posted on May 29, 2010 22:31
Round 4 - Cadwell Park (23/05/10)
Following the troubled times of recent the usual visit to Donington Park was sadly missing from the BSB calendar (get well soon Donington). So for this year Cadwell was the Park of choice. A pretty fine one at that. Not home to my best results by any means but a proper little gem on the racing calendar and with a weather forecast hot enough for a Fast Show sketch everything was looking like it was going to be a good weekend. But oh how wrong we were!
After the first practice session blowing out the cob-webs we decided to try out a new idea of Jeff's to give us more usable drive via some changes in the carb and ignition settings. So Practice 2 was a bit experimental with a few tweaks here and there. It did the job and we felt we were able to come up with a good compromise for speed and longevity. As it turned out though we needn't have worried about engine longevity because by half way through the first qualifying session it was the broken clocks, fairing, front wheel and bent forks that posed more of a hindrance to popping in a good lap time! Unfortunately the bike I'd been tagging in front seized and I had nowhere to go. After replacing everything on the front of the bike bar the forks and yokes we were ready with only minutes to spare before Q2 but as soon as I ventured out on track it was obvious the damage was far more sinister than we thought as the bike weaved when pointed in a straight line. Closer examination later showed the geometry of the bike was far from symmetrical and without a spare frame and forks to hand we were unable to race. Roll on better luck at Mallory...!
I'd just like to say a huge thank you to Maddy who sent one of her amazing chocolate cakes for race day - the team (and all of the extra friends it attracted!) couldn't have had anything better to console ourselves! [...]
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