Oulton Park Round 9

Round 9 of the British Superbike Championship saw the stock 600 class endeavour 2 12 lap races at the famous Chester circuit. As always we were the first class out bright and early at 9:00 in the morning with the weather looking like it was going to be very hit and miss throughout the weekend I knew we needed a quick start and to make the most of the dry conditions. I ended FP1 inside the top 10 which was the goal coming into the weekend. FP2 was an interesting session with the track starting out wet but as the sun came out the conditions got dryer ending just outside the top 10. Qualifying saw very similar conditions and I managed to build on each lap ending up in 13th for race 1.

Then came the start of race one. Starting from 13th it was important to get away well and make up as many positions in the opening few laps. It was going well until the 4th lap where I started suffering with brake issues, which was later put down to glazed pads. This made it very difficult to slow the bike and therefore it was very hard to pass into some of the overtaking areas. However, despite the problems faced within the race we ended in P12. Conditions were very similar in Race 2 where I was able to make a good start again showing some good pace in the early laps. Unfortunately, it took too long to make a pass on a few riders by which point the group in front were able to get away. This was really disappointing because I was matching their lap times but the gap was too big to bridge to the group. It was a good learning curve and I’m really looking forward to the next round at Donington Park in a few weeks time!