The team and I got to Oulton on Thursday night and had to wait till Friday morning before we could get in to set up. After setting up we walked the track.
While we were walking the track Mark told us that the track wouldn’t offer much grip so early in the morning and to be careful as he didn’t want to see any of us bringing the bikes back in the recovery van.
I went to bed early as our first session was at nine o’clock. I went out and took my time to remind myself of the circuit layout. After a few laps I started to push harder and feel for the grip and like Mark said, there wasn’t very much!
I ended up in 6th but I was happy with that as I didn’t push my hardest due to the conditions. The second session had so much more grip now due to all the bikes that had been round and the temp getting hotter.
I ended the second session in 2nd with a lap time of 1:49.2.
Next up was our first qualifying session. I was struggling with qualifying as every time on the exit of Lodge (the last corner) the bike would just wheelie, I came in and told Mark and he said it was maybe the way I was riding the corner so I tried it in 2nd gear and that was my problem sorted.
Toward the end of the session my pit board showed only six minutes remaining, I knew that would give me three more laps so I pushed real hard, setting the fastest first sector but then I caught a slower rider into the hairpin which ruined the lap. My last 2 laps the same kind of thing happened, I caught slower rider’s right towards the end of the lap. As a result I was 8th on the grid One tenth of a second quicker would have put me on the front row!! I ended the qualifying session with a lap time of 1:49.164 and 2 seconds faster than my best time last year.
On Sunday we had second qualifying but it was raining so we knew no one would go faster. I was still in two minds whether I should go out or not. So I asked Mark what I should do and he said it’s my call as the forecast for our race was for good weather, I decided not to go out.
I then went to go see Fred Clark (Circuit commentator) and Fred interviewed me.
Our warm-up session was on a damp track which was okay, as I had to run a piston in and ended the 10 minute session in 13th.
Not long after warm up I started to feel ill so I went for a sleep felt a lot better after I and woke.
After a long wait it was finally time for my race. I got a good start but due to me making a few mistakes in the first few laps I had dropped down the field to 12th. Once I had calmed down I settled into a good pace and started to gain places. On lap seven I set the fastest lap time of the race. I could see two of my team mates ahead of me and focussed on catching them. I managed to catch and pass them within four laps and on the last lap I was with in passing range of the fifth placed rider but as I went to line him up my bike started miss-firing. All I wanted to do then was just finish and try to keep my position. Just before the start finish line, the same thing happened again and my team mate, Tom Hayward, just beat me across the line by 0.033 seconds.
I finished 7th overall (3rd in cup and fastest lap by a Cup rider), which is my best finish at this level and I had made it onto the Academy Cup podium.
Timmy#50
