Oulton Park 5th April 08

I arrived at the famous Oulton Park Thursday evening ready for test day Friday where I was going to learn this beautiful circuit ready for Saturdays racing. Friday morning was a clear fresh one. I got out on circuit at 9.00am and it was amazing. Long, fast, twisting corners as well as long, fast straights. I loved this circuit. The afternoon was twice as good as the weather was warmer and I was getting more confident each lap.
At the end of Friday I got an early nights sleep ready for race day.
Saturday morning wasn’t what I expected to wake up to. Grey clouds, freezing cold and rain! I went out for a ten minute warm up lap and to be honest I didn’t mind the rain so I was quite prepared for qualifying at 10:30am. After doing one lap and crossing the start/finish line in my qualifying session I hit a bump in the circuit and locked the front end of my bike up which sent me rolling and sliding down the home straight of Oulton Park at then finishing up with a wall of tyres stopping me. I couldn’t believe my bad luck. I got the bike back into the paddock and only had 90 minutes to get it race ready. Everyone was fiddling round with my bike putting new levers on, brand new fairing (as the old one had had it) and I got produced a new helmet as the one which survived the fall wasn’t going to survive another one. I made the holding area before the race with one minute to go and I took a sigh of relief. The one lap I did in qualifying earnt me 25th place on the grid out of 43 other bikes which was more than impressive considering my circumstances. After the first race I finished 27th which was more than good as my steering wasn’t what it’s been after my crash but I ignored the problem and raced again in the last race which I came 31st. it came to my attention though after Saturday when I stripped my bike down that during my crash I had bent my steering damper which would have been the cause to my horrific steering problems. I enjoyed the two days I was at Oulton and I learnt a lot more and as it turned out in Fridays practice session I went round the 2.6 mile course in 2 minutes 17 seconds which was only 10 seconds off the fastest lap in my class over the weekend. The potential in me is there it’s just getting some good luck to show it.
Thanks to all those who helped get my bike ready for the race. Check out the images oin the gallery