National Superstock - Oulton Park
G’day
Oulton started well for me as I managed to secure the fastest time in the wet conditions on Friday. It gave me some time to adjust to the circuit which I hadn’t rode for a year. I find I always start off steady at Oulton as it’s a little daunting while your trying to pick up your speed.
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During the dry Qualifying the team and I were working on gearing and suspension settings as this was the first dry session for me. We found a good solution with the bike for John (Lav) and myself and I. We were trying many different things and therefore it cut our testing time in half.
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For the second Qualifying session I could only manage 3rd position. The time I set was slower than last year, although I did make some mistakes as I pushed too hard. I was happy with a front row start, and confident the Ducati 1098S would launch well against the Japanese bikes. I knew if I was to get out in front there would be very few places the other riders could pass as the Ducati has such a faster entry speed into and through the turns.
Sunday, race day! It was raining and there wasn’t an end it sight.
I have always liked the wet conditions but this was starting to very bad, turn one had its own lake plus the rest of the circuit had rivers flowing cross it. My mechanic Rick and I discussed what we were doing with the bike, we decided to set one bike like we had on Friday, which was very soft and worked very well in the conditions, and the other we left with our dry settings in but we reduced the pre-load. The harder bike was there in case the rain stopped and I felt it would have been a better option for the changing conditions.
So out of pit lane I went, looking for all the puddles and rivers before I lined up on the grid. I chatted with Rick about the conditions and I was feeling really relaxed, until we went to start my bike and it wouldn’t turn over. A few attempts were made to get it fired up but nothing was happening, so I ran to pit-lane and grabbed my spare bike (set up for the dry!). I knew I had to make it out of pit-lane before it closed, luckily I did and I then took my new grid position, 39th – the last man!
My game plan had changed for turn one, it was stay up and get through the pack as fast as I could. As the field entered Cascades for the first time I could not see a thing, riders were bumping off each other and I was a little worried at this stage. I pushed on and came across the line on lap one in 10th, I knew from there I could still win, if I could keep it rubber side down. I made a few more passes before catching my team mate J Lav on the exit of Lodge corner, we came up over the rise side by side rubbing paint as we crossed the line to start lap four. I had just moved into fourth position when the red flags came out due the weather conditions, I was enjoying it out there but I was definitely happy to have the race stopped.
My next European race is Brno followed by Brands Hatch and then back in the British Championship to Croft.
Ciao
Bren #155
