[skidlids]

Desmo Due Rd 6 Donington Park

Friday testday
Spare Bike ran well but had some serious judder under braking while playing with a GSXR1000, I don't think running standard ST forks helped

Race Bike performed well, but got Black flagged for Noise in 3rd seesion. I don't believe I was over with the baffle I had fitted and as the Tacho had packed up and I wasn't prepared to stiffle the engine any more with a more restrictive baffle I sold my Afternoon sessions to Brian Bates as it was his first time at Donington.

Spent late afternoon/early evening Scrutineering getting through between 30 to 40 bikes and even more riding gear.

Saturday Raceday

Free Practice OK taking another couple of seconds off of my practice day times, Quallifying was in two parts finally taking place over only 3 laps but managed another improvement putting me 14th on the Grid.

Saturdays Race (race 1)

Not a Bad start but Alan Ball came flying past on the run to Redgate and nabbed my line,costing me a few more places,started working my way back up the order and had just passed Brummy Dave and Alan down the inside into Redgate when the Brake lever came back to the bars, a quick stamp on the rear helped me avoid collecting them both and taking us all into the kitty litter.

Replaced the AP racing Pads with New EBC HH pads, flushed the fluid and refilled with Shell 5.1 and improved clearance between right hand caliper and disc, then wait to try in Sunday warm up


Sunday

Warm-up, Chance to bed the new pads in, all seemed well

Race 2, Fair start and dropped in behind Kev P, when Ghost's bike slowed coming out of Goddards Kev P swerved to the left and i swerved to the right to avoid him. Kev then made a mistake and ran off track at Coppice, I could see he was still upright so new he would be rejoining and trying to chase me down, what I din't realise was Tony Norman (Parkkit Racing) on Matt Lawsons bike and Alan Ball were right on my back wheel and without Kev P in front of me I let my guard down and they both swept by, what followed was a great battle all the way to the flag with places swapping on a regular bases and my lap time just dropping into the 1m 55s

Race 2, Another good start until Tom came right across my front wheel and if I hadn't braked while cranked over we would both have been on the deck, as this stood the bike up a bit I had to run wide and several riders dived down the inside so I again dropped in behind Kev P, around Shwantz his right foot came off the beg and unsettled him so I took advantage and passed him, knowing kev was right on my rear wheel I got my head down and by the 3rd lap i was again into the mid 1m 55s and again on lap 4, on lap 5 i nearly lost the front on the change of direction through the Foggy esses and it wasn't long before Tony and Alan were again swapping places with me, Tony tried coming around the Outside at Redgate and on the exit was bouncing violently across the curbs, so much so I backed off a bit to give hime room to get back on track, this allowed Alan to pass down the inside. A lap latter Alan was on the Grass down Craner and again i backed off as it was obvious he was going to be rejoing at the wrong angle and at speed after the Old hair pin and before the bridge, as Alan passed in fron of me I moved to the right and headed for into Shwantz only to be passed by Tony who had carried more speed into the curve and got ahead of me.
All through the race Ghost was not far up the track ahaead of us and with 3 laps to go his bike started smoking on the down changes, with two laps to go I couldn't see him or his bike or the entry to Redgate due to the amount of smoke and this into the Old hairpin, macleans and Coppice, heading doen the straight towards Foggies Tony was braver than me and on the same line and Ghost with the bike billowing out smoke, so I moved off line incase I had to avoid two bikes, as it turned out Ghost ran off track and Tony sailed through Foggies while I on a tighter line had a slower entry and had to swerve around Ghost rejoining as I headed to the Melbourne loop, I managed to close the gap a bit on Tony but he beat me to the flag.

As normal with race weekend I sorted out a few people with more of my spares including Throttle assembley, Oil pressure Switch and a MAP Sensor, even ended up removing a front caliper from the Spare bike

Good to see Craig bounce back from crashing his 996 in Class 1C, there were a few crashes over the weekend but among the DSC guys I don't think there were any serious injuries and most were back out racing at sometime over the weekend. A couple of Blown engines, Pete Blomfields 996 will probably cost a bit more to fix than Ghost's 620 and Andy Blomfield will be looking for a Swingarm to fit a early Monster.

Great riding by the top guys, Andy C with 3 wins dispite his practice day crash, Andy P with two seconds and a 3rd and Dallas for his 2nd and two 3rds.
Great to see Tom get his first win, Chris to come back from his Cadwell Crash with a couple of excellent results and Spence also again getting a couple of great results including a win and putting it all on the line to try and get a step higher on the podium in race 2

Also thanks to Bernie the Cheif Tech for sorting the Dyno runs and Tony for carrying out the checks, as it hppens the Dyno is still reading slightly high by around 3%, from the results I got to see at least 4 bikes measured were over their class limits although I wouldn't suspect any of them being outside the rules and if i did we do have enough money in the DD fund to lodge a protest. I'm sure Tony will look at the figures and try and reduce the error to give a more accurate reading.

Great to see everybody and appreciate Mark and Wendy Shore travelling all the way up from Cornwall just to support us all as Mark couldn't race having suffered several broken ribs when he lost out in a fight with a cow. also great to see Matt Lawson and family coming up from Kent not only to keep an eye on his bike but also supporting DD.

Condolences to Steve Mason and his family on their loss this weekend, the DD paddock misses you

Good to see so many DD supporters in the Paddock, from the Regulars such as Roy, Sandra, Buggsy, Steve, Shel and family along with those that travelled up from Oxfordshire

Finally big thanks to Trudi for looking after us all, along with sorting the raffle, late entries and phoning around drumming up the Marshalls required so the meeting could run.

Weather was very kind to us lets hope it is at Cadwell in 3 weeks time when hopefully all those with bike problems will have them sorted out in time.