PART 2
Sorry about that, I had to have a tom tit.
Having spent a rather long time in the humid and embarrassing conditions of the New Era prize giving (which wasn't their fault, but the fault of the riders that didn't turn up to collect them!) I strolled back, worried that Kate had been left on her own to start cooking the food for the party.
I needn't have been concerned, Kate had been joined by Chris (OWTBAR) and John from the Valentino fan club and was busying herself by giving them all the flak and banter back that she was recieving from them. It's a firm feature of the gilled wonders race reports that he always makes a big deal about the support he recieves from his crew, and twitters on about what a great bunch they are. Well, as it goes, he's right...they're awesome. I'm gonna say they're worth a second....no, a second and a half a lap. In alot of respects, he owes his success to them, not to his riding ability!
As the weather detreriorated, I stressed that no-one would brave the conditions and we'd all wake up in the morning looking like Pavarotti cos of the mountain of food that needed to be consumed.
Not a problem, the wetter it got, the more sheepish people turned up at the edge of the party tent looking like half drowned, very hungry meercats. I pranced about like a kneecapped Basil Fawlty, offering beer and burgers and trying not to fall head first into the BBQ in my slightly embarrassing attempt to please eveyone at once.
"You revel in this don't ya" Said Ghost
"I love to entertain" I gushed, like one of those turds off that program where they all have dinner at each others house then slate one another!
Hehe.....
Shep and crew set up another gazeebo to accomodate the frogspawn of people that had amassed further, and then capped it off with a wicked twisty light tube and some bangin' tunes.
Erin and Graeme Blakey's little dude, Ruben boogied outside in the rain and everyone had a fabulous time. We were very pleased, and quite proud of what we'd done for Lucie. Gribfest rocked!!
A little lie in for the next morning was ample reward for the previous days efforts, and we Suzukied up to Cadwell feeling far more awake than the day before...it wouldn't last, it was gonna be a tough day.
It was still a little cool for qualifying, and we decided to reduce the tyre pressures to see if it would make a positive difference. Wrong.
I once again got into the 49's for qually and claimed second on the grid, but to be honest, I'd hoped to do a 47 at least, considering the previous days easy pace. I had a look at the tyres when I got back in, and they had started to wear rather unusually. I didn't know if this was due to the previous days pace, or the change in tyre pressures, but I knew one thing...as much as I'd be happy to ride a track day on them, I didn't much fancy trying to beat Shep on them. Trouble was, I couldn't afford a new set, as these were virtually new anyway!
Cue Cliff Meakin, one of our sponsors from Rossendales in Lincoln. He turned up and made absolutely nothing of buying me a new set of tyres. Well, he wouldn't have done if Holbeach had any for sale. Cue another hero...or 2. Steve Mason had bought a brand new set of tyres and Andy Pike was going to have them for Castle Combe, but they both kindly agreed to let me buy them and replace them at Combe. Cheers Cliff, Steve...and Andy.
Andy Pike commented that the conditions weren't the same as the day before, it wasn't as fast and that I wouldn't go as quick as the day before, so I shouldn't fall off trying. He didn't mean it nastily, and quite frankly, when a bloke with his experience and knowledge says something like that, you tend to listen. Fortunately, I have the memory of a ******* goldfish, so I'd forgotten that little gem of advice as we rolled onto the grid for the first race.
There was absolutely no way I was losing this race, even though I had a brand new set of tyres to scrub in on the warm up lap. I followed Shep on the warmy lap and tested the tyre to see how much grip it had...answer?...plenty!...sweeeet!
They say that the better race craft you have, the better your race recollection is, and that you're able to break it down into sections and replay minute parts, moves and episodes that went off.
I can't remember a soddin' thing about this race, mainly because it was stopped 3 times. The only real recall I have is that each time, I tussled with Shep and struggled to outbrake him into Park, but was stronger or equal pretty much everywhere else and once I'd broken free managed to gap him easy enough. Each time the race was red flagged as some catastrophe kicked off, I'd glare at Phil the starter and find it impossible to be annoyed with that wonderful, toothy grin he's got. In the end they binned the race due to fuel concerns, and this turned out to be a massive stroke of luck for Shep.
It turned out that his bike was on the fritz, due to a hole in the tank that was leaking fuel. If the race had run its course, he may not have finished. Flipping in the previous days race, being gifted a chance to fix his bike the next. I don't believe in bad luck and good luck, but sometimes you have to wonder!
That race was due to be re-run at the end of the day, time permitting, but in the meantime, we had race 2 to run, and it came around quickly. Shep had changed his gearing and fixed the tank. He'd also had planty of chance to see where I was stronger, and to his credit, he used it very well in the first 4 laps of the next race.
I got a great start as Shep tried to wheelie again and got a good drive down park straight, but christ that blue bike is fast, and with his revised gearing managed to squeeze by into Park once more (next trackday I'll spend braking as late as poss into that damn corner!) and played a brilliant game of pole putting (copyright Kenny Roberts junior) to keep me at bay in the places he knew I could pass. Eventually I managed to get past on the run out of Park and got my head down to drop from consistent 1:48's to 1:46's and a 1:45 at the end. It was a shame we'd had the aborted races as Chris had timed me within a few tenths of the lap record set by Hawkman in 2007. Strangely enough, despite this, my 6 lap race time compared with Hawks was only about 7 tenths slower in total.
It was an amazing race, and frankly, I've never spent such an extended period of time in such close proximity to another bike without actually being worried about crashing. As Shep mentioned in his report, we have huge respect for each other, lairy guys in the aborted race, please learn that lesson!
So then, with the final race reduced to a 4 lap sprint, I was worried. Shep had done an amazing job of watching and learning and employing skilled tactics to hold me off for 4 laps, even though I was on a complete mission. If he managed the same in the next race, it could be a problem.
I once again got away well, but it didn't matter, I was passed into Park AGAIN!!.AAARRGGGHH!
I followed in close pursuit, then passed again, but christ knows where, cos we were both knackered from the earlier adreniline charged re-starts and efforts. I pulled a gap and figured I had it won.
Now his crew call him Valentino, but I think he should be called Troy, cos his mental make up is more like the Aussie hardman.
If you had a pretty good gap on me in the championship, knew I was prepared to get into the 45's to beat you and were a second down with 2 laps to go, you would be forgiven for settling for that and not risking a bin, but the WSB champ once famously said that he'd rather stick it in the hedge than finish second, and despite me having some lurid slides on the penultimate lap, Shep pulled out a shocking lap that was about 7 tenths quicker than he'd gone all weekend to gain on me and pass me into guess where??
I wasn't too concerned, because, I'd been getting awesome drive out of barn all weekend and had even managed to get enough over him to pass on power going into Coppice in one of the earlier races.
Sadly, we came upon Ross Anderson as we hurtled into the Old Hairpin, and we both nipped inside before Barn, but this ruined my plan of holding back slightly and getting the drive on Shep over the line. He won a well deserved race by 0.16 of a second.
It was quite frankly, THE best race weekend of my life. I don't think I've ever ridden that well and everything else that happened just solidified that.
Huge thanks to friends, family, sponsors and all the great people that surrounded us all weekend.
The amount of people that want to join DD is staggering, and it is mainly because of the people.
Big respect to Shep for matching me when I was on great form, Will for doing a haga and getting 2x 4th 's despite the pain, and Matt T for riding the ass off that 583, despite his smoky antics!
Give youselves the clap
Otei #85
Great photos by Glyn richardson.