Oulton Park – Round 4
When we arrived at Oulton Park I had my mind firmly set on improving on our last result at Silverstone, where we had a bit of bad luck. After our first two sessions on Saturday I was happy with how the day had gone and we were further up the order than what we had been at the previous rounds on the first day. I also couldn’t believe how much fun it was to ride a 600 around Oulton Park!
As I went out on track for my first qualifying session I was confident that I could improve my lap times and position on the grid. I did manage to improve on my lap times doing a 1 min 42.1 secs, but I slipped back to 21st on the grid, which I was a bit annoyed about. However, I did my time on race tyre where as some of the people infront of me had used a qualifying tyre.
Qualifying two for me was all about trying to get further up the grid for the race and if possible improve on my best qualifying position of 16th. This did not go to plan as the weather conditions weren’t as good as the first session so the lap times weren’t as quick. I did go two tenths of a second faster and ended up 16th in the session but overall I qualified 21st.
After finishing warm up in 16th position I was quietly confident we could finish in the points if I could get a good start in the race. My initial start was quiet good and I made a few positions up going into the first turn however I went down too many gears and lost all my momentum going down the Avenue. I finished the first lap outside the top 20, so I had some work to do. I decided to settle down and find my rhythm, which I did and I started to pick off the riders in front of me one-by-one. By half way through the race I had got to the front of our pack and was in 15th position. I then tried to pull away form the group but where I had got caught up with the other riders I lost a bit of rhythm and found I hard to pull away. With five laps to go two riders came past me so I tried to get back past them but I couldn’t quite do it. I ended up finishing the race in 17th place, which I was reasonably happy with as each weekend we are slowly getting closer to the front runners pace. I am now looking forward to Snetterton where I won my first ever British Championship race. Once again I would like to say thanks to all the Centurion squad for doing an excellent job all weekend.
Thanks
Dan #20
