Brands Hatch British Superbikes Round 4

As the first round of the year at Brands had been snowed off on raceday we had to start in the places we had qualified in earlier in the year. Due to various reasons I’d been bumped up to 23rd on the grid and now having seen the track as I hadn’t before the first round I was feeling quite good with my old team back together to get a good result.

We totally reset the bike and got a setup during the free practice. We started off with the bike as soft as it would go and just kept making alterations. After I’d got the bike somewhere near I added some more compression to the forks and in warm up I matched my qualifying from earlier in the year. The only difference was I wasn’t trying very hard in warm up where as in the qualifying session a few months back I was right on the edge and on the verge of crashing on new rubber. This was on very worn rubber yet I was feeling great. I spent warm up chasing Jonathon Railton, another great little rider in the series, and I managed to pass him before the end of the session. This left me feeling confident for the race as he was starting just infront of me.

In the race I got off to a bad start when an old problem reared its ugly head and the Triumph dropped out of 2nd back into neutral and this lost me a lot of time. I ended lap one in 24th so I’d gone down a spot but quite a few guys had crashed so in reality I’d lost loads. I made my way past a few guys, passed Jonathon Railton going into Stirlings, got a good drive out and I’d got Tom Gazzard lined up for a pass. The next thing I knew there was a safety car out. Tom sat up behind the pace car and he seemed unsure of what to do. This was Tom’s first BSB race so I can understand a little confusion by myself and the guys behind were annoyed at this as he was letting the pack get away! We couldn’t pass him due to the rules. Tom realized what was going on and gave chase to the pack as I did.

Then me and Kieran came over Pilgrims Drop to suddenly be greeted with a wall of bikes and a Kawasaki touring. We both had nowhere to go; I did an emergency stop after being nearly flat out and did a big rolling stoppy and just avoided hitting Jess Trayler square on. I clipped him and then bounced into my good mate Bruce Wilson. I wanted to try and carry on but the throttle on my bike had been ripped right round and my radiator was damaged. I knew there was a problem as the bike was red hot on the gauge. I had to pull in and then find out that I’d knocked Bruce off. I apologized straight away and after watching the accident on TV his team agreed I had no chance and had nowhere to go.

I went up to see Toby to get an X-ray as my arm had swelled up so much from where I had hit Bruce. It was good news though and there were no breaks.

Another bad weekend it can only get better surely?!

By: Sam Middlemas