With the bike looking like a million bucks thanks to Brent Kennard (UCOL Trade Skills, Kennard Collision Repair) we arrived at the Hampton Downs race track on Friday morning to get ready for an afternoon practice session.
Robert Taylor from CKT had been working on my front forks to improve the front end feel of the bike and I could feel a big improvement straight away. The bike was soaking up the bumps that I recalled from the national round here in March yet still provided good feedback from the front tyre.
My partner Caroline timed me doing a 1:13.0 on old tyres so I was feeling pretty happy with the setup of the bike. Unfortunately I made a small mistake on the slowest corner on the track and lost the front at very low speed resulting in surprisingly little damage to the bike. Although not how I wanted to finish the day, I knew what caused the crash and was otherwise happy with how the bike felt.
The next day we set up the pit and got ready for the Formula 3 qualifying session with an unused set of Pirelli Superbike slicks ready to go. The bike is setup for the ProTwin class but as they don’t run a ProTwin class in the Tri-Series I had to run against much higher spec bikes in the F3 class.
QP
Qualifying went well as I tried to adjust to the grip of the tyres and managed to get a few early laps in without too much traffic to set a 1:12.3, which was enough to give me pole position and a bonus championship point. This was a real boost but the top five riders were very close.
Qualifying went well as I tried to adjust to the grip of the tyres and managed to get a few early laps in without too much traffic to set a 1:12.3, which was enough to give me pole position and a bonus championship point. This was a real boost but the top five riders were very close.
Race 1
The start was being controlled by a flag drop instead of lights and I didn’t get a very good start, which left me in 4th place after the first turn. I settled into a bit of a rhythm to pick my way past the riders ahead of me until I got in behind Terry Fitzgerald who’s bike was very competive coming up the hill onto the main straight. I managed to stick in behind him and show him a wheel a couple of times but it was difficult to make any passes stick. On the second to last lap I managed to get past and gain an advantage leading into the last lap. I put my head down and held on to take the win by 0.2 of a second over Terry – what a great start to the summer season!
The start was being controlled by a flag drop instead of lights and I didn’t get a very good start, which left me in 4th place after the first turn. I settled into a bit of a rhythm to pick my way past the riders ahead of me until I got in behind Terry Fitzgerald who’s bike was very competive coming up the hill onto the main straight. I managed to stick in behind him and show him a wheel a couple of times but it was difficult to make any passes stick. On the second to last lap I managed to get past and gain an advantage leading into the last lap. I put my head down and held on to take the win by 0.2 of a second over Terry – what a great start to the summer season!
Here's the onboard footage of the race:
Race 2
Although there was nothing wrong with the setup of the bike we decided to make a small change to help turn the bike coming out of the corners, which was one area I thought we could improve on. Unfortunatley, on the warm up lap I noticed that one of the handle bars had moved and my left arm was a bit cramped for space going around some of the corners. This was a bit disconcerting but I knew I could just ignore it. I got a slightly better start this time but over the lap I lost a place and was back in fourth again. The next lap I tried to advance but I could see Terry was setting a blistering lap and was making a big gap to Geoff Booth in second place. I managed to get into second after a couple of laps and set about chasing Terry but the bike was not as good under the brakes, bottoming out the forks, and I made a mistake going into turn two running wide onto the grass. This meant that four riders went straight past and put a 4-5 second gap to me in 5th place. I tried to make up the gap but I soon realised that I couldn’t go as quick as in race one and decided to settle for 5th place.
Although there was nothing wrong with the setup of the bike we decided to make a small change to help turn the bike coming out of the corners, which was one area I thought we could improve on. Unfortunatley, on the warm up lap I noticed that one of the handle bars had moved and my left arm was a bit cramped for space going around some of the corners. This was a bit disconcerting but I knew I could just ignore it. I got a slightly better start this time but over the lap I lost a place and was back in fourth again. The next lap I tried to advance but I could see Terry was setting a blistering lap and was making a big gap to Geoff Booth in second place. I managed to get into second after a couple of laps and set about chasing Terry but the bike was not as good under the brakes, bottoming out the forks, and I made a mistake going into turn two running wide onto the grass. This meant that four riders went straight past and put a 4-5 second gap to me in 5th place. I tried to make up the gap but I soon realised that I couldn’t go as quick as in race one and decided to settle for 5th place.
I was pretty disappointed to end the day with a low point but it means that I am sitting in second place in the championship 5 points behind Terry and my goal was to finish in the top three so it is not so bad. I was more disappointed that I had not bettered my personal best lap time from the national round when I was riding my older bike.
Next Saturday (18th Dec) is round two at Manfeild, which is a much more horse power oriented track so my goal of finishing top 3 will remain the same.
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