Friday – Sunday, 20th – 22nd July 2007
Round 5 &ndash Triumph Cup, Brands Hatch GP
First visit to Brands Hatch
Three pals from Ireland - Karl, John & Owen - flew over with me for this round; Owen kipped in the back of the truck while Karl & John pitched a tent - on the paddock tarmac!
When we woke on Friday morning it was drizzling and the track was damp. Too dry for wet tyres and too wet for dry tyres, so I decided to hold off the first couple of sessions to wait and see which way the weather was going to turn.
By mid-day the rain was coming down very heavily and the track soon flooded with standing water. We put the wets on and waited for the sessions to continue. Surprisingly, the track dried up really quickly and I nearly cooked my set of wets in the first session. Only Paddock Hill was still wet.
Second session out and we opted for the dry tyres but there was still standing water at the bottom of Paddock hill. John recorded my lap times and they dropped by a second each lap. 1 minute 43 seconds, 1 minute 42 seconds, 1 minute 41 seconds...
Before I knew it, the day was over. I would have liked more than three sessions to learn the track but I had to take what I could get.
Saturday morning and we went out into the first qualifying session. I wanted to tag onto someone so I could follow their lines but I ended up on my own and that's the way it stayed for the rest of the session. A lap time of 1 minute 39 seconds was the best I could do and that placed me 12th fastest.
As we were waiting in the holding area to go out for our second qualifying session it started raining fairly heavily. I went out and completed a couple of laps to see what sort of condition the track was in, but it was soon clear that no one was going to improve on their lap times from the first session and I pulled in.
The Superpole race was 5 laps long and I improved on my personal best time by 1 second again; 1 minute 38 seconds. On the penultimate lap James Dye went by me and pulled a couple of bike lengths on me. I started closing the gap and was lining him up to overtake but Greville Ball went up my inside, nearly causing me to run into the back of him. I went back past Greville coming out of Clearways and tried closing in on James on the last lap. Again Greville block-passed me and I wasn't able to retake the position before the finish line. I finished in 10th place overall (0.09 seconds behind 9th), which was 8th position in the Michelin Young Guns.
For Sunday some of my UK-based relatives turned up to give me some support, which was much appreciated! In the morning we had 4 laps warm-up, but the rear wheel felt like it was going to break away in every right hand corner. I initially thought it was down to a cold tyre, but after a couple of laps it was still doing the same so I began to think a spacer had been left out when putting the rear wheel back on. After a quick inspection back in the garage we found the rear axle nut to be loose, which was allowing the wheel to 'turn' going into corners! I didn't notice it on left hand corners as the tension on the chain was keeping the wheel in line. The outcome could have been a lot worse but thankfully it wasn't!
We decided to try a different rear sprocket for the first Supersport race on Sunday, but it turned out to be a step in the wrong direction. I got a decent start away from the line but I was hitting the rev-limiter too early, which meant I was up and down too many gears.
I started losing ground on the guys in front of me and I couldn't find a happy medium of which gears to use for which corners. After a very near high-side coming out of a corner (the rider behind me said I was 18 inches out of the seat!), I lost a position and found myself out of reach of the guys in front. I dropped another second off my personal best time (1 minute 38 seconds) but felt I could still go a bit quicker once I got more use to the GP section of the track. When the 8 laps were over, I had finished 12th overall, or 9th in the Young Guns.
For the second race we went back to the sprocket I used in qualifying, which I was happier with. Got a good start away from the line but nearly collided with James Dye going through turn 1 when he turned right across my path. Then as we went into Druids I nearly hit one of the Bridgehouse bikes. Things settled down after that and I started putting some decent laps together. I closed right in on Greville Ball when he overtook Michael Collins. On the penultimate lap I out-braked Michael into Druids and held the position until the finish line, finishing in 10th place overall and 8th in the Young Guns. Again, I went quicker and beat my personal best lap time but I still feel with more track time I can go a lot quicker.
I'm still nowhere near where I want to be in the field or championship, but I have to be content coming away from another new track with top 10 finishes. The sixth round of the championship is back at Cadwell Park so it will be a big test for me to see how much I learnt last time we were there and if I can fight for higher positions.
Hope to see you there.
Cheers,
AJ