We arrived at the track early Thursday evening, Steve dropped us off as we can not use the truck as of its weight problems. The weather was nice and sunny at Mallory on Thursday but it did not matter what the weather was like as we were not out till Friday.
Friday came, it was wet, windy and very cold. The British Superbikes were first out to check out the track as it was in quite a bad state due to the weather conditions. This session ended up causing a lot of tragedy as Ollie Bridewell an up and coming talented young Superbike rider sadly passed away due to a awkward crash that he had during the session.
We later found out that all practice sessions had been canceled due to the bad weather and also because of the unfortunate passing away of Ollie Bridewell.
Saturday soon came around and the weather had hardly changed, it was a bit better as it was not as windy nor was the rain pouring as hard as it was on Friday. All qualifying sessions had been canceled as BSB organisers were a day behind scedual as practice sessions had to be canceled. They sorted our grid positions by where we were on championship points. I was frustrated about this as I am not very far up in the championship. We done one of our practice sessions on Saturday which was wet but not dangerously wet thankfully, I had a good session and really enjoyed the wet, I found that Mallory was a lot grippier in the wet than Oulton is in the wet. Towards the end the track started to dry out mainly around the first corner. I ended up 29th fastest in the first session. On Sunday we had our second free practice session which was sunny, nice and dry. I had a good session and gradually went quicker as the session progressed. I eventually got down to a 1:04, but my transponder wasnt working for the last few laps or so.
It was eventually time for our race and so everyone made there way onto the track and we done two sighting laps and then lined up for a race start. The red lights went out and I got a fantastic start, I went through almost 3 rows of riders. As we all came up to the first chicane I nearly hit the rider in front of me, a few other riders came passed me as the person in front of me broke a bit early which is why I nearly hit them, as I tipped into the chicane it was very tight and close and I brushed fairing with some one, after a few laps I found myself in a group of 4 other riders. We was all battling to get passed each other and I made a couple of passes and got passed two of the riders when my bike started to cut out, I just ignored it and didnt exspect it to carry on as it stop for a couple of laps, until it came back two laps later. I tried pulling the clutch in and reving the bike to see if I could clear the engine out just in case it had a slight fuel blockage. This did not make no difference and it got worse and worse, I decided to pull into the pits as it had got so bad that the bike was completely cutting out mid corner which could result in me falling off, as if the bike was to cut out completely mid corner then there is a chance that I could be highsided as the rear wheel would lock up. By the time I had pulled into pit lane, the bike had cut out and did not want to go any more, Im still not sure of what is wrong with the bike but I think maybe the quick shifter could have been messing with the engine and making it cut out as the quick shifter was not working when I was changing into top gear. I was in 18th position at the time and had made places up after having to start in 26th.
I would like to say a big thank you to Andrea Martin at Leyford Construction for sponsoring me as well as Steve and Rebeca Ulbrough at I.T North.
I would like to thank RS Racing for there expertease with the bike although we had a bit of a problem in the race.
Thank you also to D.C Butler Motorcycles and Keith Townsend.
I would also like to thank MSS Discovery.
Tags: circuit, 125cc, racing, Jess+Trayler, mro
