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Posts Tagged ‘31’

Managed to overcome a difficult start to the weekend

We have passed the half way point in the season and the famous Brands Hatch Indy circuit was next to welcome the Thundersport GB Championships as spectators get treated to a full line up in the Termignoni Superstock 600 class.

I would like to say the weekend went very well and smoothly, but unfortunately, it didn’t.

From Cadwell Park, we made some big changes suspension-wise, in our constant quest to get that extra bit of grip.

Lack of grip exiting corners has been one of my weaker points this season so far, but after trying completely new, radical changes, I felt we improved greatly on getting on the gas much earlier, and much harder.

Although, this plagued us with chronic handling issues almost everywhere around the track. I did expect some teething issues with the new rear setup, but nothing this extreme. Gradually we began improving on the setup with a few tweaks here and there, and started dropping the lap times, but only three 20 minute sessions before qualifying simply wasn’t enough to iron out all the problems.

We went into the first qualifying knowing it was going to be an uphill struggle, as the pace was so fierce. Weather conditions were ideal, meaning lap record pace was reached after a couple laps. This wasn’t great for me as no matter how hard I tried to push, everytime I tried to string a good lap together, I would have a big moment almost putting me in the kitty litter. I ended the first qualifying down in 15th place.

After a night of discussion and debate, we made major changes to the damping on both the front end and rear of the bike, but as there was no practice sessions before the next qualifying, it was a bit of an educated guess.

The next morning we were greeted by cold, windy, overcast conditions, which unlike the first qualifying, was far from ideal. I went out for my 2nd attempt at qualifiying and instantly, the suspension felt much better. I managed to knock almost a full second off my lap time, despite the worse conditions. Although improving my time and position and qualifying well inside the top 10, the grid was decided by overall best times, meaning everyone set their best laps in the previous day’s qualifiying. This meant I was only promoted one position on the grid to 14th.

I felt fairly condifent for the race after making leaps and bounds forwards with the suspension. I made a reasonable start, but was instantly caught up in the messy traffic into first corner, losing a couple of positions on the run down into Druids harpin. I dropped down to around 17th, but I got my head down and pushed hard, but again, I was plagued by handling problems, and no matter how hard I pushed, I was constantly fighting to hold my lines. I eventually managed to squeeze a few positions back, eventually finshing in 13th.

For the second race we had to make some more big changes, as I still felt we were still a long way out in the first race, with struggling to turn in whilst on the brakes, hold a line on acceleration and get the power onto the track without spinning.

With some very much appreciated advice from championship leader, Seb Bulpin, we tweaked the damping on the front end, and with a turn of preload off the rear with some soft pressures in the tyres, which made all the difference. This time I had a fairly good start into 10th place before the first corner and had a good line ready for Druids harpin, but unfortunately, a rider up front made a mistake on the brakes, running wide and causing a chain reaction behind, and I ended up being caught up in someone elses mess. I dropped back a few positions, but found myself in a close battle for 6th place.

The race started to settle down and I was sitting in 9th place looking for an opportunity to pass when I was slipstreaming a rider in front of me coming onto the home straight, when without warning, he completely closed the throttle and pulled into the pits at the very last minute. I had to hit the brakes very hard, coming within millimetres of hitting his rear wheel and crashing at well over 120mph.

Again, because of a very bad manover on the other rider’s behalf, I was caught up in a mess that wasn’t my own doing and lost a position and about 3 seconds as a result.

Despite this, I finished in 10th place, which I’m happy with considering my lap times, which I dramatically reduced by over a second from the first race and was now into the 49’s, only 0.4 of second off the top 3 lap times.

Thanks for reading,
Greg #31

You can follow Greg’s progress on www.gregjames.co.uk or www.gtsuperbikes.co.uk.

Also, be sure to visit GT Superbikes online shop; www.gtsuperbikes.com