Times tight at Mallory...

photo courtesy of motoprofessional.com


Over the last couple of years Mallory hasn’t been too kind and the results haven’t really come – ok we’ve had a couple of podiums but they were helped by the weather.

I’ve approached this weekend a bit different – this place is basically made up of 3 chicanes and a hairpin and on a 200BHP superbike you hardly touch full throttle let alone any more than 4 gears...

It sounds strange but I’ve had to slow down to go faster?
Consciously I’ve sacrificed my corner speed to make time on the exit of the very tight corners here. The result is I’ve lapped nearly 1.5seconds faster than ever before, however....

The times are tight – my qualifying time in the 1st phase of qualifying was only 0.5 [yes that’s half a second!!] off 5th place overall but it left me in 21st place!! (5th in cup).

Its gonna be a tough day in the office tomorrow. My race times are good but 30laps around here, where it’s hard to overtake makes for a challenge.
If I can get on the (cup) podium here it’ll be as good as a win!

Wish me luck!

TT#21

Motorcycle Racer Magazine – August 2009

Yours truly has a guest column in the latest issue of Motorcycle Racer Magazine.
Officially “the world’s no.1 road race magazine” and available in all good newsagents...

If you’re local newsagent doest stock it then have a quick word in their ear, if they still won’t then seriously consider changing newsagents!!!

Or something like that anyway...

TT#21

Knockhill Qualifying...??!

Photo courtesy of motoprofessional.com

Struggled a bit today [P4 in cup] I felt like I’d got to the limit of the set-up this morning so we changed the chassis setting quite radically and still could only manage the same time to within 0.03.....?!?

On a positive side the original set-up was giving me arm pump and was physically very hard work and the revision at least helped that side of things.
At the moment we’re still looking for where we can find about 0.5seconds to run the pace we need to get on the podium – at a circuit like this it’s quite difficult especially when the bike doesn’t want to play.

I never thought it’d happen and in some respects it the easy way out but I’m praying for rain - which up here is like hoping the pope’s gonna stay catholic – but judging by the forecast it looks like miracles are about to happen and we’ll need to find a better dry setting after all....

...Morning warm up it is then!

No time for a BBQ!

There’s been good reason why I’ve not been on the blog since Snetterton and anyone either there or watching on telly will have a good reason why...

A bit of a "random, unforeseen and fairly major mechanical issue" is the political way of saying our engine went pop!

I’ve always said that motorcycle racing is the loneliest team sport I know....
When you’re on track it’s down to the rider but without the absolutely blinding work the whole team did to swap the engine and getting it running in around two hours, I’d never of got close to the grid let alone the podium in race 2. It wasn’t just a straight forward engine swap either. By the time I’d come to rest the bike on the Armco at the side of the track it was on fire!

I’d like to tell you how calmly and professionally I asked the marshals if they’d be kind enough to join me at the bike along with a fire extinguisher?....
Nah... Instead I was dancing around, more than likely flapping my arms, swearing like a navvy, in between screaming like a girl as the flames were growing bigger on my pride and joy! I’m just glad it never got caught on camera [or microphone] as it wouldn’t have done my image any good!!

Fortunately the man who put the fire out didn’t get carried away and although the guys had to clean all the extinguisher dust off the bike as well as do the engine work it could have been ALOT worse. If fact my season very nearly disappeared in smoke!

I think I probably owe the marshals at the Sears Corner not only an apology but a massive thank you.
A long story short the hard works continued and as we’re setting off for Knockhill in the next hour, you’ll be glad to know that we finally got our engine back this morning, all we need to do now is drive up there, set-up the awning/garage, rebuild the bike, run in the engine, in the next 36hours – and if all that goes well it should be a good weekend!....

TT#21