posted on May 22, 2010 22:31
Round 3 - Oulton, Round 4 - Pembrey, Thunderbikes - Brands GP
I'm afraid I have been rather busy and the prospect of spending yet another few hours in front of a PC had not been particularly inviting. So, I thought I would do a summary of the last few meets which, frankly, have flown by!
Oulton Park (16-17 April)
After what happened at Snetteton, we were all a little nervous about Oulton. Mark elected to go to Thruxton and mechanic instead, but I was more than happy to socialise with the other MiniTwinners. I can't drive the 7.5t truck on my post 1997 car license, so I went up in the Sprinter at a something miles an hour, overtaking Steve Miller and Mark Searle who had been towing a caravan, in an attempt to get in before the gate was locked. I bought an inflatable bed and electric blanket along so that I could sleep in the van and a football for the charity football match.
It was a short meet, due to noise restrictions, so we had the Friday as practice and the Saturday as the usual Qualifying and two-race format. Last time I had been to Oulton, I had been knocked off and so felt that this was my first real stab at the place. Consistent times and no real marker from my previous visit meant that I was just looking for improvement. Race one was pretty uneventful, aside from a number of crashes, resulting in my improvement by eight places (and gaining 3 points). My times were coming down, but not fast enough for me, so I was a little frustrated. Race two saw me lose a few places and the times didn't improve, but it was all a little too late. I put this meet down to experience and vowed to get more time in at Oulton if possible when I get a chance.
Pembrey (1-2 May)
What a long way to go! I really struggled at this meet with a front end problem and with my boot getting stuck on my gear change lever somehow! Times did come down but again, with no real experience there (my memory wiped of the last time of being there following my crash at Brands GP in 2007), I didn't really get stuck into it. Still I picked up a couple of points...
Brands GP (15-16 May)
Oh I love Brands GP. I really do! There was no booked MiniTwin round at the full circuit, so I booked Mark and I into Thunderbikes for that round. An SV650 could be bored out to 700cc for the Thunderbike class which works on a power to weight ratio, but if it were bored out, it would be ineligible for MiniTwins, so a number of us tend to run the 650 in that class as extra track time. In this instance, it was because we wanted to do the GP circuit.
The practice day was on the Indy circuit, so I spend the half day working on Paddock through to Graham Hill bend because the other corners change so much when the full circuit is in use. Thunderbikes is run on points and given that Mark nor I had done any previous races in Thunderbikes, we started from the back of the grid. I started off with times coming down from my previous visit, which I was happy about. There were a lot of big bikes out there, including one of those Harley XR1200s, GSXR750 and various large Ducatis with as much as 1000ccs. Race one saw me make good headway place-wise and time-wise and I looked forward to race 2. Race 2 saw me make up another few more places (to finish directly behind the Harley) and get the times down by another second.
That night, we spent some time socialising and ex-MiniTwinner Paul Martin came over to joke with Mark that in the program it had been said that Mark was "one to watch". Given that Paul had beaten Mark in the race (by some margin), he had asked about the validity of that statement. I think Mark just smiled at Paul's 700ccs.
Sunday morning and I improved yet again in places and knocked yet another second off. Now I was into personal best territory and I allowed the edges of my mouth to curl up a little. I was looking forward to race four and to getting into very respectable time territory. Unfortunately, there was a very nasty startline incident which resulted in Paul Martin being airlifted to hospital. Needless to say, the race was not re-run and due to the lateness of the running of the schedule, that was the end of the weekend.
[...] Wishing Paul the very best for his recovery.
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