Saturday / Sunday, 8/9th August 2009
Round 5 &ndash National SS600s, Bishopscourt
Positive turn around
First things first and I'd like to thank Martin and Pat Ryan for covering the cost of my entry fee and petrol for this race weekend as otherwise I wouldn't of been able to afford it. Also big thanks to Iain for covering the practice day. It's been two months since I've sat on the race bike so I was very rusty and the practice day helped to get me back in the swing of things quicker.
As I just said, it's been a while since I've been out on track, so I was a bit nervous before going out for the first session. The weather was good and surprisingly it stayed that way for the rest of the day. Took it real handy and circulated the track wobbling around trying to find my pace. After a couple of sessions, things started clicking in my head again and I started going a bit faster. At lunch time, I decided to finally have a go of the Dunlops as everyone was raving about how good they were.
I started off the year with Bridgestone 003 Pro's but personally didn't like them. I struggled to find grip in both the front and rear. After three professional Ohlins technicians tried setting up my bike, they helped a bit, but they couldn't resolve the problems I was experiencing. After getting fed up getting no where, I wanted to try the Dunlops but they were sold out. Instead, I put a set of Pirelli's on and immediately noticed a drop in my times without touching the suspension.
My first session on the Dunlops this weekend, It started drizzling as we were waiting to go out on track. New un-scrubbed set of tires, drizzle, slippy track... no thanks. Spun up a few times on the opening lap so decided to pull in and wait for the next session.
Next time out, it was bone dry and after a couple of laps scrubbing in the tires I opened it up a bit. First impressions were "WOW, These stick like S**t to a matress". The turn in was completely different to what I'm use to but they felt really good. And with Iain changing the rear unit and seat, I was getting a lot more feedback from the rear tire. Iain told me after a couple of sessions that he had me on stopwatch doing a 57.9, but at the time I didn't believe him as I thought he was trying to give me more confidence. If it was true, it was a new personal best time for me around the National track. Sticking onto the back of Richie Ryan for a session started making me believe Iain wasn't fibbing and I felt good about the direction I was going.
After the last session, I joined the queue for scrutineering and Jackson brought the bike through with my sister Jade. Thanks to both for doing that.
Arrived down at the track early Sunday morning with not much to do apart from fuel up, double check the tire pressures and plug the warmers in. After a few delays, I thought we were never going to get out due to a few bad incidents in other classes, but we got our 12 minutes for qualifying in the end. There seemed to be a lot of traffic on the track and I found it difficult to get a clear, fast lap without having to go off line to overtake. The last lap or two of qualifying, I noticed Richie Ryan ahead of me, with Derek Shils ahead of him so pushed as hard as I could. Delighted to discover when I came in that I qualified 11th place with a time of 57.826. New personal best time!!
Minutes before going out for race 1, I went to adjust my steering damper up a couple of clicks because I was getting a few nasty head shakes on the start/finish going over the bumps, but the entire damper twisted with the adjuster. F**k. Huge thanks to Derek and his helper for quickly whipping it off, tightening down the headstock nut and putting the damper back on again. Worked perfectly!
After a rubbish start, I was quickly bogged down going into turns 1 and 2. But after an accident at turn 4, the race was red flagged and we went back to the start finish again. On the restart, I got a better start, but I'm still no too happy with it. Need to get off the line better in future. In the opening lap, I found myself behind my former team mate, Paul Barron. And that's where I stayed for the entire race. The 3 lads in front on 1000's, slowly dropped us off and left a train of 6 600s fighting it out for the remaining positions. I could see Derek and Richie having a great battle for 4th and Terry and Paul overtaking each other all the time for 7th. I was surprised to see myself hanging onto this group as I've never been able to do that before. There are at least 3 ex-SS600 and Powerbike champions in the group!! The race itself was fairly uneventful for me as I didn't overtake anyone apart from the opening lap. Made a couple of small errors and running wide, but I was able to pull back in on the brakes. Race finished and I was in 9th position with a best time of 57.132 seconds. Another new personal best! The two things I took from this race is A) being able to keep with this group of really talented riders and B) my new best time around here.
When I got home from Mondello, I checked mylaps.com to check my consistency and was delighted. First lap from standing start was a 1.00.8, then every lap after was in the 57s.
The rained started coming down and in the end, we decided to go with the wets for Race 2. Pressures checked and set, bike fueled and I was ready to go again. I decided to back off my suspension set up 2 clicks of rebound and compression, front and rear thinking it'd be making it soft enough for the wet, but I was wrong. After a decent start away from the line, I quickly found myself being dropped off by the main group and I was struggling to find grip. The rear kept wanting to overtake the front and sling shot me vertically. A few hairy moments and plugged at my times. An R6 ahead of me put his hand up all of a sudden, then pulled out of the race. Next lap around, I saw his bike lying against an embankment with the rear wheel hanging off! Turned out he forgot to tighten the rear axle nut when changing to wets. Glad he didn't crash and burst himself. Lucky though. Was happy to see the last lap flag when it was put out as I was sick of going sideways and losing drive. At this stage I was up the chuff of a GSXR1000, but dunno who it was. On the last lap, last corner, I stuffed it up his inside and made it across the line ahead of him.
When I went to get the timesheet for the race, it said I'd no transponder. Went back and checked the bike, and true.. my transponder had died. It's never done that before. It had 2 green blips coming to the track on Saturday so was expecting it to last the weekend and some more. I finished the race in 8th position according to the timesheet, but I'm positive I'm 7th as they didn't take into account me overtaking that GSXR into Dunlop on the last lap. Adam up in timing was doing my times by rough estimate when I crossed the line. (Thanks for that by the way).
All in all, it was a very positive weekend. I'm really happy with getting what I did. Hopefully, this is the bad luck lifted from me. Next outing will hopefully be Angelesy at the end of September if I can find the sponsorship to help cover the costs. After that, it'll be the last National round of the season at Mondello Park at the beginning of October. Birthday celebrations after that weekend :)
Thanks for reading,
Cheers,
AJ