been that things racing wise haven't been going at all well, let's be honest now, we flew in all the preseason tests, last year i grant you we were fast in Portimao but this year, Portimao, Valencia and Phillip Island, we were on it, to the point where i didn't even care if someone went a quarter of a second quicker in any given session as i knew within that we could do it, i quite honestly felt on it, this is to be my year... two massive high sides later and a string of what are to me dissapointing results had gotten me all confused though, you see the problem here is that racing is such a massive part of my life and every time things don't go my way in a session, a race, a practice whatever i become frustrated and just try harder and harder and harder but actually that just doesn't work with a Ducati, the harder you try the slower you go. Now, back to Orlando, 4 days out, time to relax and reflect, Petra and i talked for ages and i realised the problem this year is that i'm just not relaxing and enjoying the only job i've ever dreamed of having all my life nowhere near enough, this is supposed to be fun, it's all i've ever wanted and i don't want to look back one day and think cor, i travelled the world, got paid to race bikes, the only job i ever wanted since i was a kid and i wasted it by not actually enjoying myself, In Salt Lake this weekend i had a lot of fun, i really enjoyed my bike again, she's my baby again, we've changed back to an analogue throttle and i've got my feeling back, i've read some pretty negative stuff that sometimes makes me want to front out the people and say "do you know what, you're nothing but an armchair world champion, what the f**k do you know about how hard we have to try to get anywhere at world level???" people talk about motivation, high pay cheques for nothing, parenthood etc and it just makes me laugh because do you know what, the only thing i've been guilty of so far this year is trying too hard, not having fun and being too serious, this weekends been mega, i've loved it, enjoyed myself on track, been far more relaxed off track and i absolutely can't wait until Misano, hopefully we can qualify better and be up the front, Shakey's smiling again!!! take it easy and keep the faith, Shakey #67

Upgrades!!!

How cool is that, we arrived at Gatwick earlier ready to fly to Orlando, i've never been so i'm quite excited anyway, we contemplated upgrading to business class for a special fee of £399 but decided against it then when we got to the desk to check in Petra asked for a window seat and the lady called through and came back saying, i can do better than that, take a Club seat, a free upgrade.... What a bloody result!!!!!

Kyalami...

I’m not a very happy boy this morning to be honest, you see the reason for this is my results again yesterday, going into Monza I knew we were going to have a tough weekend, that’s the reason I needed a couple of strong races at Assen to keep us happy, Monza was of course exactly as difficult as we knew it would be but once that race was out of the way I really looked forward to a better run of tracks for us and the Ducati, I was particularly looking forward to the race here in South Africa as last year the Xerox boys literally smoked everyone and the bikes we have are in theory a step closer to the spec that they had last year so it’s all good right….

For the first free practice session things went ok ish, fundamentally we had a bike that stopped and turned in ok but the thing made the already bumpy Kyalami circuit feel like a whoop section of a motocross track which was making pushing the front into the corner entries particularly tricky as when I was on the side of the tyre it was like being given an uppercut by the handlebars which isn’t exactly what you need!! Nonetheless we went ok, we started the session in P2 and held it for about 20 odd minutes and I was happy again, happy or should I say relieved, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a number like that on my pit board!!, I ended the session 5^th but felt pretty confident that as we got the bike riding the bumps better we’d find a good chunk more lap time wise so all good.

The first qualifying practice went a fair bit better in terms of lap time but unfortunately position wise I dropped to 9^th, we worked hard on getting the setting of the bike right but even harder on trying to get the bike pushing forward out of the turns, I’ve had a feeling since the last races that one of our bikes problems is that the traction control is actually hindering a bit as apposed to helping and perhaps restricting the bike a bit too much so my engineer came along with some different settings to this race for me to try so we worked a bit on that too, my feeling was getting better with the bike in general however it was the Mine shaft section of the track that was hurting us the most, for the first two sectors I’d get green sectors with a provisional 3^rd or 4^th place but sector 3 finished that in a big way as I was losing up to 6^th’s in that one sector, I knew the problem but we couldn’t seem to get around it, either my bike would treat the bumps like motocross jumps or if we softened things up it would be all wallowy and run wide through there which hurt us big time speed wise up the hill. Work to do….

Qualifying practice Saturday didn’t really see us make a lot of progress to be honest, in fact we dropped down the order to 12^th or 13^th I think, we continued to keep our heads down though and worked hard to find a good compromise, in all other sectors we were going pretty good and maybe losing a tenth or two but the same sector was causing me big problems still, I even resorted to trying to follow a few people through the sector to see if I was doing anything wrong riding wise but the problem was I couldn’t push the entry to the left and hold a tight line over the bumps which would then make me run a tiny bit wide, my change of direction was too slow making me need to make a much bigger deal of the right and I’d end up getting dropped by like 8-10 bike lengths, shit this was frustrating!!

For the free practice session we went out and worked real hard, for the rest of the track we were pretty much bang on, I’d improved everywhere else but the one dreaded sector, right towards the final few minutes of the session we made a breakthrough, well, you could say we made two, both bikes had slightly different ways of improving the feeling from the front end feeling but I wasn’t sure which was best as we got literally about a lap or so on each but the problem now was that we were going straight into Super pole, exactly what happened last time out at Monza.

For some reason the team chose a bit of a strange plan for Super pole, we knew already that we had one slightly iffy qualifier and one good one, usually we exit immediately on a new pair of race tyres then if needed we use a qualifier to get through the first Super pole but this time they said we should use the iffy qualifier first then a race tyre, I wasn’t at all convinced but went with it, I used the qualifier and went 11^th straight away and thought right ok all good, I’d only improved by 3 10^th’s but now I had the new rear race tyre which could maybe be better anyway, as I came round to start my laps on the race tyre I’d dropped to 16^th, the cut off point, b******s I thought, this ain’t good, I pushed real hard, too hard in fact and made some mistakes then to start my final lap I’d dropped to 18^th so I was out, I rode that lap absolutely on the limit and had some big slides, I went three or four tenths faster but missed out on going through by less than a tenth of a second, I was literally fuming, I was so p****d off you wouldn’t believe, I don’t think I’ve felt that low ever.

It took me a fair while to calm down after the session so I went off to the clinica guys to get a massage and loosen up my arms which were feeling pretty tight and whilst there I had a thought, more of the thought later….. When I got back i sat down and had a meeting with my guys and we talked, there’s some really strange stuff going on with my bike settings wise right now, both the front forks and the rear shock have springs so much heavier than last year which means less grip but my guys came up with an idea, all this year with this bike (the ride by wire throttle bike) I’ve struggled with grip, every time they make the bike softer it wallows, yet the softer setting is nowhere near as soft as my settings from last year, my feeling with the throttle isn’t good and every single session I complain that the throttle is too aggressive, the actual amount of twist of the ride by wire throttle compared to the cable throttle is much different, probably three quarters the amount of the cable one so what we think is happening is when I get to the apex I take the throttle to balance the bike but because the ride by wire throttle is so short I actually take far too much initial throttle, this upsets the bike immediately but then when the bike starts to slide and shake there’s almost no feeling or throttle left to control the slide with so the reason for the heavier springs is the throttle’s putting too much initial torque through the rear tyre causing the bike to squat too much and get upset, now in America we’re going to back to back test one bike with ride by wire and the other with a cable throttle which I had last year so I’m well excited, I’ve always been really smooth on the throttle and because of that pretty gentle on tyres but this year so far all of this seems to have gone out of the window.

Morning warm up yesterday went real well, I rode around the whole session behind James Toseland and caught him by the end of the session, my ideal time was more than quick enough to be competitive in the races but starting from 18th was always going to be tricky….

As the lights went out I got an absolutely mega initial launch and run down into turn one, someone, I think Ruben sat up on the inside of me which in turn sat me up and made me go wide, I lost time on the exit of turn two and got humped on the run up to the corner that leads onto the back straight, eventually after some argy bargy things settled down a bit and I got in a battle with Sykes and Xaus, the race for me was so frustrating, basically it went like this, stuck behind Sykes despite having a much faster rhythm, pass Sykes, immediately at the next straight get re taken by him, line him up again, make a pass, immediately he’d drive back past and so on, this went on all race long and drove me mad, eventually I broke him but it cost me so so much time there wasn’t a lot of time to catch and pass anyone else, I did manage to pass Haga and I think I ended up a pretty dejected 15^th, race two had to be better right???

I knew that in race two there could be no nonsense in the first couple of laps otherwise I’d get nowhere again, I did get a better run initially and settled in ok, I made a couple of passes and after a couple of laps I managed to get passed Guintoli, then some others, I could see Sykes up ahead and thought oh no here we go again, once again I passed him, got passed on the next straight, passed him got passé back and this went on for a bit, on one lap Tom made a bit of a mistake going town into one of the final turns but I took a look but wasn’t quite close enough but then Scassa came through and sat Tom up, no no no I thought, now I really need to pass Tom or I’ll be stuck here, once again, passed him, got passed on the next straight, this went on for two or three laps and Luca had pulled a couple of seconds on Tom, I eventually made a pass that stuck and started to chase down Luca again, I started to catch him but run out of laps so I ended up a slightly happier but highly frustrated 13^th.

Coming away from Kyalami I’m really looking forward to the race in America, sure there’s a real long straight there that’s gonna hurt us but it’s a mega circuit that I like a lot, I’ve got the cable throttle to test which should enable us to soften the bike up a bit and help me to be smoother so it’s all good, our fortunes have to change. Keep with me people, it will get better!! Shakey#67

The story of my Kyalami, passing and being re passed by Sykes on the next straight!!!

Travel woes...

Well, we managed to actually get here to South Africa which in itself was a bit of a mission, I woke up Tuesday morning and checked the internet only to see that our flight to Madrid had been cancelled, great, don’t get me wrong I understand fully how fortunate I am to get to travel the world and see lots of different places but when things seem to go wrong they go properly wrong for us!!!

After some panic phone calls to my travel agent we managed to get our flight brought forward to the flight before however this didn’t really inspire me with confidence as it was our later flight from to Madrid that was cancelled and I figured that if our later flight was cancelled how likely were we to get our later still connection to Johannesburg……

As it turned out when we got to Heathrow the people on the desk had no idea whatsoever whether or not our flight to South Africa would go, this posed a problem for me, basically my thinking was this, if I’m stranded in the Uk I can go back to mums, if I’m stranded in Madrid what on earth do I do there?

Fortunately everything panned out ok ish in the end, we sat in Madrid airport for about 6 hours with nobody able to tell us whether or not we’d be flying but finally about 20 odd minutes late they started boarding our plane, by this point we were pretty tired and just wanted to get on the plane and get off to sleep. I had to laugh once sat on board though, sat across the isle from us was a guy so fat he couldn’t get his belt on, the temperature on the plane felt about 500 degrees so matey was sweating and humming like a skunk but to actually make matters worse the guy in front of him pulled his shoes off and the smell was so crude I’ve never smelt anything like it, I told Petra, look darling, lets look on the Brightside, if we struggle to get off to sleep just get down on your hands and knees, take a deep breath of old stinky feet and we’ll be out cold for hours!!!!!! I won’t even begin to tell you how badly I wished I’d booked us business class, I even offered to pay on board but Iberia refused despite the fact business class was practically empty, I don’t rate that airline at all, this was and hopefully will be the first and last time we ever fly with Iberia….

The new Tomtom I brought just before Monza managed to redeem itself here in South Africa, when I used it to get from Bergamo airport to Monza it did indeed get us to the national park that the circuit is inside but it took us to some mud track path that had a gate at the top that was locked so we couldn’t actually get in but this time it got us straight from Johannesburg airport direct to the hotel so I’m happy with it now!!

I slept mega last night, i was so tired that we went to bed around 10pm and never woke until 8am then about 8-30 i fell asleep again until about 11, i can't remember the last time we had the chance to do that!!!

I’ve been along to the circuit today for a look around and it’s such a cool setting, little or should I say big African looking huts and palm trees everywhere, it’s real nice, it’s definitely not improved at all from last year track surface wise, it’s like a motocross track on tarmac but I guess that’s partly the fun of the place, I’m really looking forward to getting out riding tomorrow, I know we’ve got a photo shoot for a big American magazine tomorrow morning ahead of the Miller round so we’ll see what that entails, other than that it’s all good, I’ll keep you all posted on how things go, take it easy, Shakey #67

Monza... As tough as we thought it'd be!!!

I don’t think it will really come as too much of a surprise when I tell you that we knew we were going to be a little bit up against it at Monza, don’t take this comment the wrong way, you could think to yourselves what on earth is he on about Carlos has won a race and had a few podiums this year which is indeed true however when it comes to top speed we’re a fair way off of the fast bikes, i.e. the four cylinder bikes and Monza is basically WSB’s version of Snetterton back in BSB and trying to win there with up to 18kph down on the quick bikes wouldn’t happen either, here’s a bit of food for thought, from the exit of the last turn to the end of the start finish straight we were losing just under half a second per lap!!!!!!

It was really important at Monza to remain 110% positive and push to the maximum from the word go because if we were ever gonna have to work somewhere this would be the place, I arrived feeling optimistic and went out in Friday free practice revved right up, to be honest the bike setting wise felt a little bit off in terms of balance and wasn’ t letting me push too hard, certainly nowhere near as hard as I knew we could go but immediately we got to work on improving things, quite early in the session I had a bit of a technical drama, I was flat out in 5^th approaching my braking marker for the Parabolica turn, hit the brakes, back shifted and all of a sudden things didn’t sound or feel right so I had to run straight on, the problem was that normally I would go back to 2^nd and us that engine braking to pull the bike into the turn, well, you don’t get engine braking with the clutch in so I went flying straight on, everything was going fine and I was pretty much sure I had it under control but I hit the wet grass just before the gravel whilst trying my hardest to get stopped and that threw the bike sideways then in the gravel it kind of gripped and to cut a long story short I dropped the bike at about 20 mph to have probably the most pain free crash I’ve ever had!! The worst thing about it was the scooter marshal who’s job it was couldn’t find the key to the gate to get me back so I was stuck for what seemed like ages, he had a big four stroke scooter maybe a 250 or something and got on the back of me to get back to the paddock, I was so revved up at the delay that I nearly lost the poor guy off the back of his own scooter on route back!!!! I got back out on the spare bike and we continued working although that bike had a fundamentally different setting that we couldn’t change back in time we knew the direction we needed to head in, I felt more than confident that there was loads of time to come from both me and the bike but nonetheless 17^th and 18^th for Carlos and I wasn’t the norm….

Things for us in provisional qualifying improved a little, we were down to one bike because of the problem from the first session and the fact that the track started out nearly wet but not wet enough for wets meant the bike we were using was set up wet, in terms of lap time we found a fair bit and improved the feeling from the bike but even so things weren’t progressing at the rate they needed to be and everybody else had found at least the same amount if not more, at one point in the damp conditions I was up to 6^th or 7^th and feeling much happier but I think as the track gradually became nearly full dry I slipped back to 14^th, this time though I was more than positive though as on a dry track with a wet setting I’d improved a fair chunk lap time wise and I was certain that the work we’d be doing over night with the setting of the bike would help me to make a big step for Saturday free practice.

I was right about the feeling from the bike on Saturday, I immediately felt much happier and knocked about a second and a half off of my time from the day before, of course as always that in turn brings on a whole new bunch of problems to overcome and this time it was the front suspension that was the limit as braking as deep and as late as I needed to in order to claw back more valuable 10^th’s kept sending the bike to sideways so I was having to release the brakes a little then re apply them which meant I kept missing my apex’s.

Qualifying and Superpole didn’t go at all to plan, Petra left my usual two dry helmets on my stand in the garage and said in jest don’t use one of them until the final 8, bloody hell, no pressure then eh, I don’t think we’ll be using the last one!! A bit dismissive sounding I know but that was what we were up against, in the end I only managed 15^th place in Superpole which I was pretty disappointed about as I was hoping for a top ten, in the first two sessions there were plenty of guys being dicks and holding others up through the Ascari chicane which I felt was pretty out of order, I got messed up once big time and once not quite so bad, it’s obvious why they do it but bloody annoying at the same time.

For morning warm up we found ourselves trying a few different things with the bike and it felt good, I felt much happier on the brakes so generally it was all good, we had to use a different type of rear tyre to the one we’d be racing, one that was a harder compound and with the cool conditions it wasn’t good so the guys put in a used version of the one from the day before and I went back out and got going much better again so I was feeling happier about the races now.

As the lights went out for the first race I got a sensible ish start and as we stormed down towards the new layout chicane things were looking ok, I got up the inside of a couple of people and tried to follow Haga through, the race settled down really quickly to be honest but without me being nowhere near as close to the front group as I would’ve hoped, I was racing for a bit with Max Neuckichrner and Carlos and finally ended up in a bit of a battle with Luca Scassa, he and I passing and re passing each other didn’t really do us any favours to be honest as Max and Carlos came back towards us, on the last lap Max passed me down the back straight and there really wasn’t anything I could do about it so that was that P13, not great.

For race two we changed a couple of little things with the bike to help in places where I felt I was struggling in race 1 but not too much, to be honest the only thing that was going to make a difference to the result was a much better run through the first chicane to grab myself more places, this time I got a bit of a better start and was pretty much up alongside JT when it all started to go wrong as we all braked I saw James run out of room and clip the back of somebody then all hell broke loose, when Ruben got skittled turning into the first part of the chicane right in front of me I backed off a little as I thought I was bang on target for getting collected by his bike, with all the carnage I was convinced the race would be stopped anyway but then on the exit of the chicane everyone just went for it and the race carried on which left me slightly trailing behind, nonetheless I pressed on as hard as I could, again got in a bit of a battle with Max and Carlos then set about reeling in Scassa again, with about 8 laps to go Smrz passed me down the back straight and I thought hold on a minute, how on earth did that happen, his bike so I’m led to believe perhaps isn’t quite the same spec as mine but bloody hell it ain’t slow!!!!, I tagged onto the back of him and he towed us to the back of Scassa, with the three of us running together Smrz did the same to Scassa as he had to me down the back straight but by now there was only 1 lap to go, I lined Luca up for a pass into Ascari, and just preyed that I’d get my bike stopped in time, he braked and then immediately I did, initially I thought nooooooo no no no, I’ve blown it and gone in too deep but I managed to make the entrance and held him off until the line to take P9, to be honest it felt like a rostrum getting into the top 10, as you can probably imagine it’s difficult, in fact near on impossible to get worked up and excited by a 9^th place but for what it was worth I was almost happy!!

I’m very hopeful now that our bad track is now out of the way, as I said at the start this was always going to be our bogey track and it sure was, I stayed 100% positive all weekend though and worked hard with my guys to arrive at the races in the best shape possible, sure 13^th and 9^th is a total disaster by any standards but if you only knew how hard I had to work for them, well, I guess you’d feel semi the same as me. It’s on now to Kyalami, last year the Xerox bikes smoked everybody there, lets hope we can finally get this year turned around and pick up some decent results from here on in, I want some Champagne man!!!!!!! Thanks to everybody for your continued support, here’s hoping we’re going to have something to properly cheer about real soon, Shakey #67

Trying to squeeze every last bit out of my baby!!!!

Green fingers!!!

Blimey, i didn't think i'd ever see the day where i wrote to you guys to tell you i'd been gardening, the way i see it i have a good excuse, some of the guys from my team had a fever at the weekend and i seem to have come down with a mild case of man flu, in fairness things seem to be improving because i'm feeling better again today but i reckon that's because it's obviously gone to my head, usually the only two things i go through my garden for are my garage and the swimming pool but today i got right amongst it green finger style, chopping palm trees, clearing weeds, i was there, what a ball ache it is though, can't see myself subscribing to gardeners monthly anytime soon.

Assen races....

Yet another overdue race report i know but this one's for a good reason, I've been bloody gardening all morning ha ha!!!

Seriously now, lets fill you guys in what went on...

It all got off to a pretty bad start to be honest, the week started with Petra being stranded in Canada due to the volcanic ash, then when we finally got her home only for our flights to the UK to be cancelled, after then driving to the UK to collect the motorhome we got as far as Dover before the motorhome died and lost all charge in the batteries so a call to Midlife got a temporary fix on that then i think despite leaving mums at 5-30am we finally rocked up in the paddock at Assen around 9-30pm, a long old day to say the least!!!!

Anyway enough of all that, i was really looking forward to riding the new layout of the circuit which had already shown the track to be around 2 seconds a lap faster when Johnny Rea tested there, the new section was definitely an eye opener, shit, flat out to the rev limiter in 5th gear roll the throttle and peel in, god knows what the entry speed is but it's properly fast!!!!

Free practice and provisional qualifying all passed without any major dramas, we were in reasonable shape although not quite as close to the pointy end as usual but we were far from panicking, in the free practice session before Superpole we made a big break through in terms of the setting of the bike, we basically stiffened everything up a bit as i felt that lap times wise we were pretty much at the limit for the softness of the bike but immediately in practice the bike felt loads better so we fired in a pair of tyres that were to be our chosen race tyres and did a longer run to see how the durability would be and it went mega, i did lots of fast laps and ended up doing just over 3/4's race distance whilst still turning out good and i mean good lap times, to say i was quietly confident inside was an understatement!!!

I know i seem to say it every weekend but all we needed was a bit of luck to get through Superpole, i did a flying lap in the first session on new race tyres that ended up being more than good enough to go through, in fact i think it was my fastest lap of the weekend, a 1.35.8, after pulling that out of the bag on race tyres that inner confidence doubled and i wasn't thinking hmm, maybe Supepole 2 i was thinking, we could be up for Pole here or a front row at the very least..... however it wasn't to be, i made a mistake on my first qualifier and pulled a 1.35.9 and then in the final session we used the last one and it was absolute toilet, i knew from the exit of turn 1 i wouldn't be able to go quick as i pinned it on the ext and the rear started to spin real early meaning i had to roll the throttle for the kink before the long right turn 2 0r 3. I ended up doing another 1.35.9 but it was only good enough for P7, nevertheless 2nd row so it was still all to play for.

Morning warm up the following day was bizarre, we exited with two new tyres albeit the rear not the compound we'd be using for the race and i pushed for a couple of laps but the rear felt crap, i came in and put in a used version of the one we'd be using for the races and immediately went P4, it wasn't until after warm up had finished that my Engineer told me that it was the tyre that had done the 15 laps run the day before so that inner confidence went right back up again, bring on the races!!!!

Race 1, what can i say, it started ok but from the get go it was obvious there was a problem, i absolutely rode my heart out but couldn't do anything, the rear tyre was crap, it spun on the rim a bit and had so little grip that i couldn't flick the bike into tighter turns quick as the rear of the bike kept coming round on me, the race for me was a total disaster, i was around a second a lap slower than the run i's done the day before and i was pretty pissed by the tie i got back to the box, the team weren't happy either but like i told them, this ain't bulls**t, check the data, you'll se exactly what the problem is and sure enough they could see so we regrouped and planned our attack for race two.

We changed a couple of little things as the problems we'd encountered in the 1st race made the bike work in a different way but for race 2 the rear felt a million times better, i got another half decent start and was running on the back of the front group but pretty much immediately i had a big vibration problem, i'll be 100% honest with you i couldn't figure out what the problem was, i didn't know if it was the front brakes, the clutch, the front tyre it made no sense at all but basically every time i closed the throttle and took the brakes the bike would vibrate like mad to the point where i started missing apex's and making mistakes, the only good thing was that it was pretty consistent so i semi knew what to expect and where, after a bit of a battle with Biaggi i got my head down to get back in touch with the group again and was catching up but i braked for turn 1 and got a little bit more vibration than i'd anticipated so i had to run on straight, from that point in it was just a case of push to the max but bring it home which i managed to do albeit down in 7th but much much closer to the front in terms of time. the team were much happier but when i explained my problems they looked a bit baffled, it turned out that one of the bolts that held the engine in place had broken and every time i closed the throttle the engine was moving and that was what was causing the problem, once they'd seen the problem they were gutted for me but equally pleased that despite the problem we were real close to the front.

Unfortunately Assen was another somewhat typical weekend, we need some luck, if any of you guys know where i can buy some i'll pay top money for it, ha ha!!! It's all good though, we'll go forwards now and on to Monza which could be difficult for us but straight after that we've got a good run of tracks, i'm really confident things are going to turn around soon and can't wait to give my tea, you guys and myself plenty of results that we can all smile about!!! Talk to you soon, Shakey #67