Darren Thomas - Race Report MRO Championship Round 3 - Oulton Park 16 April 2001

 Pre-Meeting
 
I had my work cut out for me this week as the crank case join had been weeping due to the gasket sealant used was vapourised by the Unleaded fuel and the fuel was slowly working it's way out. If fuel can get out, air can get in which can lead to detonation and lack of power.
The engine was removed, split and reassembled by Tuesday evening. I was knackered. New pistons were fitted with old rings to aid running in. A practice day was arranged for the Saturday which meant that Penny and I travelled to the circuit Friday evening so that we could get up bright and fresh for the practice day.

Unfortunately, Steve our trusty mechanic could not be with us as he was put on a 2hr call out at very short notice so it was just the two of us again. My brother Richard kindly volunteered to be with us for Sunday evening so that if we had any problems come race day, he could assist. Cheers mate!

Saturday 14 April - Free Practice Day

The rain poured down and the track was very wet. I used the old race worn wets to keep the tyre expenditure to a bare minimum a and although I was bringing my times down quite nicely, there was a surprise rider. Steve Kuenne appeared to be the man to beat in the rain. Personally I have never seen or heard of him before, but I just could not stay with him in these conditions. Damm...he was smooth.

The next session was again wet, but a dry line was slowly appearing around 3/4 of the circuit. I decided to stay out on my wets and trash them as they were well worn already. Trash them I did.

A quick break for lunch and we were out again for the third time. It was now dry all round and the feeling of being out in the dry again was great. Ooops! Spoke too soon. Jeremy Goodall took a tumble at Island Bend and the session was stopped. He was OK and the bike managed to get off quite lightly considering the speed of that corner. 10 minutes later the session was resumed, but I managed about three laps before the session was finished. Just when I thought I could get some dry laps in.

The forth and final session was a downpour, so I decided to sit it out and strip the bike and give it a loving clean. There was a little dispute about the power being switched off in the garages as there was no racing or event on on the Sunday, thus the track officials decided that the power should be switched off until Monday. You can imagine the reaction from those who paid extra for a garage and then a further fifty quid deposit for the key. Finally they crumbled and the power was turned on.

We decided to have an early night and get a good lie in tomorrow.

Finally arose from the pit at 10.30am and had a shower etc to get back into the land of the living. I broke all tradition and took Penny down the road for a pub lunch which was very pleasant, plus we managed to get back to the circuit in time to watch the British Superbikes on TV. Excellent!

Monday 16 April - Race Day

Up at 6am to get ready for scruitineering at 7.30am. If I organised this I would get some scruitineering done on the night before so that everyone can have a bit of a lie in, plus there is less hassle in the morning. It is this side of the MRO which is still very much like a club event, rather than a National Championship series.

Free Practice

We had a 10 minute free practice which went without drama. I used some old slicks for this session to keep costs down. The rear looked so good after the session that I decided to be a real scrooge and turned it around so the left side that was hardly worn, was now my right side and almost as good as new.

My times never set the world on fire, but then I was only riding at 75%, however they were relative to the others. There were 40 riders out this weekend which is quite a few less than Silverstone. I guess some put their toe in the water to find it's a little too hot right now and they will return later once the experience has built up a little.

There were a few fallers in this session towards the end but no casualties which was good.

After a brief discussion with Penny it appeared that I was on the pace but the main rivals were too, so I would have my work cut out for me in qualifying. As we ase an on board lap timer I asked Penny to show me the rivals lap times on our pit board so I knew what times to try and beat. This was a cunning plan which will help us to set the pace required.

Qualifying

This session is full of mixed emotions. Over the winter period I had it on good advice that a 3.5" width front wheel helped the Honda's lazy turning problems by making the front tyre more pointed, rather than the old 3.75" width that offered slow turning and holding tight lines was mission impossible.

The session was 20 minutes long (my watch must have been slow today as it was not 20 mins. from when the circuit opened to when the chequered flag was shown). After some warming up laps I got me head down and tried to get the pace up. In BSB I had posted a best time of 1:39.2s so I was hoping to improve on my 1:43s lap from earlier.

The problem was there were just too many slower riders on the circuit and it was almost impossible to get a clear lap without having to give something a wide berth. I tried to find a clear patch, but the field was very spread out.

My most entertaining lap was when I was on a 'hot lap' with no traffic, but as I shot out of Shell Oils Corner I could see Ricardo Ballerini cruising on a slow down lap  towards the Foulstons Chicane. I had hoped he would have looked behind and moved over before negotiating the chicane, but no. I was faced with either slowing up, or performing a do or die braking manoeuvre. I decided to brake and sit behind and waste the lap.

As we exited the Chicane Ricardo did look behind and I think he was startled to see me almost touching his exhausts. Fair play to him, he did move over and wave a  hand to apologise. I was in such a panic to get around for another lap that I forgot I was now in 2nd, rather than 3rd and as I accelerated away the bike pointed towards the heavens over the brow of the Hill Top section. 

Well the next lap was also ruined so I just hoped that what I had done so far was enough. As I shot past the start/finish line the red flags came out. I sat up, braked and slowly made my way around Old Hall Corner. At the end of a session there are normally marshal's here to direct you off the track, but as there was no-one I continued along my way to go to pit lane. I was also being followed by another rider so I assumed the session was halted for a fallen rider, rather than stopped altogether.

This is where the fun started.

After 20 minutes we rushed over to get the time sheets to see how well/bad we did. I was in 5th spot with a note at the bottom which read, "Bike 18:- Fastest time taken away by Clerk of Course." 

I shot to the Race Control where I was taken to an interview room and told by John Ward (Clerk of the course), "You ignored the red flag. You were told where to exit the circuit when seeing a red flag and you rode past this. You also did this at Silverstone so we decided to penailse you" (I thought, Owch, sounds painful, I'll just take my medicine and retain my wedding tackle thanks).

I replied, "I saw the red flags and backed off. There was no chequered flag (well, I never saw one) to indicate the end of a session so I figured a rider was down and hurt so I was going to return to the pits as the session had not officially finished to my knowledge. Plus there were no marshal's directing us off the circuit in the normal place, however when I looked over my shoulder I saw them running onto the circuit, so it's your fault, not mine. Oh, if it also happened at Silverstone you should have mentioned it then as Silverstone is now history and has no relevance on this meeting".

Well, they decided (probably as the decision was made and to adjust the time sheets would be inconvenient for them and cause a delay through confusion) to stick to their guns which I figured was totally unfair and unjust. Hence I was 5th on the grid and appeared to be 0.4s slower than what our lap timer indicated which is also a little worrying.

Derek Welch secured pole (well done mate). We were all taken by surprise at this. No disrespect to the chap but he shocked everyone with this performance as he was 2 seconds clear of everyone, although I have it on good advice that this is one of his favorite circuits.

He was on a very fast TZ. So fast in fact that there was no chance of staying with it on the straights as it simply pulled away.

You may guess that I was feeling very disappointed with the whole affair at this time, plus I had been noise checked twice already which was very odd. Surely they would have a record that I had been checked already?

Jason Gillard had an early bath as he was 40th on the qualifying sheet, but only 39 are allowed on the grid. 

During the imetrim period between qualifying an drace we stripped the bike to inspect for any detonation problems. All looked fine, however when we reassembled the water pump seal gave up the ghost and started to leak. AAAAAggggghhhh!

Penny shot out armed with part numbers and Richard and I stripped the bike (again) to get to the bottom of the problem. These seals are easy to replace providing youi have the correct tools etc.

After a minor panic with not being able to find a part, Frank Swain came up trumps with the bit required (many, many, many thanks). This was quickly fitted and all was well again with 1/2 hr to go. A new rear 701 Dunlop was fitted for the race (oh, last of the big spenders).

Race - 12 Laps (2.775 miles/Lap)
We formed up on the grid and there was a slight delay before the red flag was raised and all attention focused on the lights. Red.....Red......Red.........Green!

I almost had a great start, except instead of going forward the bike was heading for the moon. I had to back off and let Apollo 13 land before giving it a large twist of the wrist Part Deux. I was in about 10th spot and determined to get back up the front. A few overtaking manoeuvres later I was in 5th and then stuck behind Andrew Sawford. I say stuck because his bike (2001 Honda) had superior power and I could only just hold onto him along the straights if I was in the slip stream but he would pull just enough gap to make outbraking very difficult Finally I outbraked him into Lodge after getting better drive out of Druids, but the red flags came out and the race was stopped.

We formed up on the grid again and waited......waited.....waited.....

Ricardo Balerini had fallen and taken out another rider, however the delay on the grid was that they were trying to repair his bike so he could get out in the race again. What's that all about?

With respect, if you crash and the bike is damaged that's it. You don't hold up a grid of 38 bikes for repairs to carry on with tyres going cold etc. If another rider had a fouled plug for instance he is normally directed off the grid and the race carries on regardless, despite the fact that a plug can be replaced in 30s. 

The bike could not be repaired so we were allowed to continue with the race. Many thanks, that was appreciated.

Green lights again and GO!

 My start was less than impressive and again I was behind the same 8 riders. I swiftly passed Lee Hodge and then passed Lea Gourlay (2000 reigning Champion) into Knickerbrook. His Aprilia is also a very fast bike and staying with it along the approach to Knickerbrook was a difficult task.

Then I saw Andrew Sawford. I reeled him in quite quickly, however his bike was so quick that I struggled to get into a position to pass him on the brakes at the end of any section. I waited for a couple of laps to see where he was not so hot and decided it was on the section between Clay Hill and entering Druids (hope he can't read this so he can improve this section). I could also have a go exiting Druids as Plan B.

Plan A was good and as we crested Clay Hill (flat out in 6th - 225km/hr) he shut the throttle and I shot past in a fraction of a second. Phew! You need to be very confident to do that one at this point of the circuit and the new front wheel width offers better turning characteristics for these moves as I was off line slightly to make the pass but the front allowed me to turn in a little tighter and not loose too much speed.

Because I had been behind Andrew for a few laps I was loosing sight o the two leaders (Jeremy and Dave). I was slowly pulling them back, but the gap was too big to make an impression on. I was pulling strongly away from Andrew which gave me a 6s buffer at the line.

The race was won by Derek Welch.  Well done mate, a blindin performance, followed by Jeremy Goodall who put in another strong ride from the start.

Jeremy had jumped the start by a country mile and was awarded a 10s penalty. I had hoped that the gap between us was less than 10 seconds so I could get 2nd.

Guess what? He just happened to be 10 seconds and 3 hundredths of a second in front of me so I lost 2nd place by 3 hundredths of a second! What a nightmare. So close, yet so far.

My lap time in the race we recorded on the lap timer was 1:40.73s, not 1:41.03s as detailed on the result sheet. That is backed up by Penny and my lap timer. I think we will watch the timing very closely from now on.

The final cock-up of the day was that I was directed to Park Ferme rather than allowed to circulate to the Pit Lane behing Derek and Jeremy to get on the podium. I mentioned this to one of the marshal's but he insisted I went to park ferme (maybe someone ought to brief their crew better). Surprise surprise. I was noise tested again! Must have been the beans I had for breakfast.

I waited and waited in Parc Freme to be told where to go, but no-one arrived. Finally I just thought sod them, parked the bike against the fence and walked back to the caravan. Penny came rushing up asking where I had been as I was supposed to be on the podium. I missed the podium, missed the podium interview and probably appeared to the spectators that I never showed because I was sulking or something.

I hope this never happen's again as it would be a very poor show if it had been televised and the sponsors would have kicked up a real fuss.

I was happy again with 3rd as at least it shows consistency, however Oulton Park (which I love to ride as it's so much fun) will not go down as a happy memory and the sooner we move on to the next circuit, the better. Although I would prefer it if the straights at the next round were not so long as my bike appears to be lacking in the power stakes at the moment.

We are out again at Snetterton in Norfolk (just outside of Norwich on the A22) on 22nd April.

Don't miss it!