Race Report - Oulton Park 3rd September 2005 (Derby Phoenix)
I'd not raced at Oulton since September last year, but I do like this circuit a great deal. It was the venue for my first ever track day back in 2001 and that was what got me hooked and led to me starting racing, so I get all nostalgic whenever I go there. That said, I've only ever been there four times and on one of those occasions (Feb 2004) I fell off my freshly rebuilt and newly painted RVF! But it is a fantastic, undulating circuit, with a great combination of fast and slow turns, good positive cambers for most of the circuit and the opportunity to make a quick lap if you get it right. Not that I can say I have ever been that quick around there, with my fastest lap before this weekend being in the 1:59's.
Knowing that I needed to work on my laptimes and having just come back from a fortnight's holiday (we went touring Europe on the ZX9, covering nearly 3,000 miles!) , I booked the Friday practice day to get back into the swing of it. I started off nice and slowly and built up through the morning, ending up in the mid 1:55's before lunchtime and planned to go a bit quicker for the afternoon to get in the low 1:54's. I managed to get a 1:54.16 on my laptimer by the end of the day, but reckoned I could find at least another half a second in the race. There were a couple of things with the bike I reckoned might help as well, firstly that it was a bit stuttery just above 10,000rpm (stripped the carbs and found a fair amount of crap) and the front suspension needed a bit of firming up. Hopefully the bike might be a bit better the following day.
Come race day and I was looking forward to getting out there, although I did think my motivation wasn't quite what it should be having won the championship now. It didn't help that everybody that came into the garage was saying that they didn't I'd be motivated for it either! However, once I got out there I was pretty fired up, so I can't use that excuse!
The lights went out for race one and I did my now very familiar race start of losing 3 or 4 places by the first bend! I tucked in behind Russell Bates for the first corner and up over The Avenue and down into Cascades. We then went round Island Bend and as we entered the hairpin, I took Russell to take second. I held that for the first lap, but then got passed by Alan Armour on the second, who was having a cracking ride! I tried to get back at him, but couldn't and then on lap three, I got passed by Christopher Dean (who very quickly got past Alan Armour for second) to go down into fourth.....this was not good! I kept the gap down between me and Alan and thought I might get the better of him sooner or later, but it wasn't happening. I was quicker than him around the two fast left handers and we were evenly matched for most other areas, but he pulled yards on me through Lodge and Barn. On the last lap, it was looking as though I was going to have to settle for fourth, when Christopher Dean lost the front at the Hairpin, putting Alan Armour up to second and me up to third! I looked back at Knickerbrook and with nothing to play for and a huge gap on Russell back in fourth, I backed off to finish third. Disappointingly, my best lap was a 1:55.01.
Come race two and I hoped for a better result. I'd checked the front suspension again and it still needed the preload winding on to get anywhere near the right sag setting, but it was still a little soft. I lined up third on the grid and this time I managed to only drop one place to go fourth into Barn. Over the hill and down into Cascades I tried to go around Alan Armour, but I lost drive and he passed me again easily. However, as we got to Island Bend, I lined him up to get round him on the exit and passed him on the brakes into the Hairpin. I then held second for a while and was hoping to catch Graeme Frear, but Alan was right behind me and a mistake around Barn on lap three allowed him to breeze past me. A lap later and Christopher Dean came past me on a mission (having started at the back of the grid!) and then went straight past Alan Armour as well to take second. He got right up to Graeme and the pair of them dropped me and Alan at this point. By now I'd decided that fourth was a safe finish and I was no longer pushing Alan, so I settled back to take fourth. I was disappointed again and although my laptime had improved marginally with a 1:54.96, I was still nearly a second off my best time in practice.
This wasn't one of my best weekends and although I'd hoped for better things at the start of it, I was glad to be going home albeit without a trophy. Maybe my motivation wasn't there or perhaps it was the two weeks away road riding that had knocked my performance. Eitherway, I wasn't on the pace and it's fair to say that I need to get better for the next weekend's final round at Mallory.
A quick mention for Davo (Dave Williams), who did very well in the F400's with a 6th and 7th (2 x 3rd in class), even though it wasn't exactly plain sailing with an off in the Open 250 race and then somehow managing to collide with a hay bale in the second F400 race (well done for staying on though!). As for Benzo (Paul Bennicke), his CBR600 sounding very sick at Cadwell and he'd not had chance to fix it, so had to sit this one out.
Usual thanks go to Lesley for looking after me so well and a special mention for Alex, who was with us for this weekend and managed to keep the entire garage entertained on Friday night with stories of Beattie Bear's snoring!