ACU British 250cc Championship, Castle Combe 28/29 July 2007

Another great meeting, yet again one which started with a few difficulties but real progress has been made this weekend and it means we are now 4 ^th in the British 250cc Championship.

The week building up to Castle Combe was both wonderful and demanding following the birth of our 3 ^rd son Kaden on Friday 20 July 2007. The birth went smoothly and both Sus and Kaden are coping very well. Hence the decision was made to attend Castle Combe. Obviously preparations were limited and we arrived too late to attend the briefing and noise testing on Friday (not helped by a road side traffic inspection forced upon us by local traffic police shortly after setting off which took around 25 minutes - the ABSracing vehicle passed with flying colours!).

This meant Saturday was rather more hectic than planned but with the support of my good friend and fellow racer Nigel Lawrence we prepared for the busy schedule of practice and races. This was the first time we had been to Castle Combe and before the meeting I had been studying the circuit guide and a Youtube onboard camera view to familiarise myself with it’s layout. To get further track time we entered the ACU Clubmans Open Championship, this would hopefully give enough practice to learn the track fully bearing in mind most of the 250 front runners raced at Castle Combe in 2006. Untimed practice for the Open was followed straight after by the 250 practice. To accommodate we put in extra fuel to cover the combined distance of both because there was no time between to re-fuel. The bike ran well following some vital maintenance after Oulton park and after around 20 laps a respectable time of 1m19s was completed (fastest 250cc lap in 2006 a shade under 1m14s). The track has some great characteristics including a flat out 6 ^th gear kink and a manic braking 1 ^st gear chicane before the last corner (this turned out to be one of my favourite parts where alot of overtaking was made!). The Open qualifying only 20 minutes after the 250 practice saw lap times fall to 1m18s (14 ^th out of 37 – against Superbikes and Supersport 600 bikes) and further progress was made in 250 qualifying with a lap time of 1m16s – 6 ^th place on the grid.

The first race was a rerun of the cancelled (due to severe rain) Silverstone race and was Saturday afternoon, fortunately this time it was dry! At this point fatigue had set in and I had a rather lethargic start dropping to around 7 ^th . A further place was dropped on the 2 ^nd lap, a coming together and a retirement meant 3 places were gained during the 3 ^rd and 4 ^th laps but at the same time a near high side meant I lost two places. After a few laps regrouping in 7 ^th place and some good racing I managed to climb up to 5th and held this position till the end of the race, which was cut short by a lap due to a red flag. Progress was made yet again with a fastest lap time of 1m15.21 around 1.5s behind the fastest lap of the race. Overall a good result and some useful points, the lesson for tomorrow to get a good start! The weather however was out of our control and the heavens opened Saturday night.

Sunday morning started well after a good night sleep, in addition we awoke to sunny skies! Additional support was gratefully received from Adrian who arrived Sunday morning. Practice was a good wake up call and extra track time was available with the ACU open race. Due to the nature of the grid – stuck in the middle of 1000 & 600cc bikes on a 250 – I decided to start from the back of the grid because the purpose of the race was to get useful track time not to compete for places. I experimented with different lines and even though lap times were no quicker than Saturday it was invaluable practice prior to the main event later.

I was much more focussed for the British 250cc race Sunday afternoon, a few alterations were made to the bike and the used rear tyre ‘spun’ (reversed direction) so that grip was better on the right hand side. I visualised a good start prior to the race and put this into action when the lights went out holding 5 ^th place into the first corner. The front runners who had already been running in the 1m13s on Saturday started to pull away slightly and I was overtaken on the 2 ^nd lap by the pole sitter who had also been into the 1m13s on Saturday – I wasn’t too concerned as I knew it would take more track time to get into the 1m13s from running 1m15s on Saturday. I quickly built up the pace and was soon being held up by the rider in front. It took several laps to get past into 5 ^th place but shortly after I was consistently running in the 1m14s bracket. The rider in 4 ^th place was around 3s infront at half distance of the 15 lap race and I wasn’t sure if the pace I was running was quick enough to catch. I was constantly learning and after a few laps really started to get a feel for the track and I set a lap in the 1m13 bracket, this meant I quickly caught the rider in front and overtook going into the 1 ^st gear chicane. I kept my head down constantly running in the high 1m13s - low 1m14s bracket and was elated to cross the line in 4 ^th place around 6s behind 3 ^rd place. A fastest lap of 1m13.84 was set only 0.5s slower that the winner’s/fastest lap of the race and pretty well identical to the championship leader’s fastest lap. Considering this was our first time at Castle Combe it really was a great result!

This has built further confidence following the success at Oulton park not just because of the good results but because lap times on par with the leaders have been completed on new circuits and with relative ease!. The next meeting is at the recently rebuilt Anglesey circuit. This should level the playing field and I’m looking forward to making further progress. We are 4 ^th in the championship around 18 points behind 3 ^rd and 6 points ahead of 5 ^th . I am still aiming for 3 ^rd place come the season end in addition to stepping on the podium again at one of the remaining three races.

For detailed results please visit www.theresults.co.uk