posted on March 12, 2010 11:36
Alcarras Circuit Spain sorrymate.com 3 day test
Well after a long and cold winter I've have my first warm test session with three days in Spain. First of all I have to say a HUGE thank you to Fergus at Sorymate.com and Adrian for funding this trip!
I have tested our new sorrymate.com sponsored CBR600RR once at Oulton Park but the track temperature was a mere 1 degree so I was really chuffed to be given the opportunity to go to Spain for three days. We left on Tuesday the 2nd of March and flew out to Barcelona then drove down to Llieda just 20 mins or so from the Alcarras Circuit.
Our first day on track was damp and then wet but it was still relatively warm and it was good to try some wet settings on the new bike. I went out on drys to start off with as the track was only damp but as it rained a little harder at lunch I then switched to the wets and we tried some new wet weather suspension settings, they seemed to work well and I felt pretty comfortable on the new bike.
The second day was better with sunny skies, the track was still a little damp but was fully dry by lunch time and it was great to have a proper blast on the bike for the first time, I felt really happy on it and it was really apparent how much better the chassis is compared to my old bike it dropped into turns much easer and it holds its line so much better.
I took a stock of old tyres with me and was soon munching my way through them as the track is super abrasive, only really getting one session out of the tyre before it was gone but I used them for two session to get used to riding on an old tyre with the bike moving around. I set a slightly better time than last year by the end of the day with a high 1:41 lap, I managed 1:42s last year after a full 3 dry days on track so I was pretty happy to get to 1:41's without really trying too hard.
The third day was the best with a fully dry and warm track all day, I set off again mainly to try new things with the bike, I was mega happy with the suspension set up so it was manly improvements to myself and to adjust my riding to suit the new characteristics of the bike, it has much better brakes than my old CBR and turns so much quicker so it was good to adjust some things and just see how far I could push it.
Fergus bought me a new tyre for the last session and I managed a 1:40.8 lap, which had been my target for this test and I was really happy that when I wanted to go fast I could relatively easily. Overall it was a mega three days testing, it was really good to get used to the bike and try new things, I had a bit of wet practice, proper dry practice and even had a wee slide off it on Friday pushing the front a bit to much. The bike feels really great and I'm really looking forward to getting back out on it in at a UK track.
I'll hopefully get in a bit more track time before the first BSS round at Brands so I'll let you know how things are gettting on.
All the best for now.
Jenny Tinmouth #10
jennytinmouth.com