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Round 3 Croft

Friday

Friday started early for Dave with the Metzeler National Superstock 1000 riders out first at 9.30am for their 25 minutes free practice. To add to the pressure it was raining and provided the riders with their first wet session this year.

Dave reported that the bike just wasn’t handling at all and it was soon discovered that he had severe front tyre issues that were causing all of the problems. As a result of this, he only managed to complete 5 laps in the whole session and lost valuable setup time.

3.30pm brought the 1st qualifying session, and without any setup time, this put Dave under pressure not only to qualify but also to work on a setup for the bike. As the session went on, Dave was getting on the pace and going quicker with almost every lap, before a red flag brought the session to a close following an incident with just over 6 minutes left on the clock.

The decision was made by the organisers to add the remaining time to the 2nd qualifying session on Saturday, this weekend just didn’t seem to be going Dave’s way finishing the shortened session in 35th with a lap time of 1:29.218

Saturday

After getting in some decent laps during qualifying one, Dave decided to change the gearing on the ZX10R to better suit the Croft circuit and look to improve his qualifying position today.

Following the changing conditions on Friday, the schedule had been changed meaning that the Superstock 1000’s would now be heading out for 2nd qualifying at 2.15pm.

So, with the new sprocket combination in place Dave headed out for the lengthened qualifying with just over 31 minutes to get as far up the grid as he could.

We watched the session from the spectator banking overlooking ‘Sunny Out’ which gave us a great view of the track. Dave looked smooth and was controlling the wheelie over the slight rise onto the straight much better than most.

As usual he went faster as the session progressed, finishing 27th fastest with a much improved lap time of 1:26.369 This put Dave 28th overall and ready to start the race in 27th on Sunday as Lee Costello unfortunately won’t be starting the race after the off which caused Friday’s red flag.

Sunday

Changing conditions were the order of the day throughout and caused chaos for all of the classes, the conditions were neither fully wet nor fully dry and the drizzle came and went all day.

The decision was made to go out on ‘dry’ tyres and after another hard fought race, Dave brought it home in 26th, a great result in far less than great conditions.

Round 2 Oulton Park

When we arrived on Saturday morning, Dave and his team were very busy making some major changes to the bike following free practice ... These included changing the rear spring no less and discussing the merits of changes to the gearing to improve the bike for Qualifying in the afternoon.
With the rear spring changed for a heavier one, and the gearing left alone for the time being, qualifying 1 was upon us. This weekend the qualifying wasn’t split into groups and 48 bikes headed out onto the track!

Dave finished the session in 34th place with a lap time of 1:44.028 with an average speed of 93.16mph. He came back complaining of problems on the brakes, causing him to run on in a few places. It appeared that he wasn’t the only Kawasaki rider experiencing these problems in the hot weather at Oulton. Much discussion followed on what might be causing the problems and what should be done to resolve them in time for Sunday’s Qualifying 2.

Sunday morning came, and on arrival in the paddock we chatted to Dave about what action he’d taken with his team on the brakes issue. With new pads and fluid up front, he was confident that things would be better today.
Qualifying 2 was not until 5.10pm and without a warm up session Dave was straight into it. The changes to the brakes have made a difference and Dave puts in a 1:43.669 lap with an average speed of 93.48mph which was a great improvement, however it was soon evident that everyone else had managed to improve too, with Dave improving just one position into 33rd, and into the shootout race on Monday.

Monday brought along the prospect of 2 races around a very physical circuit in hot, but windy conditions.
The grid had been announced for the 6 lap shootout race and Dave was to start 7th (if I remember correctly?). His race pace was good and he finished 6th, with a best lap of 1:43.357 even faster than his qualifying time, ensuring his place in the main race in the afternoon.
That afternoon came around very quickly and before we knew it, he was back on the grid lining up 36th and ready for another 15 laps of Oulton.
This one was to prove a very tiring race and Dave reported afterwards that he felt it was never going to end as the last 5 laps seemed to last forever. Despite this he managed a best lap of 1:43.786 on lap 11 and finished the race in 29th.

Round 1 Brands Hatch

Due to the large numbers of entries and the short lap of the Indie circuit, the riders were split into 2 groups of 25 for qualifying (A & B), Dave was in group B.

Each group had 2 qualifying sessions (1 Saturday and 1 Sunday). The bottom 20 riders overall went into a shootout race (Sunday afternoon) of which 10 qualify for tomorrow's race.

Dave was 19th in Quali 1 and I think 20th in Quali 2? (Live timing went down with 2 mins to go), he had problems with the rear wheel change halfway through qualifying 2 which lost him some time unfortunately, but was going quicker and quicker.

This put him into the shootout race, where he started 9th and finished 8th.

On Monday for the main race, he lined up 35th on the grid and finished the race 26th after a frought race, which ended up in two parts following a safety car and red flag. He came on really strong towards the end of the race putting a very brave move on David Gowen into Paddock Hill followed by a similar move on Bruce Anstey a couple if laps later.