Silkolene British 2 Stroke Championship blogs

Round 4 -Landrake 17 May 2009

We were at Landrake for round 4 of the Silkolene 2 Stroke championship and although the weather and track conditions were fairly awful we enjoyed a good day of racing.

Qualifying. For once Tom managed to keep his head during qualifying and stuck to the plan.  Take it easy during the free practice, find some clear track and get some quick laps in early before the track deteriorated too much.  This worked well and he qualified 14th.  We were delighted.

Race 1. With the track so muddy we decided there is only one of two places to be in order to avoid the inevitable first corner carnage and keep goggles clean – at the front or at the back.  “I don’t want to be at the front of that lot – they’ll ride all over me” he said, so we decided to sit on the line when the gate dropped, stay out of trouble for the first lap and see what happened. The plan worked a treat, except that nobody came off in the first few corners and he was left trailing around at the back on his own. Oh well, “the best laid plans…”  Never mind, Tom rode superbly well, cutting through the pack like I’ve never seen him do before and was up to 24th by half distance but then had to stop and change goggles.  I dropped his replacement goggles over the fence and neither of us could reach them – he lost so much time it hurt but when he got going again he was as fast as ever and eventually finished 25th and 13th in class – but for the goggles incident he would have been top 20 in the race and top 10 in class,

Race 2. We stuck with plan A for race 2 because conditions were even worse. Again nobody came off but he was on the charge straight away and was up to 22nd within 2 laps but got a bit greedy in the woops and crashed.  He was right at the back before he got going but rode superbly well to get back in to the top 20 after just a couple of laps before somebody crashed in front of him and sent him cart wheeling. That knocked the wind out of him a bit but he didn’t stop trying and passed a few and caught right up to a bunch of about 10 before the end. He finished 30th in the race and 18th in class. A great ride but disappointing result.

Race 3. The sun was out for race 3 and the track was drying so he decided to race from the start, having gained a bit of confidence from the first two rides.  He had a reasonable start and was right in amongst the pack.  After a few laps he was in 20th and shaping up to go past more but the dreaded woops had him off again when trying to make a pass.  The handlebars were stuck in the mud and the wheels at the top of a woop – he really struggled to pick the bike up and then he couldn’t start it.  He was miles behind but I was really pleased to see him get stuck in and probably had one of his best ever rides with lap times as fast as most of the top 10 in the race but he was so far behind it was a lost cause really.  Another 30th in the race and 18th in class – again a disappointing result but at least he showed some real determination and effort.

Net result for the day was 18th over all so we shouldn’t be too disappointed but we are.  At least he seems to have gained a bit of confidence in his ability and he’s now showing signs of riding somewhere near the standard he was at before his crash last year and he continues to improve every ride.  Hopefully he has sorted the qualifying problem, we’ll have to see at the next round – Whitby on 21 June.