8th March 2002 - Brands Hatch

By the Wednesday before the race I still hadn't received the adapter for the front stand from HPS so I borrowed one from a friend, took the measurements and phoned the guys at Cambridge Motorcycles. Knowing that they have gone out of their way to help fellow racers in the past I wondered whether they could help me. Sure enough they were prepared to make one to the dimensions I sent them and by chance one of their guys was at Brands Hatch the following day on a track day and would leave it at the front gate for me. Top stuff - If only everything in life was this helpful and efficient.

Arrived at the track on Thursday evening with my new, but rather decrepit caravan. Picked up the stand adapter and proceeded to freeze my bits off all night as I hadn't had time to work out how the gas heater worked. Doh! Needless to say I was awake long before it was time to sign on so I was raring to go when the first session came round. Took my time getting around the place trying to remember where the circuit went and treating Paddock Hill bend with a lot of respect after I crashed so badly there last August.

My previous race best had only been around the 59s mark on my race bike last year although somewhere along the line I had managed a consistent lap time of 1:01s doing the third gear and no brakes drill at the California SuperBike School so I wasn't too worried when I only got down to 1:00s in the first session.

A couple more sessions before lunch and I was quite comfortable in the 58s bracket although I knew the guys I would be up against on Sunday in the MRO championship would be down in the 51s area. The first session after lunched was still in the 58s but there were a few corners that started to flow but invariable I'd come across slower bikes or make a mistake at another corner to prevent me getting a decent lap time.

The next session went one better with a consistent run in the 57s bracket and then the last session of the day saw a significant improvement to put me in the 56s with a best of 56.2s. Unfortunately it was a couple of laps before the end that some bright spark decided to try to ride through a gap that didn't exist between me and the rumble strip on the way in to Surtees, a fourth gear flat out corner.

He basically rode in to the side of me and in the process lost control of his bike which went down fairly quickly. Unfortunately it then proceeded to take the wheels out from under me trapping my foot between the two bikes and leave his spinning rear wheel trying to wear a hole in the leg of my leathers. The two bikes slid across the track and on to the grass until the Aprilia decided to dig in and flip itself over a few times for good measure leaving me to roll around in the grass and mud. I noticed later that I must have collected half the turf that was out there as I left a nice ploughed furrow across the infield. Now I know why people refer to twins as tractors ;-)

To add insult to injury whilst I was sitting there trying to work out which planet I was on the other guy calmly walked over to his bike, picked it up and promptly walked off. He didn't even look at me yet alone apologise or check to see if I was alright. He had a large 'JG Racing' logo on his back and one of the Marshalls later told me he was number 45 - I assume this was Jeremy Goodall who was out practicing for the MRO SuperSport 600 race. Seems being fast automatically precludes showing any manners or decency towards your fellow racers at this level.

I was very fortunate to not aggravate any of my old injuries, particularly the hernia that was only operated on in December. I had invested in a pair of Sidi Vertebrae Race boots as I was worried about my feet and ankles being exposed in case of an accident. The boots have a metal bar down the outside to stop your ankle from bending the wrong way. After having my foot trapped between the two bikes I was left with a huge bruise and a limp but nothing appeared to be broken (aside from having a large dent in the said metal bar!).

The Aprilia was rather less fortunate having proceeded to break or crack just about every piece of fairing plastic, the screen had been totally destroyed and some large lumps of the left air intake were missing and the rest was just hanging off. The potentially excessive crash bobbins had done their best but one was now bent at an interesting angle although the other three had survived okay and done the job they were meant to. A clip on was broken, the fairing frame was an interesting new shape and I had collected a belly pan full of fresh grass and mud. Not quite sure how I managed to get mud squashed in to the back of the radiator but ...

Fellow MRO Aprilia RSV Challenge competitor Darren Jones and his mechanic Steve 'Humpy' Humphrey were sharing a garage with me this weekend and did a great job helping to put the bike back together until the early hours of the morning. I had to spend half an hour scouring the grass near where I had crashed for all the pieces to my air intake, eight at the last count, although nothing some Araldite and duct tape couldn't fix ;-)

Paul Bridgland from rsvr.net once again came up trumps with a new screen and clutch lever plus a large quantity of fibreglass resin from Alan Russell saw everything back on the bike albeit a little twisted given the new shape of the fairing frame. Guess I won't be ducking down behind the screen given that it comes down almost to tank level!