Brands Hatch British Superbikes – The so-called first round!

I was really really excited and slightly nervous about riding at BSB for the first time. I hadn’t raced against too many of the 56 strong entry list in my class and it was my first time at National level.

I’d also never ridden the GP circuit at Brands before but had gone well previously on the Indy short circuit so I knew I had some work to do. In free practice however it went really well. Out of the massive field I came back in 13th position, which was a great confidence boost as the aim was to be top 20 and I’d easily achieved this.

First qualifying however we’d made a few changes to the bike and probably gone the wrong way with some things and I was really trying to hard to add to that. I nearly went down at Druids on the exit when I lost the rear and it shot me up in the air only for me to land on the tank! I managed to qualify in 26th, slightly disappointed but it’s a steep learning curve as people keep telling me and that was that.

To my disappointment, second qualifying was wet, but I went pretty well in the rain and was 9th fastest which was encouraging. I’d not ridden on Pirelli wets since my novice days in 2006 and I wasn’t really trying to hard either knowing I couldn’t improve my time from the previous day.

Sunday raceday came and errrrrrrrrr well it snowed. Then it snowed some more. Then they cancelled, actually scrap that, they re-scheduled the meeting for May!

All that build up for that! Ah well, Thruxton next!

By: Sam Middlemas