Daunting didnt describe my 1st thoughts when we trundled up to brands,i have never ridden the track,seen 2 you tube vids,had new tyres and not sat on the bike since oulton park ,hmmm forward planning -fail.luckily we were met by neil c only to be told that some of these new guys looked extremely quick,a fair recomendation from a former class b man that bothered more than a few class a boys in his time !.Ok the aim was see how the mighty 96 goes with new belts ,brakes etc,see if we can qualify and get into a good old class b scrap.up in the morning damp and foggy,Phil(ghost) and the gang,nogs,and ross (welcome back boys)were already up cooking breakfast,reminds me of the good times in the paddock,so after a cuppa and reminicences of mine and kims valentine capers i wondered over to paddock hill bend to see what it really looked like ,all of my motorcycle heroes from chris walker to ghost have comented on that drop off,they wernt far wrong !! doh oh well we have come this far .
http://www.ducatisportingclub.com/im...milies/eek.gif So off we go for qually 2 laps to scrub the tyres,3rd lap sideways up druids (should have been 3 laps scrub tyres !)5th lap it turned out was about a nats wotsit off a lap rcord,thatll do nicely.
on to the grid,i got pole 6th overall,acompanied by scott and the mighty badger,and the new class b boy chris.Off we go,fair start i thought,but whats thisthe new kid on the block is harassing the class a boys and buggered off,kev p ,scott jimbo (another welcome return )all go flying by,somehow after the first druids tangle i managed to come out 2nd class b and set about chasing chris,he was very quick and i couldnt latch on to that group but felt good and carried on untill bradders and chris had the unfortunate sleeping police man incident !with chris definately coming off worse. i inherited the win,but need to sort my starts out this year if i want to get on .
Race 2 ,crap start-those models disturbed me!! (not in a good way )somehow managed to stay in the no mans land ,although i didnt realise just how close scot was at the end,and did have a bit of a battle with jimbo.At this point i have to say,that there are a lot of newbies this year ,for whom the whole dd thing must have been extremely daunting-some were away up front giving it all,some got lapped but achieving their own goals (the reason we are all here )some just had a crap run and the bike threw a proper wobler (enough of the niceaties -thats dd racing !)

anyway chris apparently harassed the class a boys (nice one mate ) and ran in with a very credible win,phil seemed on it this time ,bike probs sorted,race head on ,kev p definately had race head on ,never saw much of bradders but great to see him competing at the sharp end ,class a is going to be fun this year .
Race 3 better start a couple of class a in the way !!(i know,who would have thought ,)ok so i had my arse handed to me next lap but it was fun while it lasted,cracking race ,and eventfull had an ace battle with jimbo (the man is back )and scot and badger,we had some epic corners ,and very like sorted,we could drop into a corner with confidence and just race (isnt that why we are here ) after elles and spences demise the race was called,i took the 2nd ,chris took another win and scot in another fine 3rd.
It was great to get that under my belt,great to meet some of the new boys and gals,ace racing and fine company as always.Just as great to see the old hands its what the dd paddock is abo

ut.So nice al and summer could see the sorted bike prevail,although i have a cunning plan for that !.
big thanks to kim ,penny and olly for pit crew,to trudi and kev ellis for just getting us all there, last but not least to the racers that have toiled in sheds and garages all winter and just made the effort to be there,this is going to be a great season up and down the grid-come on snetterton .
p.s i just found out that screwfix direct is NOTa dating agency !