Oulton Park BSB

The last round at Mallory my team managed to identify where are lack of horsepower was from but unfortunately as there is less than a week between races it cannot be fixed until after Oulton. At least I’d managed to get myself declared fit to race after my tumble at Mallory.

The weather wasn’t being very kind to us on practice day, same for everybody and pretty much going to be the same all weekend so had to do some laps and find a good wet setting!

With quite a lot of laying water on the circuit we backed off all the suspension settings to give me plenty of feel, it pretty much took me the full session to get comfortable lapping in those conditions after my crash the previous week and ended up tenth position.

Session two was greasy but drying so went out for six laps went second quickest and parked the bike. With the track drying very fast wasn’t going to learn anything!

Qualifying was dry so everybody was desperate to find a setting in a very short time, tested many settings, changed the gearing and was very disappointed to end the first session sixteenth.

Session two was better and was up to ninth position when the red flag came out. Confident of going a little faster but really struggling off the corners especially Cascades, up Clay Hill and out of Druids.

When the circuit re-opened we had four minutes left, everybody was desperate to go faster. I only managed to match my best time and was knocked down to fourteenth position…. Not a happy Bunny!

The sun was shining on race morning and warm-up was far too early, 9.15am on circuit is a ridiculous time of day!

My race one start was not good enough, basically held my position into turn one and struggled to make headway forward. I’d chosen a race tyre that many others were using but it wouldn’t hook up at all. It felt like a cold tyre and I gave it a lap to warm up but it never improved. Managed to make my way forward to eleventh but couldn’t manage anymore.

Race two was very different, a shower of rain on the sighting lap made the circuit very slippery and the race was declared a wet one. Most riders started on wets hoping they’d last the distance.

My start was good but was struggling to pass anybody on the straights, just really concentrated very hard on keeping smooth and getting a good feel for the conditions. Picked my way through the group in front of me making my way through to eighth place, everybody was struggling with grip and whenever you got close enough to pass, pieces of rubber were flying off everybody’s rear tyres.

I passed Johnny Rea on the last lap then attacked Kieran Clarke at Hizzy’s chicane as he attempted to pass a back marker.

Seventh position was all I could manage and good to score some points, we knew Oulton was going to be hard work but the Kawasaki’s should be sorted for Mondello!