My first round back after getting back from Afghanistan was Oulton Park in the Cheshire countryside.
I settled slowly into the Friday test day. I hadnt been on a bike since March, and I had also never been around Oulton Park. This could be interesting. After walking the track on Thursday evening I realised that Oulton Park would take a lot of learning before having the bottle to really push it. So Alex was roped in to show me and Leigh around on the Friday test day. However the weather was amazing, sunny all day and barely a cloud in sight.
I settled slowly into the Friday test day. I hadnt been on a bike since March, and I had also never been around Oulton Park. This could be interesting. After walking the track on Thursday evening I realised that Oulton Park would take a lot of learning before having the bottle to really push it. So Alex was roped in to show me and Leigh around on the Friday test day. However the weather was amazing, sunny all day and barely a cloud in sight.
Leigh was in the same situation as me, having never been round Oulton before so we started off steadily following Alex's line's as best as possible, but within 2 laps he had well and truly buggered off. I looked behind me and Leigh was nowhere to be seen either. I pottered round trying not to do anything stupid on the blind corners. Eventually the session was red flagged. Upon my return to the pits I found a pissed off looking Leigh and a bemused Alex sat there.
Leighs bike was still churning out less power than a suffocated moped and Al's new forks were far from being perfect. So for the rest of the day until all of our problems were sorted we were pretty much on our own.
The second session was once again red flagged and I had felt like I was making progress. Taking about 4 seconds off my time. But as I returned to pits Leigh and Al were both there again. Leighs bike was producing uneven power, which during the corners was scaring him half to death, and Al's bike decided to spring a leak from the radiator due to it being mounted too far forward and rubbing against the wheel. Day over for Alex!
For the rest of the day I steadily improved my times getting down to a 1.58:7 which I was quite happy with. Leigh fettled with his bike after every session, tinkering with the wiring loom, checking connectors and just about everything else bar recruiting voodoo magicians to cast spells on his poor bike. And Alex quite justifiably just skulked around the garage after not being able to get a spare radiator for tomorrows races.
Here's to a good day tomorrow.
