CADWELL PARK - MRO ROUND 6.

19th - 21st Aug  2005.

Not the luckiest weekend ever...

 FRIDAY PRACTICE SESSIONS.

It had been a while since Triple MMM Racing had been to an MRO meeting, so we were expecting it to take a while to get back up to the pace of this higher level of racing. We had booked in for the Friday test day, but as usual this year, the weather was terrible on the practice day.

Andy went out for one session in the late morning as the track was just about dry. We made a couple of small set up changes for the afternoon session, but in the end we did not test them as the rain set in again. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting the bike ready for qualifying on Saturday.

SATURDAY QUALIFYING.

Qualifying 1.

We knew we needed a good lap time in the first session of qualifying as the weather was not looking too promising for the afternoon. New tyres were fitted and all was ready for a good session.

Andy got his fastest lap on lap 4 with a time of 1min 35.523 seconds. This put Andy in pole position until near the end of the session, when Chris Bishop put in a faster lap. Andy was getting faster throughout the session until he had a huge moment in the first corner. Mid corner, before getting on the throttle the rear of the bike slid away, Andy doesn't know how he stayed on the bike as he was sure it was all going to end in tears. I guess the new WP shock still needed a bit of fine tuning....
Andy was provisionally second on the grid, 0.36 seconds off pole position.

Qualifying 2.

The weather was still holding out, though it didn't look like it was going to last. We had spoken to well known suspension guru Clive Horton before Q2, and he said to lower the rear ride height, as the near crash from Q1 was probably due to there not being enough weight on the rear of the bike mid corner.

Andy was fired up for the session, and really wanted to improve his time from the morning. Again he made a good start to the session by improving his lap time on his 2nd flying lap. In mid session Andy was struggling with traffic so did 2 laps at a slower pace to get himself some clear track. He then set about going for a fast lap and managed to get in an improved time of 1 min 35.161 seconds. This was to be Andy's fastest lap of the session, as the chequered flag came out just before he crossed the line.

Andy had qualified 2nd and had closed the gap to pole position down to 0.207 seconds. Considering the lack of track time we had had lately we had to be pleased with this.

SUNDAY.

Morning warm up.

This was spent running in some new pistons and rings for the race. All went well, with no problems.

Race 1 - 10 laps.

Andy made a fantastic start, and took the lead off the line. He was slowly but surely pulling away from the chasing pack until on the 4th lap there was a crash that forced the race to be stopped. Andy had a lead of over 2 seconds at this point!!

The restarted race was due to be over 7 laps.

This time Andy didn't get off the line so well, and finished lap 1 in 5th place. He then seemed to attract crashes all round him. Every time he made an overtaking pass, the next guy in front seemed to crash out causing Andy to need to take evasive action and loose the places he had gained. Again the race was stopped early when there was another crash on lap 5. The result was declared, and Andy had finished 3rd. This was very disappointing as a win was defiantly on the cards in the first part of the race. 16 championship points are OK but the full 25 would have been better.

 

Race 2 - 10 laps.

As in race 1 Andy made a great start, and was leading at the end of lap 1 with Chris Bishop very close behind. This time though, Andy was not able to pull away. Andy lost the lead on lap 3, and then started to drop back through the field. The lap times were very erratic. Standing on the sidelines, it is always difficult to see what is going on, but something was definitely wrong. Andy eventually finished in 5th position. Again pretty disappointing. At the end of the race, I found out that Andy was having bad trouble with traction, as soon as he was getting on the power out of the bends, the rear would spin up and almost throw Andy off the bike. He decided to play it safe and just get a finish.

CONCLUSIONS.

Considering how good the weekend could have been, we went away from Cadwell a little disappointed. We obviously need to do some more set up work with the new rear shock. The 3 championship front runners had a bad time of it also, so we have managed to claw back 15 points on the championship leaders.

It now looks very unlikely that we can win the championship, but a top three could still be on the cards. The championship win is still mathematically possible, and anything can happen in racing.

Check out the 2005 Gallery page for photo's from the Cadwell Park meeting.