Saturday 5 June 2010

The 1st race of the week is the 6 lap Superbike and it was delayed 3.5 hours due to fog. Our bike is a Superstock (basically a standard bike) so we were at a slight disadvantage in this race.
I had my start number changed due to my practice times and we moved from 41 to 26, this meant a lot less traffic to get past during the race.

We had made a couple of changes to the front end of the bike so the 1st two laps were a learning curve to see how she would react. I caught Ian Pattinson on lap one and got past easily only to get passed by Davy Morgan on lap 2 on our way to the pits. Davy was riding the ex Cameron Donald bike from 2009 so it’s a fast bike. In the pits for the 1st time it was hard to keep my speed under the 60kpm limit. Due to a slick pit-stop I left in front of Davy, he soon got past but I managed to stay with him until the mountain where he left me. I was feeling good and the bike was behaving well.

At the 2nd stop Bridget said the times were good but I missed the rest of the report. On the run out of the pits Ian was with me again and he pushed me hard. On the last lap my rear tyre and bad knee were crying ‘enough’ but I managed my fastest lap of the race. Ian did get past on the run to the line but I only had to be with him at the line to be 10sec in front as he started ahead of me.

I finished 19th overall and 4th privateer. My race average was over 120mph and I did a couple of 123mph (198.4) laps. I broke all my records and had a great start to Race Week.

Many thanks to Barnes Racing, Dave East Engineering, North Drill, Atherstone Smash Repairs and all the team.