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NESR racing had it's first weekend as a two-man team last weekend and everything went very well indeed.
The weekend started for us on friday morning when Gerard and I were met at the track by Jay and his daughter Kelsey. Gerard, Jay and I put up the tent with kelsey supervising. We got the thing up and ready in double quick time and had the bikes under it and ready by early afternoon. We spent the rest of that day setting up tools, working on the bikes doing last minute changes and checking out the jetting on Gerards bike with help from Mark.
Saturday arrived and Gerard went out for early practice, having gotten his bike tech'ed early. He was very pleased with his first time out as he pulled in a couple of 1:32 lap times. This was pretty impressive as the powers that be had added a new chicane at turn 12 which I think was slowing people down by 1-2 seconds.
We had entered the following races for the weekend.
Gerard :
Rookie race
HW supersport
MW supersport
MW superbike
GTU
HW superbike
Derek:
HW supersport
MW supersport
MW superbike
GTU
HW superbike
MW Grand Prix
Saturday at 12:00 was the roockie race time. Gerard gridded in the third wave as there were so many entries. He did his job and finished without crashing to gain his race licence. He actually won his wave, so he was all pumped up for his first real race.
Sat, race 2 Heavyweight Supersport.
There were 43 entries for this race and I was gridded around 25th, with Gerard gridded around 30th or so.
The race went very well for me with a 6th place finish and a best lap time of 1:23.628 picking up 13 championship points, but 1 place off a trophy. Gerard did no fare so well, he crashed out in turn 6 (the bowl) fairly near the beginning of the race. He finished the race with a broken footpeg, shifter and bent clutch lever. He finished the race 1 lap down but with a very encouraging 1:26.863 best lap which would have given him about 12th place if he had not crashed.
Sat, race 5, Middleweight supersport
There were 50 entries in this very hot class. Again, I was gridded about 25th and Gerard was back about 30th. After a bad start for me and some major crashes, we re-gridded after a red flag to re-start the race. I got another bad start (caged in with some slower riders), but after a very tough race i finished 13th for 3 more championship points and Gerard did very well finishing 18th with a 1:27 best lap time.
Sat, race 11, Middleweight superbike
39 entries in this race, with Gerard and I gridded next to each other on pit row, in 25th and 26th place. bThis was a fairly uneventful race, with gerard and I both making up places on the start and not getting passed throughout the race. I finished 14th with Gerard 18th again. 2 more championship points for me with a 1:25 best lap time. gerard was in the 1:27's again. Very consistent stuff from gerard. The problem we are finding now is that if you are back in 10th or so on the first lap, the leaders will get away from you because there was no passing allowed in the new section of chicane, so backmarkers would hold you up for 3-4 seconds through that section with nothing you could do about it until the start/finish staright when you could power past tham, but by that time the guy in front of you was long gone.
I will post an update with Sunday's results in a while.
Degsy