3rd May 2003 - Snetterton

After being told by all and sundry that my bike was dog slow down the straights at Oulton I thought I'd get it checked out before Snetterton. Turns out I had lost a few horsepower, down to 65 hp from the 70 hp I was told I had and way less than the 72 hp that a few people are known to have. Did manage to get 1 hp back by getting the exhaust repacked but was still not happy heading in to the weekend. I had also been having some suspension problems with the forks bottoming out and the rear sets scraping on the deck so I had the suspension reworked to help things out.

Arrived at the practice day to find that it was pouring with rain. Went out in the first session to see how things were going and managed a couple of laps that felt very slow before heading in to Sears at a sedate pace and finding myself on my arse having lost the front. Mmmm, maybe the new suspension wasn't such a great idea after all. I slid for quite a way but did little damage to me compared to ripping off or breaking just about every sticky out bit on the right hand side of the bike, including trashing my newly rebuilt exhaust can.

Having spent the rest of the morning rebuilding the thing whilst the track was drying it started raining again for my first session back out. Just to prove that I'm consistent I managed another couple of laps before binning it again! Despite feeling like I was being even slower and more tentative than before the front washed out at Sears and I visited the mud again. All my nice shiny spare parts were consigned to the bin but this time it broke the brake master cylinder as well.

Not a good start to the weekend - A total of about 5 laps and two crashes. It took most of the evening to get the bike sorted again as the exhaust was even more bent and the fairing was now held together with tape, fibreglass and cable ties.