BSB Round 11 Oulton Park

Doesn’t seem five minutes since we left Cadwell Park, been quite busy sorting the usual stuff out. Attended a brief safety talk by Northamptonshire police at Riverside motorcycles and learnt many things really about the safer things to concentrate or focus on when road riding….. don’t think I’ll be using that at Macau or NW200 though!

Oulton was always going to be hard work, the Honda is mega and after only three race meetings on it we’re making good progress. Every other team raced there earlier this season and have all there set-up to start from.

I was awake half the night on Thursday as the rain was hammering down on my motor-home roof, Friday morning I went for a run round the track and even though it was quite warm it hadn’t dried out at all.

First free practice was pretty much a waste of time, the track started wet then a dry line appeared in places before it rained again.
Second session was much better and we worked through our plan finding a good base setting ending up tenth quickest and confident of more speed in qualifying.

First qualifying the rain was threatening but then brightened up; I was ninth quickest with twenty minutes to go when the rain started wetting the track enough to stop anyone going quicker.

Session two was dry and I didn’t really have too much trouble with the Honda, lapped half second faster on my qualifier but ended the session sixteenth, very frustrated.

I was desperate for the front two rows and a little lost as to why I couldn’t lap any quicker.

We spent hour and half talking about various area’s and came up with some changes for morning warm-up.

Race-day is always a late start ay Oulton as there is a noise ban until mid-day. We only had a forty-five minute break between warm-up and race one so was important not to have any damage. My lap-times were very good in warm-up on an old race tyre just needed a very good start and my mechanics had been working on the clutch to get me off the line quicker!

Race-1 start was much better, have two different clutches for the Fireblade and both are a problem off the line suffering with massive judder! Al (my mechanic) had improved one of them by 50% but after around eight laps it started to slip after gear changes.

Was tagged on the back of a six rider group, Haydon, Hill, Harris, Mason, Rutter and Thomas. Confident of attacking but struggling with the clutch I started to lose tow a little, then on lap 15 hit the footrest on the apex kerbing at Foulston chicane taking me out.
First time I’ve had a problem there ever and was more of a shock than any pain but put it down to experience?

Race-2 start was much the same and was in eleventh place on lap three attacking Emmett, took me a few laps to get past him….. Brake-checking me everywhere.

His pace was slower than mine, still struggling with his elbow injury I believe but very hard to pass. Once I’d made the move stick the group in front had gone, had some front-end grip problems so settled for the tenth place, last six laps were quite boring cruising round.

We’re improving the Hydrex Honda every meeting but getting frustrated at finishing in the top ten, desperate to get top five and stand on the podium. Only had four meetings on the Honda and places like Oulton everybody else has set-up from the previous meeting so was always going to be hard?

Looking forward to Donington, the team know where our weakness’s are and are working hard to improve them!