OK, on to Sunday's racing.
1st race GTU, the biggie.
This is a 30 minute endurance race, and believe me, it is a test of endurance. It was about 85 degrees and 30 minutes is plenty time to get exhausted in full leathers.
Gerard and I were gridded next to each other in the 6th row. The race started without the carnage of the saturday races and we soon settled into lap times that were the best of the weekend so far. I was averaging 1:24 and Gerard was averaging 1:27 with a best for me of 1:23 and 1:26 for Gerard. I was fortunate enough to get plenty of space in front of me so I wasn't held up in the double chicane "no passing" area by backmarkers. Gerard was not so lucky and I think he was significantly held up by the backmarkers. I spend the whole race dicing with a guy on a GSXR600. We swapped places about 5 times during the race, but in the end he beat me to the line by 7 seconds to bring me home in 6th place, STILL NO TROPHY! but 7 championship points. For some reason (probably a transponder glitch) Gerard was logged as a DNF for that race, but he was actually no worse than 10th because he did 21 laps and was about 1.3 laps behind me. I passed him on lap 19 of 22 and took the opportunity to give him the "Rossi finger" coming out of turn 2. All in good fun (sorry dude, I couldn't resist it). I am sure I am setting myself up to be on the receiving end of that later this season, as Gerard's times are fast approaching mine I am sure we will see plenty of
on the track before the season is out.
Unfortunately, Gerard had to leave at this point leaving me the only team representative for the HW superbike and MW grand prix races.
HW superbike.
Gridded in 6th row for this race and after a pretty good atart spent the whole race battling with another CBR600F4 for 6th place (again!!) I was beaten into 6th by 2/10ths of a second and if I could get just one more lap I would have had 4th as I was gaining on the next two guys with each lap. I was very very happy with this race as I beat many GSXR750's GSXR600's and 1 Aprilia Mille and had a best lap time of 1:22.5 (my best official time yet) and 13 more championship points.
Last race of the weekend was MW Grand Prix. I have never entered this race before but I thought I would give it a try as it usually has a fairly small field and I could possible get a good grid position. There were 19 entries and I got a primo grid position of 4A. I got a flying start and got myself into 7th place by turn 3. Each lap I seemed to get past someone into turn 3 and move up another place. I knew I was in the top 4 by the 6th lap when a yellowDucati came past me like a bolt of lightening. I thought it was a 748 which would push me back a place on the finish, but it turned out to be a 996 which was competing in the supertwins class in the same race. I could see two bikes ahead of me every time I hit the start/finish straight, and it turned out that they but gotsome bad luck in the chicanes again when I started to catch up with the sv650s which were backmarking. I thought I had got a 4th or 5th at the end of the race but as I approached the NESR tent people were jumping up and down and putting up 3 fingers. They had heard on the PA system that I got third which was way cool. I picked up 11 points and a shiny trophy. The thing that capped the weekend was the fact that I recorded a 1:21.019 in that race, which was the fastest lap of the race. This time would have put me middle of the board in Junior/Expert so that is also encouraging. It may be time to move up in a couple of race weekend's time.
I want to say thanks from Gerard and I to everyone who came up and cheered us on and helped out. You guys ROCK!! We couldn't do it without you, and I really mean that.
Degsy