Oulton Park went really well a few weekends ago, I went well in my practice session and had a fantastic couple of qualifying sessions setting personal best of 13th position on the grid at BSB. The race went smoothly, I made the odd few minor mistakes but am pleased with how the race went although I was a bit dissapointed that I was unable to run with the group in front as 5 or more riders were having a “right old ding dong!”
On the positive side of things though I improved in my lap times from when I was previously there at the first BSB meeting there this year and I also scored some valuable points again as I came across the finish line in 12th place which I am really pleased with as I find Oulton park is a real riders circuit where you have to make the difference not rely on the power of your bike when apparently my bike is “a missile down the straights”.
Knockhill soon came around and what a hell of a journey that was! Luckily a friend of ours lent us his Nissan Navara Pick up truck to go there in which was brilliant as I think I most likely would have got car sick if we had to trundle all the way to knockhill in our motorhome which is only capable of doing 55mph!
I was quite surprised to wake up and find we had a dry track and so I set off for my one and only practice session… it went extremely well considering I have not done many laps round knockhill and I ended up 13th fastest out of 54 or so riders. Next day and this time I was not so surprised as I woke up to a typical rainy day in sunny Scotland! Our first Qualifying session was wet and I crashed after a whole 3 laps! so unfortunately I was almost dead last by the end of the session. I knew I had to make the most of my final qualifying session as I was in jeopardy of not even making the grid which would have been a real downer after two fantastic results at the two previous rounds. Well I did Qualify with ease and stuck it 21st on the grid which is OK but I was hoping for better. Race day and it was a Mr Last Minute Moment to decide weather to go for dry tyres or wet tyres. Thankfully we chose dry which was the best option to choose. I got a rubbish start to the race and went back 3 or 4 places, I made them up and then had trouble getting passed one of them which gave the group infront enough time to get a 8 second gap on me… Well to my belief I made it up but ran out of laps to pass the buggers so I came home in 21st but 0.2 off the group infront and 0.6 slower than the fastest man on track who so happend to finsh 3rd in the race! so I am pretty chuffed with my Knockhill Adventure!
Many Thanks to: MSS Discovery Kawasaki + Nick Morgan, Mark Davall Motorcycles Mark Clark at linxcel, Easypack, Venture Shield, dad and also a big thanks to anyone else who I have missed.
Thanks
Jess Trayler
Tags: racing, circuit, racing, 125cc, motorcycle
