Moto GP rider for the day!!!

It seems like forever ago even though it’s only 6 days but I thought I’d do a quick Blog about being a Moto GP rider again for the day. If I’m perfectly honest with you it wasn’t really something that I was that bothered about doing but at the same time it was a far better option than racing the bike at Le Mans and I wanted to try to help James and the team as best I could without causing any problems, basically Birdy (my team owner) had asked for my input on the bike but whilst it’s quite an exciting prospect I’m under no illusions whatsoever as to how hard it would have been to turn up cold at a Moto GP race and try to finish anywhere other than last so the test the day after the Spanish grand prix seemed a far more sensible option!!!

Turning up at Barcelona was pretty cool, you truly forget just how bloody loud the bikes are and how fast the top bikes are too, the team had a couple of bits and pieces that they had to test with James but I was to go out and ride for a bit first, then James, then me for another quick go in the afternoon, my cause wasn’t helped by the fact that shortly after the track opened both Abraham and Cal Crutchlow crashed not exactly inspiring me with confidence to get out and try Bridgestone tyres for the 1^st time ;-)

Eventually I got out for my 1^st run on the bike after just moving the levers and gear lever a little bit, the aim of the test was simply to try to give some feed back so the bike was left exactly how James had it in the GP, having spoken with James and his crew chief I was a little bit concerned about the whole tyre thing, Mick James’s crew chief basically said right you’ve got experience with carbon brakes, they need to be kept warm and make sure whatever you do you load the front tyre all the way into the corner on the brakes or it’ll go cold and the bike won’t steer at all, b****y great I thought, two experienced riders on those tyres have just crashed and I’ve got to head out on a bike I’ve never been on and load the front tyre or it won’t steer….perfect…  My initial quite surprising thought was that the bike wasn’t very fast, I mean that in a nice way though, the electronics on the bike are quite impressive but need a bit of work and generally the bike felt quite user friendly, I was expecting a far more angry package but the way the bike feels is pretty good, I struggled getting my head around the completely different way you have to ride the front tyre but the rear was absolutely perfect other than loads of chatter on corner entry, through the middle of the apex and on initial exit, this though in my opinion wasn’t all down to the tyres..

I pulled in after about 15 laps and the guys changed some electronic stuff after my feedback which had followed pretty much identically what James had said then got 1 more lap in and the bike felt much better, I was actually gutted when the chequered flag came out as I was starting to have fun even though the bike was set completely for James and we hadn’t done a thing to change it for me.

James rode the bike after lunch and they changed a few things for him and gave him the newer better front and a new rear tyre, he did his work then the bike was given back to me, the only change for me was the tyre as the front James had run was the newer one which apparently everyone other than Honda likes and for the CRT bikes is a much better option, my final exit was good fun, I enjoyed riding the bike and seeing the likes of Lorenzo etc on track was pretty cool, by the end of my second exit on used tyres I got to within a second and a half of what James had done when the tyres were new without changing a single thing so I was pretty happy with that considering James had just spent an entire weekend roaring around, sure in the race he’d gone a chunk faster again but like I said we were near enough first time out to give some feedback, for sure you need time to understand those tyres and with a bit more time we could’ve dropped the lap time easily but the last thing I needed was to either a) throw the thing at the scenery or b) go real fast and get James a load of grief!!!

I hope and I’m fairly sure that my input on the bike will help the guys going forward and who knows if I get another shot on it at some point maybe we can get going quite a bit better, thanks to the team and James for letting my have a play on their baby, for now though it’s back to BSB, I’ve got a championship to try to win, take it easy, Shakey #67

  

Snetterton round 4...

If I’m honest with you guys I went to Snetterton with 1 aim, that, was to come away leading the British Superbike championship, in hindsight that isn’t exactly important when you consider I lead the championship all last year but actually ended up 3^rd but after our 1^st win of the season at Oulton park lets just say I was right up for more victories!!

Snetterton actually got off to a far better start than Oulton with no dramas whatsoever, in fact, after arriving Wednesday evening I spent a good chunk of Thursday cleaning out all the inside then out in the sun washing the motorhome off, it’s truly amazing what a bit of sunshine does for the motivation levels ;-)

Look at the sun shot!!!

Thursday afternoon my mate Wag and I went and did some cycling around the circuit, it started off at a fairly decent pace, then we had a couple of steady laps with my data guy before Wag and I got going again, we saw Dan Linfoot, James Westmoreland and their friend pedalling around too so we cut the circuit to join them and all of us had a good ride around, to be fair I only did just over 30 miles but the conditions were so nice I felt like I could’ve rode all day, our average ended up fairly decent but the following days we all had different types of bikes to ride so didn’t want to knacker ourselves!!!

The setting that we’d been working on for the last few rounds was working pretty good, I pretty much immediately went P1 and stayed there all the way through the session, I ended up literally a 10^th off my best time from the test which was a positive start as we weren’t exactly driving ourselves mad for a lap time!!!

The afternoon session went good too, more of the same to be fair, we worked a little bit on the setting and tried changing spring rates etc, by the end of the session we’d found some positives with both the harder and the softer settings and knew we’d have to sit down that evening go through some data and choose a direction to pursue the following day.

The Saturday morning session went real good again, we were there or thereabouts the whole way through and did a more than race duration run on the used tyres we’d started on but at the end of the session after we’d done our work we fitted a new pair of tyres and I put a couple of laps together that pushed me 0.6 seconds faster than anyone and the first 1.48 second lap time of the weekend.

Qualifying was all a bit of a balls up to be honest, track temperature had shot up big time since the morning session and for the 1^st qualifying session in which you only have to make the top 20 I put a lap together that felt good yet I crossed the line and it was poor, that surprised me a bit so I pushed harder for the 2^nd lap and even that wasn’t fantastic so my 3^rd lap I properly dug in and went a bit quicker but nowhere near my 1.48 from the morning, I spoke with my crew chief and said I felt like a I pushed way too hard for such a crap time and initially we put it down to the hot track temperature, either way we were through to Q2 so it wasn’t a drama.

Can't say i didn't use all the track ;-)

In Q2 I pushed on a bit not really expecting too much but my 2^nd flying lap put me P1 a 10^th faster than my morning time which was a bit weird, no problem I thought, I’ll nail a perfect lap on my 1^st flyer in Q3 and that should do it. To be fair I only ever aim for the front row, I’m not fussed about pole position, it’s nice when it comes but the front row is all you need… 

Q3 then, the important one, perfect lap, s**t time, 2^nd lap, pushed hard, well hard, average time, lap 3 everything I had and an average time, I was fuming, the bike was exactly the same as Q1 and nothing like Q2, it was only after checking all three rear tyres that we saw that Q1 and Q3 were both from the same batch and Q2’s tyre was from a different batch, ironically my team mates were identical batch numbers to mine in all three sessions and he complained of exactly the same problem, all the hard work from the weekend down the pan and Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki’s 7^th and 8^th, not we we’d hoped for at all, still 2^nd row so not the end of the world but bloody annoying nonetheless..

Morning warm saw quite a few riders firing new tyres in and pushing on, the Yamaha’s in particular were pretty fast but we used old tyres from the Q2 session the day before and ended up P3 or 4 and not a million miles away times wise so all cool.

I’ll just quick apologise again about pit lane walkabout, I had an interview scheduled for the start of the walkabout but on the official time sheet had it listed as finishing at 12-15 or something yet when I rocked up with about 25 minutes or so remaining the officials claimed I was too late and that it was over so if you were one of the people that queued to see me I’m sorry!!

Lining up on the grid waiting for the lights to go out I felt pretty confident, we knew we had real good race pace from the day before so a good start and a steady few laps and we should be away. Due to the high track temperature it was always going to be necessary if possible to manage the rear tyre as best as possible so my plan was to get on and sit at the back of the leading group for the first half or so of the race then start pushing through in the later stages. My start was ok, turn 1 ok, I passed my team mate into turn two and slotted in around 5^th, absolutely perfect I thought, at one point I nearly forced a move on Haga but it would’ve been tight and in such early stages I saw little point, after a few laps however Nori started dropping off the back of the leading 4 so I thought right, time to get my finger out, I passed Nori and got my head down to get back on the back of the leaders but then a lap or so later I had an engine problem which meant I had to retire from the race, I was gutted but there’s little point in jumping up and down when your team’s involved, I know them boys are 110% behind me and they’ll be probably more gutted than I am, I got back to the pits, explained the symptoms, watched the end of the race then went back to my motorhome for lunch and my power nap that I always have between races!!

Race 2 was always going to be a little bit of a battle with all the top guys having a race under their belts and the information that gave them giving them the chance to make any necessary changes to improve their bikes, we’d made a couple of changes to my bike because of the feelings I had in the first race and that coupled with the fact that we had to change to a lesser spec motor for the 2^nd race had me a little bit on the edge!!

Open your eyes Charley ha ha!!!

I got a good start as the lights went out and ran through turn 1 maybe 3^rd but as soon as I hit the brakes for turn two the front dived real fast and got me all a bit crossed up, I had to take avoiding action to not ram the first two guys and ran out wide because of that, I rejoined in about 6^th or 7^th behind Luca Scassa, followed him for a few corners then he had a massive rear end low side on the exit onto the back straight, being right behind him I had to roll the throttle then get going again, I knew I was gonna get humped down the straight because of it and sure enough Alex Lowes came 1 side and Nori the other, we got towards the braking point and they both started squashing me a little and by now we’re doing maybe 180 odd mph, I knew getting stuck behind them both would cost me dearly so I waited till the pair of them braked then hit my brakes as hard as I could and managed to get stopped and turned through the chicane, Michael Laverty, Tommy and Josh were up front and after a few laps I was closing in on Josh, then Tommy had a bike problem and retired, I managed to pass Josh and got my head down to try to catch Michael, I went so much faster in race two but despite some fast laps I wasn’t making any headway into Michael’s lead, all I was doing was gapping Josh, eventually I settled down a bit and tried to just chip away but then towards the end of the race Josh started to catch me back up, I sped up a bit to keep him at bay but the last couple of laps were close to say the least, in fact, as I started what turned out to be the penultimate lap I rode real defensive and weaved about a bit on the back straight so that Josh couldn’t get such  a good tow but then as I got back to the star/finish I saw the 1 lap to go flag, I couldn’t believe it, I’d just rode real defensive, showed all my cards thinking it was the last lap and now there was another lap to go, I thought for gods sake, how am I going to keep him behind me now!!! Fortunately though I did so I ended up second just under 2 seconds off of Michael which I guess under the circumstances wasn’t a bad result, it’s funny though, the difference between 1^st and 2^nd to a rider is HUGE, when you win you’re buzzing, shouting to everyone under your helmet, smiling from ear to ear yet 2^nd or 3^rd you’re just like, b*****ks, I should’ve won that, no happiness whatsoever!!!!

My son Zack getting some tv time!!

One real good thing about the Snetterton round was that it clearly highlighted our Achilles heel which is off of slow turns punch, our bike’s fast once it’s up and running and good on flowing circuits but anything with slower more stop start corners we struggle a little, now though the team have a little bit more time to go away and think about a plan going forwards and talking of plans going forwards we’re off to Spain now for a couple of weeks holiday, that sounds like a perfect plan to me ;-) Take it easy everyone, Shakey #67