Donington Park 12th-13th April 2014

Photo courtesy of The Bike Insurer

I felt quite confident going into the second round of the championship at Donington Park. We had previously taken part in the BSB test day there at the beginning of April, as we knew that Thundersport would not be holding its own test, and I felt to have made some good progress throughout the day.  I left the circuit eagerly anticipating the race weekend.

We went straight out into a 15-minute qualifying session on Saturday. As we had no track time before this, I knew that I had to get up to speed as quickly as possible. However, I encountered a problem with my gear selector on the first lap and had to come into the pits straight away. Alan quickly rectified the problem and I set off back onto the track. It took a couple of laps to get heat back into my tyres and then I put one flying lap in. A red flag was put out as I completed this lap, as somebody had dropped oil going into the first corner. I was disappointed that I hadn’t managed a faster time but ended up 8th fastest overall.

This qualification meant that I would have to push myself to get up front for the first race. Fortunately, I got a really good start and moved up into 4^th by turn one. I managed to hang onto the back of the leading trio for the first lap but they slowly started to pull a gap on me. The race got red flagged on the fourth lap, which meant that we had to restart. I didn’t get a good start when the race restarted and I was 8^th by the end of the first lap. I slowly picked my way through and, by lap 3, I was in 6^th behind Dan Stewart and Michael Neeves. With three laps to go, I made a move on Neeves and passed him going into the Melbourne loop. The following lap I passed Stewart going into Goddards. I pulled a one second gap straight away and finished the GP1 race in 4^th overall and 2^nd in the Superstock race.

I was still quite disappointed with my performance on the first day, so I decided to walk the track that evening with Alan to see if I could do some things differently. I found that this walk worked wonders and I felt a lot happier going into the second day of racing.

The mega laps system meant that I was pushed up to 6^th on the grid for races on Sunday. Again, I got a good start in the second race and had a good first turn. I got into third, behind John Ingram and Neeves, but Danny Murphy soon passed me into Coppice. On lap three, I slipped up the inside of Neeves at the Old Hairpin and got my head down to try to catch Murphy and Ingram. However, they were just a bit too far away.

With three laps to go, we were onto the back markers and I tried to sneak up inside of one into the Foggy Esses but he closed the door. This allowed Phil Crowe to take the drive and pass me on the run down to the Melbourne Loop. We were closing in on Murphy on the last lap but he had a massive crash going down the back straight. Luckily, he got away with it relatively unscathed. I finished the second race in 3^rd overall and 2^nd in the Superstock race. I also bettered my lap time by over a second to 1.34.5.

Photo courtesy of The Bike Insurer

I had a reasonable start going into race three and didn’t lose a place on the opening lap. However, by lap three, I was suffering from really bad brake fade and I didn’t have the confidence to make any moves on the brakes. I slipped down to 6^th place when Michael Pearson passed me and then Barry Teasdale got me into turn one. We had a little scrap but he also started to have brake issues and I managed to get him into the Foggy Esses. The last lap flag came out and I made one last ditch effort to get into 5^th. I got the run on Neeves out of the Esses and block passed him into the Loop. I ended up 5^th overall and 2^nd again in the Superstock race. It wasn’t the end to the weekend that I wanted but I was happy to bring home 5^th with the issue that we had.

Overall, it was a difficult weekend at times but we learned a lot and I am once again feeling very confident for the third round at Snetterton in three weeks time. I’d like to thank the whole team for all the hard work they put in and also to all of my sponsors who continue to make this possible.

Roll on Snett!