Thruxton was always going to be hard work after the disappointment of Brands two weeks earlier, fortunately for me plenty of testing time has made up for only completing eight laps on race day at Brands.

The forecast was pretty crap but improving as the weekend goes on and for once it was quite accurate!

Very cold for Friday practice with a very dangerous gusty wind catching many riders out at the fast Church corner.

Many teething problems once again restricted my circuit time only managing eleven laps during the first hour session leaving me eighteenth fastest on the time sheets.

Session two was much the same only managing fifteen laps leaving me very frustrated and down in twenty seventh position!

We have made some big changes within the team since Brands and everybody is working very hard to make the pit run much smoother and professional. I didn’t get too excited as everybody was giving 100%, listening and improving any criticisms I made.

The wind had dropped for qualifying making life a little easier for everybody, problems in the pit again limited me to sixteen laps on circuit, I hadn’t even broke out into a sweat ending the session in twenty fourth position and hoping the weather stays dry.

My crew had their thinking caps on and together with WP suspension made some big improvements for the second session, I’d been suffering with frightening stability problems throughout the whole weekend experiencing lock to lock wobbles in fifth gear, around 150 mph……… not for the faint-hearted!

Missed getting out on my final qualifying tyre by a matter of seconds but had managed to climb up to fourteenth position, nothing I’m proud of but everybody within the team is improving every session.

Desperate for a good start in race one I was shouting at myself on the grid, off the line was good but into the complex I was too hesitant and lost some time. Pushed out wide at Village then passed by McWilliams who high-sided landing on his head moments later causing me to take evasive action to miss his machine left me down in nineteenth position by the end of lap one.

Got my head down and pushed very hard, made my way slowly through the pack as my Kawasaki wasn’t fast enough on the straight. Sitting in someones slipstream was ok but not able to pass.

Last few laps was dicing with JR and managed to hold him off finishing the race in thirteenth position.

The guys found me a little more power for race two and I wasn’t a pussy at the start. Slotted nicely into tenth position holding onto the freight train in front of me that was basically a fight for fifth place. I had +5 (seconds) on my pit-board so was sitting on the back of the pack in front waiting to see how the race progressed.

All of a sudden the pace car came out as one of the Vivaldi bikes had crashed and caught fire at the very fast Church corner…. Rider was ok, maybe he was putting some spuds on in fire?