SILVERSTONE - MRO ROUND 3.

21st - 22nd MAY 2005.

A GOOD WEEKEND FOR THE TEAM.

Friday Practice sessions.

The main aim for the test day was to be getting a good set up for a new rear shock we had been waiting for since the start of the year. Unfortunately, again we were let down with the delivery date. So in the end we arrived at the test day with just the usual running in of new parts to do.

The weather however had different plans. It rained all morning, then just before midday the rain stopped, and the track dried quickly. Andy made it out for one session, and did the necessary running in. The rain then appeared again, so we decided that this would be the end of our testing.

Saturday Qualifying Sessions.

Qualifying 1.

Again we had rain, so the wet weather tyres were fitted, and Andy set off to try to gain a good qualifying position. The bike was not handling well in the wet. Andy was struggling with stability at the rear of the bike. Even so he qualified 9th in the first session.
We made some changes to the chassis for the next qualifying session which we knew would make a good improvement, and waited for the next session to start.

Qualifying 2.

We never got to try the chassis changes, as about 15 minutes before our next qualifying session. There was a 5 minute frenzy of extremely high winds, causing one of the large circuit hospitality unit to be blown onto the track. It had to be seen to be believed. This caused the rest of the remaining qualifying sessions to be abandoned. So Andy would start from 9th on the grid.

Sunday Race Day.

Overnight we carried out the usual clean / inspect and rebuild and found no problems.

Race 1 - 12 Laps.

Race one went perfectly. This has to be the easiest race report I have ever had to write. Andy made a fantastic start from the third row, and got the holeshot into the first corner. He then lead from start to finish with a comfortable gap being made in the first 5 laps. Andy for once took notice of the pitboard, and eased off a little to cruise to a comfortable win. Andy's first MRO race win!! Andy also took the fastest lap of the race with a 1min 6.016 second circulation.

Race 2 - 12 Laps.

After the comfortable win in race 1 Andy was very confident of a good result in race 2. This time though, the weather was becoming very changeable, with some bursts of rain and showers starting about half an hour before the race. We decided to fit the cut slick tyres, as the track was not seeming to get too wet.

The rain stopped just before the start of the race, so in hindsight slicks would have been the perfect choice.
Andy didn't manage to match his start from race one, and finished the first lap down in 11th position. He then set about going through the field, and by lap eight, he was up to 5th place, just 1.3 seconds behind the leader. Andy was quite obviously the fastest rider on the track, and another win was looking promising.
On lap nine Andy passed Chris Bishop and Ian Gardener to take 3rd position on track. He was now right on the heels of the two leading riders. Unfortunately, near the end of lap 9  Chris crashed into Ian and the race was stopped early. Andy was denied the chance for another almost certain race win.

Andy was placed 3rd, but again got the fastest lap of the race with a time of 1min 6.974 seconds.

Conclusions.

Andy has now moved up to second in the championship, which is closer to where we want to be. For the next meeting the new rear shock will be fitted, so should give us some more performance. Some other changes to the engine are also planned, but as you can imagine, it's all hush hush stuff at the moment. It looks like the next meeting in six weeks time will be another good one.
 

The next race meeting is the MRO at Snetterton Race Circuit on the 2nd & 3rd July.