7th March 2003 - Brands Hatch

After the few practice laps that I managed at Lydden last week I had a number of things I needed to do to the bike to prepare for my first race. There were also a number of things I needed to do to prepare myself as I hadn't raced for almost a year and had only been on a bike two or three times since then.

I contacted Harris and got them to send me a set of high level clip ons as the standard ones were fouling the bodywork badly. I also fitted the braided hoses for the rear brake and made a bracket to support the front brake reservoir as I doubted the scrutineers would take kindly to my initial cable tie arrangement.

I got to the track early Friday morning and blagged a space in the garage near some friends from my Rookie 600 days. I missed the first practice session as I had to make sure I had filled the radiator correctly after draining the coolant and replacing it with water as per the ACU regulations.

The first session was very nerve racking as I had no idea how the bike would perform at any kind of speed. Needless to say it took most of the session just to remember where the circuit went and trying hard not to get in anybody's way. The second improved a bit and I started to feel a bit more like a racer. I am amazed by how light the SV650 is to ride and how easy it is to turn. I guess the wide position of the bars is a factor, a choice only partially down to my preference as much as it was to the bodywork clearance problem.

In the rush I had forgotten my lap timer so I had no idea how quick I was actually going. Needless to say I was sure that it was way slower than I've been round Brands before. I think my previous best was 56.2s on the Aprilia testing here at the beginning of last year although I only managed 57.87s as the best of the races here. At a guess I would have said I was in the 1:10s bracket but as it was my first time on any race bike, yet alone taking in to account my injuries I wasn't too disheartened.

It started to rain over the lunch break so I set about the ordeal that is changing the wheels on these bikes. There are far too many wheel spacers and speedo drives to get in the way (and fall out) to make it a quick job. I missed the first session after lunch whilst I waited for the worst rain to stop. By this time I was quite tired and decided I would rather get the bike scrutineered and not go out for the rest of the afternoon.

A successful day as I had managed to get round the track for a few sessions and had managed to remain upright. Nothing had fallen off the bike and it seemed to be running okay so I was looking forward to racing the next day.