We was racing at Cadwell for round 4 of the championship at the weekend.
Saturday
was test day and we had the most torrential rain, I'm surprised they
let us ride in the conditions, as parts of the track had small streams
running across causing aqua plaining, also viability was very poor if
behind another rider. I was my second time riding in the wet, and
previously I had crashed so I wasn't really lucking forward to it,
despite that, I rode in all my sessions, and I can now say that I enjoy
riding in the wet, I found good speed and was able to pass many riders
that are normally fast than me in the dry, so this gave me good
confidence and I was hoping for a wet qualifying on Sunday morning.
Sunday
morning, we went straight into a 15 minute qualifying session,
conditions we dry, since I was struggling with rider traffic, I held
back to give myself a gap so I could crack on with some clear track, but
stupidly once I had a gap, I pushed on to hard straight away and
crashed at Mansfield, on lap 4, I didn't even get a half decent lap in -
I'd like to think it was something to do with not scrubbing my new
tyres in (on the less frequent left hand corners), but I shouldn't make
excuses. I only managed a time of 1.43.5, which put me 6th in class,
16th on the grid.
Race 1, I was a little
confident after my crash and therefore didn't push as hard as I should
have done for the first lap or 2, this meant the faster mini twin pack
got a head and I had a pretty lonely race, managing a lap time of
1.42.2. I finished 4th in class, 14th overall.
Race 2, A very
similar race, but I managed a decent start and so was with the faster
pack for the first 3 laps, I didn't quite have the speed through the
tighter part of the track, Hall's Bends especially and so they gradually
got away, my fastest time was a 1.42.5, slightly disappointing as I had
felt more confident.
Monday, we had a 10
minute warm-up session, the sun was shining again. I managed a time of
1.42.00, faster than the previous days track time, so that gave me
confidence for the coming 2 races.
Race 3, off to a good
start, and made up a few places into Coppice (turn 1) I think I was
sitting in 4th position behind the leading minitwin pack on lap 4 when a
mechanical failure meant I had to pull of the track and call it a day,
the engine was not repairable for the following race. Despite not
finishing the race, I set my current fastest lap time around Cadwell, a
1.41.3, so there are positives to take.
Tonight
I'm going to the workshop to fit the new engine, so that it is ready
for the dyno on Monday night, so then I can get on a track day Oulton
Park to gain some track knowledge for our next race there June
20th/21st.
Thank you very much for all your help and support,
Kind Regards,
Tim