Anglesey Race Report

This is a one off ride for team Graphic UK who are currently leading the Hottrax Junior 1000 Endurance championship; I was asked to ride for this round and jumped at the chance.

The Friday test day was a complete wash out – which was fine by me as I needed some wet weather practice and certainly got plenty of that – also learnt the circuit again and really enjoyed the day.

Race day looked like being on and off tyre changing weather but luckily the rain stayed away and the slicks were on- I had never used the Pirelli slick and with no dry testing time was a little unsure how they would handle the settings from the Dunlops - so I left the settings on from the wet to see how it went. Luckily it wasn’t a million miles off and although I knew it could be much better I didn’t have time to make any changes.

First Qualifying was halted because of a huge slick of oil that ran twice round the damp circuit and I nearly fell but luckily escaped and stayed on - however Bas my team mate was not so lucky and had a slide – luckily not damaging much but his confidence. In the re run the track was covered in sand and dust from the spillage so it was a bit of a tip toe around – Bas gave me the transponder for the whole session as he didn’t fancy it - somehow I managed to get us on Pole.

Come the start I made a sprint across the track as was first off Le Mans styleee and soon settled in to a rhythm, the grid had a large ability range and I was in traffic by the 3rd lap which certainly keeps you on your toes. I managed to pull around 25 secs in the first stint which I was very happy with and still felt tip top and ready to go.

Bas however was suffering more from the crash than we thought and had dropped his pace – we soon lost the advantage and when I got back out we were a lap down on the leaders and in 3rd place. I set about going a bit harder this time and soon was back in 2nd place – about half way through the session I passed the lead bike and pulled a big gap on him – the pit board was still telling me 2nd place tho which I didn’t understand but I was later informed I had un lapped us to put us on the same lap as the leader but still way down. The change over went well and Bas was out again.

Again we lost some time in this session even though he had upped his pace and was lapping very consistently, we were back in 3rd when I was out again with no chance of catching the leaders but a slim chance of getting us back into 2nd. I went as hard as I could but the tyre had definitely had its best so I had to be sure to finish and not do anything silly. I managed to catch and pass 2nd place but only towards the end of the session and didn’t get a chance to extend the gap by too much. I had done my part now and it was up to Bas to get us over the line and see if we could hold onto 2nd or 3rd place.
Bas was again lapping well and it wasn’t until close to the end that he was passed again to pop us back to 3rd place, however a stroke of luck for us came when the leaders fell off with only minutes to spare and moved us back into second place! We crossed the line only 9 secs behind the leaders which was a great result considering. We also got the fastest lap of the race.

To make it even better for the Graphic UK team their closest rivals all had DNF’s or bad results helping to extend their lead in the championship.
I would like to say a huge thanks to Bas and Stu (Mr Graphic UK) for allowing me to ride with them and for being such a cool team to ride for – it was relaxed and fun all weekend and if you ever need a rider again you know where I am!!!

Big thanks to Turner Motorsport for making the effort to come all that way and take some awesome pics as usual.

Most Excellent!