Race Report - Donington Park 29th May 2005 (Derby Phoenix)

 

The Donington circuit is fantastic and I was really looking forward to it.  The tarmac is wonderfully smooth and the circuit is very fast and flowing, the key being Redgate......get that right and the whole thing seems to come together perfectly!

I'd booked on the Friday trackday to get some practice in and given my laptimes last year of 1:21's I wanted to get down into the low 1:20's consistently and nudge below wherever I could.  It was a lovely hot day with not a lot of wind at all, meaning near perfect conditions.  However, the sessions were by far the busiest I've seen on a trackday for a long time and trying to get a clear lap was not easy at all.  With the date being so popular, people were struggling to get into the novice or intermediate groups meaning that the fast group had some pretty slow riders in it, so clear track was hard to come by.  Still, I managed to drop straight into the 1.20's and by the end of the day had put some good laps in to get down to the 1.19's so I was very happy.

We had to pack up and leave the circuit on Friday night, so got back to the track Saturday late afternoon to set ourselves up in our allocated garage, then got scrutineered and signed on ready for raceday.  Usual paddock stuff on Saturday night (i.e. beer, food and more beer) and come the Sunday morning I was out in the first practice to loosen up.  Not that this was much use though, as the race order meant that I didn't get out until race 10.....some time after lunch!  The second was race 17 at about 5.30pm so it was a long day standing around!

First Formula 400 race and I took up my second place on the grid (per my championship position), hoping to get a good start.  Fat chance of that and I slipped back to 4th by Redgate, but quickly got past the two in front of me around Hollywood and down Craner to grab back second place.  Despite this, I lost quite a lot of time to Steve Smith on the first lap and by the time we were into the second lap he was nearly four seconds ahead.  I put my head down and was visibly starting to catch him to a point on lap four when he was well within my sights again.  We then came across some backmarkers and they fell particularly unkind to Steve at Redgate, allowing me to get within half a second or so of him.  However, the backmarkers didn't fall that kindly for me either and Steve stretched the lead out again.  Come the last lap I looked behind and had a huge lead of what looked to be more than 10 seconds, so knowing I wasn't going to catch Steve I backed off and cruised home to second. 

For the second race I was a bit more fired up and looking forward to it.  When the lights went out I got a fairly decent start and held second into Redgate and was right on the back of Steve.  This time I was keeping well in touch with him and although I wasn't exactly threatening to pass, we were much closer and if he made a mistake then this time I could have got past.  In the meantime, what I didn't know was that Daniel Frear was right behind me to the point where he was drawing alongside my rear wheel at times, which I had no idea of as I was head down chasing Steve!  Four laps in and the three of us were all still very close, but as we went through the Old Hairpin the race was red flagged and they called it a result.  I was in two minds about this really; I wasn't close enough to Steve to really challenge although might have been, whereas Daniel Frear was right up with me so could have challenged me.  I guess 2nd is a good result at the end of the day and even better for future meetings at Donington is that my laptimes were down to 1:18's!  

So at the mid point of the season with Derby Phoenix, I'm now 50 points behind Steve in the championship and unlikely to catch him unless he makes a mistake, which he rarely does.  He's a good rider and is going so well at the moment that I just don't think I can makeup the difference, even if I do manage to get a couple of wins off him. 

Steve came over to the garage after the second race and said hello, which was a nice thing to do.  He said how well we were both riding and how it's between the two of us for the title, but I think he's got too much of an edge.  He's a nice lad (he's only 18.....I'm more than twice his age!) and clearly has a lot of potential, so good for him and I hope he does well.  Oh, by the way Steve (if you're reading this), thanks for the nice mentions you gave me in the interview after the first race!

The bike is going back to RLR for a refresh now, so by the time Mallory comes around in July it'll be back on top form again.  There's six weeks off in the meantime, so it's off to the gym for some hard work to get my fitness levels up and try to lose some weight.  After a couple of months hectic running around the country to race meetings it will seem a bit quiet, but at least I'll be able to do some 'normal things' and relax a little bit too!  I think Lesley is quite happy about the fact we've got a bit of a break as well......she has put up with all the travelling and paddock life very well, but it can get a bit too much I guess!


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