8th March 2003 - Brands Hatch

By getting the bike scrutineered the previous day I got a welcome half hour more in bed. I got to the circuit and had my clothing checked, signed on and went back to prepare for the morning practice. I had left the bike with the wet tyres so my first job was to put the drys on and get the tyre warmers fitted.

Now that I had my lap timer with me I could see just how slowly I was going. The practice session only lasts ten minutes but it was probably one of the longer ten minutes I've ever spent. The track was still very damp from the rain the previous night and I was very nervous. I eventually managed to get my times down to 1:10s so I was probably about the same pace as the day before.

The first race wasn't until 12:30pm so I had time to relax a bit and get to know one of the Rookie 400 riders, Becki Cartwright, also known as 'Red', who the SuperTwins race was going to be gridded with. I was quite relieved as if it was just the SuperTwins I was racing with it would be a long and lonely race as I was down about 50 bhp on most of them. A lot of the 400s should be around the same power as the SV650 although a few will be putting out more!

I tried to set reasonable goals for the day and decided anything at or below 1:00s laps would be good and as long as I didn't fall off, the bike didn't break and I didn't come last :-) I would consider the day a success.

Race 1 - Super Twins

Out on to the grid and I realised that I had never tried to get this thing off the line and although my practice start wasn't bad I completely fluffed it when it came to the real thing. My lack of recent experience showed, or it could have been nerves as I know how much this can hurt, but I got mobbed by loads of 400s going in to Paddock Hill and then again going into Druids and Graham Hill.

My first few laps were very tentative and according to my lap timer were down in the 1:10s time bracket. A couple more 400s came by and I decided to try and stick with them. I had to work fairly hard in lots of places just to stick with them but towards the end I found I was comfortable picking off the few that were in reach and closing in on a lot of the others.

I was having a lot of fork chatter going in to Paddock Hill which meant I was losing drive through not being able to get on the gas as quickly, and hard, as I would have liked to. This was due to still not having the necessary washers in the forks for the preload adjusters to push against. This meant the sag was out by a good 11mm or 12mm so I think I did quite well considering.

A frustrating race from some points of view as I finished in 28th position having started in 23rd. 'Red' was one of those that passed me early on, having started on the row behind me, and despite the fact that I managed to set a faster time than she did I had lost too many places early on to make up for it. In fact, my best lap was faster than the next five finishers so there is hope for me yet.

This is very reminiscent of my first year racing where it took me several meetings to get a decent start and have the confidence to get involved in the bundle for the first few corners. My best lap time 1:00.25s which was my target for the day. I only managed 58.46s on the Aprilia RSV-R in the first race last year so I wasn't too upset by this.

Race 2 - Super Twins

Just to prove the weatherman right it started to rain over lunch and it gradually got worse as the day went on. I had also phoned Mark Hammond at MH Racing about the problem and he advised dropping the forks through the yokes 4mm - 5mm which I duly did. Not sure how this would work in the wet but it was worth a try.

Some of the 400 riders didn't have wets so would be running a bit slower than me - Hopefully! Once again I got mugged on the start line and ended up losing more places. Despite 'Red' starting on the row in front of me on the grid she was running on dry tyres so I managed to get by on the second lap although she managed to pull away from me at first - Must work on those first few corners!

The field was fairly spread out which made picking off some of the 400s a bit easier. I was still pretty nervous and for some reason the only place I was comfortable to overtake people was round the outside at Clearways which isn't really the best place to do it. I managed two or three guys there during the race and took another couple on the way in to Surtees after getting better drive out of Graham Hill bend which is usually my worst corner on the whole track.

At one point I closed up to within twenty yards of an Aprilia Mille although there were a couple of 400s between the two of us. A few more manouevres around Clearways and I got passed them both although one of them managed to get back on the way in to Paddock Hill. We swapped places a couple of times which let Tim Gallagher on the Mille slowly pull away. The 400 managed to get by at Clearways again on the last lap and a small mistake meant that I couldn't get close enough to beat him to the line.

Much happier with the bike although I was still very tentative at Paddock Hill after the fork chatter in the earlier race. I managed a best of 1:09.51s which was within 10s of my dry time which felt about right. Comparing that with my first race on the CBR600 a couple of years ago where I got a best of 1:07.18s and that was with a dry line. The full wet times for that meeting were slower than I managed today so that was a good start.

* The SuperTwins best times were much faster at 0:51.87s and 0:58.65s respectively but as they have at least 50 bhp more I think the best 400 times are more appropriate. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it :-)

After such a long lay off, my wrist injury and having to build the bike in such a hurry I was quite pleased with the results. My wrist hurts quite badly which can only be expected given the severity of the break and having the metal plates taken out less than three months ago. Had both races been dry I think I would have been much more confident and have improved accordingly. Disappointingly I had only entered the first day of the two day meeting but it was probably for the best so I could ease myself in to it gently.

The next outing is for the inaugural MiniTwins race at Lydden at the beginning of April. Although I hate Lydden with a vengeance I am quite looking forward to it.