The vicarracing.com

Round 5 - Snetterton

First of all I want to make a big thanks to John from STP Motorsport and Ben from Briken Motors!

The weekend started not quite the way I had hoped. After Donington Park the feeling I was getting from the rear shock we thought it would be best to get it to Ohlins as soon as we got to Snet to have it serviced and wanted to try a slightly harder spring. When we got the shock back Friday morning the guys at Ohlins played around with internals to get the rear shock to work better but I really struggled to get on with it finding the rear spinning up loads on the fast bends where I really needed to be on the gas and if I got on the gas harder I would be out the seat.

For the second session which was the first of the two qualifiers we made some adjustments to get the bike more rideable and found it helped but still didn't feel comfortable with it.

For the third session we had to do something because it was my last qualifying session and laying 18th on the grid I didn’t have much to loose, so I decided to go back to the older internals in the rear shock and just go out there and ride it!!!!!!!!!!!

But then 5 laps into the session I had tipped off going into the eses just after the Refit straight. I just out broke myself going into first part of it and had to sit it up and take to the grass but unfortunately couldn't stop the bike before I got to the tyre wall so I just had to lay it on its side thinking it wouldn't do as much damage. As I put the bike on its side we both hit the tyre wall, fortunately the bike looked ok! I then managed to get back on the bike and rode it back to pits hoping to finish the session but unfortunately I buckled the front wheel, then after getting the bike back to our setup we then found I had bent the forks, This was not good!!! This is where Ben and Jon come in, luckily Jon was back at the work shop and he had a set of forks we could borrow but they were in a bike, god knows how but Jon got them out on his own, I dread to think what the rest of the bike looks like ha ha ha! No honestly Thanks Jon! Then Ben drove from Trowbridge to Pontipool to pick up the forks, this is all going on sat eve by the way! And then drove up to Snet Sunday morning leaving home at 3am to get to us by 7am. Thanks mate! The guys then got them back in the bike with 5 mins to spare for the warm up sun. Mad!!!!!!!!!!

Finally the Race!

As the race got underway I got not to bad a start and made a couple of places but found myself struggling to get past Peter Ward, as a couple of laps went buy the next pack had gapped us by a few seconds, I then managed to get by Pete but then took me the whole race to catch that next group up, picking one of them off going into the last chicane and just off the back of Connor Cummings going over the finishing line in 13th from 19th on the grid.

This definitely wasn't a great weekend for me but the problems we had it could have been a lot worse so now I will be looking forward to Oulton Park and hopefully will be doing a track day before hand where we can try and get the bike working a bit better.

A BIG THANKS to all the team, the guys worked flat out to get me back on track and they did! Thanks guys!!!!!!!!!

Victor #28