Anglesea Round 4 and 5

After the disaster at Oulton we are once again back to the standard engine and due to losing lots of resources in the process we are forced to run 2nd hand tyres – and fit them ourselves.  With Jamie not able to come this weekend I have to do all the driving, riding and spanering on my own, I know I know - put away the violins!! 

I have never been to Anglesea before so I was really looking forward to the challenge of the new circuit.  The test day on the Friday went well with the weather near perfect and the track and scenery were awesome, I was having suspension difficulties and was wearing tyres out very fast – we used 3 old scrubs on Friday alone and never really found out why – Colin from 100% suspension was always on the end of the phone for me and we made some improvements but it was still not right.  Having no helpers there it was hard to get a good grip on my pace as I had no one to time me.
In qualifying on Sat it became clear we had a mountain to climb with the front runners breaking the lap record and me down in a dismal 10th place, luckily Rick had turned up and had lightened my work load and was there for moral support – I am not used to being that far down the pecking order and this was really needed.

First race is 20 mins plus 2 and I got off to a good start but only 5 laps in my tyres were sliding and the rear was wearing badly and I got sucked into the field and was fighting to stay upright let alone fighting for position – I crossed the line in 10th but way back – 18 laps had killed the tyres and I was tired from fighting the bike around – gutted.  I picked up the phone to Colin again we talked through everything and made some very radical changes to the bike, fingers crossed.
We put on the last part worn tyre we had hoping the changes would work and I knew almost straight away things were better – I didn’t get such a good start but clawed back a bit and in the 8 lap dash I finished 11th but I am sure we could have gone further up in a longer race – tyre wear was perfect – Colin you truly are a genius!!!

We talked over night and decided we had to try a new set of tyres to find if I could go any faster or not, we are not accustomed to running this low in the field and we really did not like to feeling!.  New tyre new day and I was much faster – the tyres made a massive difference and I was even pulling another gear alone the straight to get flat out in 6th rather than 5th.  This also allowed me to feel the front more and a few clicks and we are on a decent pace – unfortunately everyone else also went faster but we had improved a lot – down to only half a second of the old lap record with a standard motor – not too bad really but still only good enough for two 8th place finishes, had it not been for back markers at the end of a cooking hot 20 minute race it could have been much better as my fitness seemed to be better than those in front although after lap after lap of chipping away I lost it all in the last moments! Gutted but back on the pace and racing rather than trying to keep upright.