First meeting NGRRC Thruxton round 10 20th June

Practise session:

Being my first race meeting on a track I had never ridden I was a bit nervous as I entered the track especially as we had been waiting for quite a while so the tyres had cooled and the track was still damp (many bikes went out with a wet front tyre). But in actual fact the track and tyres were very gripy and although there were some damp patches I didn’t have any problem and the bike was handling great. I passed a few bikes and but didn’t get behind one with similar pace that I could use to copy lines out the back of the circuit which was a bit annoying but even so I found I was on a good pace . On returning to the pit I found my best practise time was a 1.46 which I was told was quite good as a 1.45 is a good fastest time for a novice at Thruxton.

Race 1:

Well for race one I was very nervous, It was my first ever race and I was very worried about getting off the line and not stalling as this can be very dangerous and often result in an accident. I had qualified 20th out of a grid of 35. I used the warm up lap as a sort of practise race start which was good practise but as I leant the bike over for turn one a young racer on a 125cc Aprillia came flying up next to me and we clipped each others fairings, this was a bit much for the warm up lap in my opinion and so cooled it down a bit a made sure to steer clear of this rider in the race.
In the actual start I got a great start, although I almost jumped the start when the red lights came on I meant to drop the clutch and go then realised I was jumping the gun a bit. The lights went out and I got a great start passing 5 bikes on the power off the line. I then out broke a further 3 bikes into the complex section of the track. This made me 12th on track. The back part of the track was very fast and was almost flat out from the complex all the way to Club chicane. I held this position until I under broke myself into complex on lap two and lost three positions to a group of 125cc bikes, 2 were F125 bikes and one GP125 (one happen to include the lad I had had a collision with in the warm up lap). So I tucked in behind the bubble of the screen and slipstreamed past the last of these three from church corner to club only to have him out brake me into club chicane. I crossed the line right behind the three and past two before the complex, and attempted to block pass the last rider the on the GP 125 bike but again out broke myself and let all three bikes through. I followed the group of bikes for a lap really pushing the bike out the back of the circuit which I found out resulted in me leaning the bike over so much the fairing, foot peg and crash bung all connected with the ground and I had a bit of a moment with the back wheel being lifted at very high speed this lost me a little time but I kept in contention for the final lap where a final attempt to line up an overtake again into the complex was made but again I out broke myself and lost time. As a result I to accept a 15th position overall and 7th in class, not bad for my first ever race and a new fastest lap time of 1.43.31 a great improvement over practise.
Lots of lessons were learnt in this race, mainly don’t try to outbrake a lighter more nimble race bike and that following a group at race pace really helps show you were the correct lines are.

Race 2:

For race two I found myself alot less nervous and had an event free warm up lap which was nice. Due to my good performance in race one I was now lining up on 15th on the grid, again I had a good start but only managed to pass a single bike into the complex, who then passed me on the exit as I got a false neutral changing gear from 1st to 2nd gear this annoyed me as I felt I had earned the place and was let down by my bike so pulled out all the stops to chase this rider down, resulting in the fairing again touching the deck round goodwood and village corners. On the third lap I was still chasing this rider and in my attempts to catch him ran wide into the complex and lost more time to him so really dug deep and pushed the bike as hard as I could to catch him, sadly we were both riding the same pace and so I couldn’t close the gap between the two of us, not for lack of trying I can assure you, and finished 14th overall and again 7th in class which earned me 8 championship points as well as my fastest lap time of 1.40.91 which is a fantastic lap for novice and an improvement of 6 seconds over my best practise lap

Double RR Motorsport would like to thank Loz and Colin without them the day would never have happened for me and I hope they enjoyed them selves aswell