10th May 2001 - Brands Hatch GP

Arrived at Brands Hatch feeling very nervous about the place. I've only managed half a day here before and I was going to be doing a full race weekend here. The day was organised by TrackWise and they had very kindly done me a deal to allow me to get some practice in during the day. Thanks guys!

I missed the first session whilst everyone got organised and then set out to scrub in these nice shiny D208GP tyres. After taking it very easily in the corners I opened it up on the straights and suddenly felt like the bike was trying to shake itself to bits. Every time the speed got over about 80 mph I got a really bad vibration from the front end. Pulled in after three laps and after talking to a few people the concensus was that the tyres hadn't been balanced properly. A short trip to the Brands Hatch Performance Centre (used to belong to Stan Stephens before he sold up to focus on his 2 stroke tuning business) fixed the problem but it was the lunch break by the time I got everything fitted again.

Being out in the fast group is always an experience at a track day but this time it was packed full of racers practicing for the coming Bemsee meeting (including me). Of the sessions in the afternoon I managed to get my times down from 2:12.81 to a more respectable 2:01.77 - Still not fantastic but quite a positive improvement given the available time on the track. Still not fast enough to be able to find anyone I could really follow but with 8 races I was sure to improve over the weekend.

The only disappointment of the day was missing the morning with tyre problems. At least I found the problem on a track day not in a race - Then I really would be upset.

A big thanks to Gordon at TrackWise for getting me out there when the day was fully booked.