NGRCC Round 1 Donnington - RACING :)
Arriving at cold but dry Donington late Thursday night I set up for Fridays test day, having only done my ACU here the track as pretty new to me!
Friday test day
Today was spent predominately on the Mini twin, todays aim was to learn the track as much as possible and see what kind of times we could put in (quickly learned that you need some big balls for Craners!)
Saturday race day,
Saturday's weather proved to be a bit of a pain! Raining then dry the drizzling mixed with a little bit of sun and more rain! With the bandits I qualified 25th out of a grid of 33 and ended the race in 28th after a terrible start! (note to self- must work on race starts)
On to the minitwins qualifying! Again the weather being the critical factor there was rain before hand and after a quick walk round the paddock it was decided that wets was the way to go, after the first few corners it was clear that the track was dry as a bone! However I stayed out on the wets for all but one lap left in qualifying after losing the rear coming out of Redgate, luckily I managed to stay on but that was my qualifying over....33 out of 39.
Onto the race, a little more of the same rain then sun then rain then sun!! After seeing the track in qualifying I decided dry tyres was the best choice......I was wrong!
After the first lap and feeling confident I started to push on catching the group in front of me through Craner curves, feeling nice and smooth passed a couple of riders coming up to the top part of the track, as I came round mc'cleans the track was still damp and unfortunately I finished the race rolling round the gravel !!
Sunday Race
With the Mini twin now out of action Sundays Bandit race played out more or less the same as Saturday, mixed weather conditions and a a little loss in confidence meant results were not the best!
Castle combe in 2 weeks, minitwin to be fixed and bandit a quick once over then were good to go !!!