posted on July 24, 2010 22:31
Round 7 - Snetterton (18/07/10)
With the repaired forks and frame back in we were all ready to go at Snetterton. Strong winds on the Friday masked the feel from the bike so I just used the time to check out the new surface I'd heard about. With the wind due to ease for the next day we decided to use the first qualifier as our first proper practice to get some settings before hopefully attacking for a good lap in Q2.
We were first out on the Saturday morning and thankfully conditions were calmer, not least of all because we wouldn't have to worry about leaving a human anchor behind at the awning to prevent a cross-channel flight! I posted the 17th fastest time but the data showed the potential for improvement with different gearing so after a few tweaks we felt optimistic for Q2. However shortly after that, emergency repair work had to be done to the track and as a result we would lose our second qualifying session. It was quite a blow but we started to focus our attentions towards the race, trying out some changes in the next free practice instead. The gearing didn't produce the extra speed we expected and for some reason the data showed that we were losing some speed from last year running the same spare barrel. Perhaps it was the chicken pasta and huge loaf of garlic bread I'd had at the local pub the night before but seeing as the windy weather had put pay to the BBQ we'd planned for Saturday night we simply had to go back to the pub to push our gastronomic boundaries again! So after a platter of sliced King Edwards marinated in the finest Sarsons I was adequately carbo-loaded and mentally prepped to paddle off the start line Flintstones-stylee!
As it was the start didn't go too badly and I even managed not to get caught up in the mayhem on the first corner. After the first few laps everyone spaced out and settled into a pace and apart from a move into 15th it was a fairly lonely ride until the last corner of the last lap when I made a desperate pass into 14th but overshot the chicane and had to settle for 15th over the line.
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