Donington Duel

Donington Park – 22nd/24th October 2010

For the last round of the season we travelled down to Donington Park near Derby, the circuit has only recently re-opened after it closed following the collapse of the Formula 1 bid which promised a great deal but delivered nothing. I have spent many hours and laps circulating around Donington in the past, having instructed for the Race School there and I was really looking forward to going back. Heading into this meeting we had a 78 point lead in the championship and therefore with a maximum of 100 points up for grabs we needed 23 points to secure the title. I have to admit that it is nice to have a decent points lead but people had us down as having already won and as anybody knows it is not over until the ‘fat lady sings’. I think because of this it made Birdy and myself more nervous than normal and this certainly had an effect on my bowel movements leading up to qualifying and the first race.
Qualifying was held on Friday afternoon in dry but quite cold conditions, I guess this should not have been a surprise being the end of October. We had found a good set up for the bike during the practice sessions in the morning so we were confident of a good performance in qualifying. Out of the blocks I managed to set some pretty good lap times and with each circuit I came across the start/finish line to read my pitboard saying P1. I was happy with this as I was a little unsure of how hard to push in the cool conditions which does not help tyre grip at all. In the last few minutes of the session James Folkard managed to pip me for pole position pushing me down to 2nd. This was fine with me as it meant we had the front row start we were after.
We woke on Saturday morning to the wonderful sound of rain bouncing off the top of the van, as if we weren’t nervous enough the rain was just adding to our anxiety. The wet tyres were fitted to the bike and after several trips to the toilet I set off to form up on the grid for race one. Every man and his dog had been telling me ‘take it steady’, ‘don’t do owt daft’, ‘you only need to finish’, if only it were that simple. With these mantra’s ringing in my ears, the lights went out and off we set. I settled in to 3rd place and thought great, that will do! Over the next two laps I rode ‘steady’ and didn’t ‘do owt daft’, that was until three riders overtook me including Heaton. ‘Well that’s great’ I thought, ‘that plan didn’t work’. So forgetting everybody’s advice I got stuck into a great five rider battle for 3rd position. With the track now drying and all the riders on wet tyres people were slipping and sliding all over the place. With two laps to go I had fought my way back to the front of this group and into 3rd position, then the red flag came out and the race was stopped. This meant I was 2010 GP2 Champion! What a fantastic feeling, it was as if a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Chris had got the pitboard ready with P1, 2010 on it ready for the last lap but due to the race being stopped early he didn’t get the chance to show it, oh well. As a nice surprise The Boland’s brought out a cake with 2010 Champion on it, thanks very much, it was lovely cake!
As we had wrapped the title up in the first race, the rest of the weekend’s races were purely about having some fun. I say fun but the rain had started again and the track was awash. With the forecast for Sunday a lot better I wasn’t going to stick my neck out in these conditions. I had a fairly lonely ride for most of the race in 2nd position once Folkard had crashed out down Craner Curve’s. It was lonely until coming out of the last corner on the last lap I took a casual look behind me to see the following rider’s right behind. I quickly turned back around and hit the throttle as hard as I could, this was not quite enough and I was relegated to 3rd place. A bit of a schoolboy error that one, but not one that I could get too upset about.
Sunday morning arrived and as there had been some rain overnight I decided not to go out in the morning warm up as the track was still slightly wet and I felt there was nothing to be gained, plus being a true Yorkshireman this saved us some fuel and a little on tyre wear which is always a positive!
11am and it was time to kick off the first race of the day. James Folkard got the holeshot into the first corner and I slotted into 4th place. I quickly passed Conner Tagg and Ben Gautrey and set about chasing James down, after a couple of laps I had passed Folkard but then was surprised when Heaton came passed from his 15th place on the grid. What ensued has to be one of the most fun races I have ever had the pleasure to be a part of. The three of us swapped places at every opportunity with no quarter asked nor given. Whilst heading down the start/finish straight with Heaton on lap 6 I looked directly across at him to see him looking back! I was laughing to myself for nearly the whole of the next lap. It all came down to the last lap; I was in the lead coming out of Coppice corner but knew Heaton would try on the brakes into the chicane. I braked as late as I could but sure enough Heaton was there on the inside, I pulled my bike in tight and as soon as we flicked over left nailed the throttle. We nearly touch as we crossed the finish line but I managed to bag the win by 0.027s. Now that was close. Folkard followed up less than a second behind in 3rd place. How the three of us actually made it to the finish line I am still unsure. Absolutely fantastic. I nearly didn’t make it back to parc ferme though, as when we pulled off the track and Heaton realised he was going the wrong way, jammed the brakes on and I ran into the back of his bike! Ooops, a bit of damage to the fairing, an apology to Birdy and we were ok. We stood on the podium to take our winners trophy but none of us could stop gibbering about the exciting race we had just taken part in, I hope the spectators enjoyed it as much as we did. This is one race you need to watch on TV.
After the excitement of the race earlier in the day I wasn’t sure I could take much more, but with the championship out of the way these really were fun races so I was more than up for a fight! I actually made a pretty good start, heading for the first corner I quickly switched to the inside to outbrake Tagg and came out of the Redgate corner behind Folkard. I manage to pass Folkard on the run up to Coppice and got my head down. As we came back to Redgate for the second time the Yellow flags were out for 4 crashed riders including my brother Leigh, the yellow flags were out again for another crashed rider Ian Popplewell at Craner Curves. Poppy was the 47th rider to have crashed at Craners over the weekend, which is quite a statistic, not that he was number 47 but that there were so many fallers at the same corner. Once past the carnage I felt very comfortable and was hopeful of another win. Unfortunately exiting MacLean’s on the lap two I lost all power and had to cruise to the edge of the circuit and park the bike up against the tyre wall. Not the way we wanted to end the season but these things happen. Folkard went on to a well deserved win with Heaton following him up in 2nd place and young (even younger than Heaton) Josh Daley making it onto the rostrum in 3rd. Well done lads.
This year I have had the pleasure to race against some great people including a lot of youngsters, who all have an astounding amount of talent and a lot of them will be at the sharp end of the British Championships in the not too distant future. To all of you I wish the best of luck.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people and sponsors who have helped and backed us this season, without this we would not be able to compete at the level we do. It is greatly appreciated. Also thanks to Roger Middleton of RMKD for keeping us on track with the motors.
A special thanks to John (Erv Kanemoto) Bird for providing the bike for the season and for just getting on with looking after it at the meetings. He might be a manager in BSB before long!
A quick mention also, to ThundersportGB for running a fantastic championship and all the marshals and officials for making the series a pleasure to be a part of.
Remember to keep a watch out on MotorsTV next week for the Thundersport programme which will show both of our Sunday races from Donington Park.

Final Championship Standings
Alex Hutchinson 603
Alex Heaton 527
Conner Tagg 436
Andy Lawson 400
Ben Gautrey 353

Mallory Park Mayhem

For round 8 of the ThundersportGB GP2 Championship we headed back to Mallory Park where we kicked off the season way back in March. The lead up to the meeting had been extremely hectic trying to get the bikes prepared in time and I must say a big thank you to Roger Middleton of RMKD for pulling out all the stops to provide us with a top notch engine for the meeting. Thanks also must go to Birdy, as he had been run ragged all week and it was reported on local news that he was actually seen to break sweat at 11:15 on Thursday morning of the 7th October in the year of our lord 2010.
If you have been keeping up to speed with our progress throughout the season you will by now know that our main championship rival is a miserable looking 19 year old by the name of Alex Heaton, who rides a Ducati for the Knight Road Racing Team. One evening whilst surfing the internet I happened to stumble across his new website only to find he had nicknamed himself ‘The Hitman’! Not wanting to waste an opportunity I quickly drafted some posters up for the weekend ahead, billed as ‘The Fight of the Year’, but I needed a name for the posters too. Now I am showing my age but the nickname ‘Hitman’ reminded me of the great boxer, Thomas ‘The Hitman’ Hearns and one of his great rivals was Sugar Ray Leonard. Job done, Alex ‘Hitman’ Heaton v Alex ‘Sugar Ray’ Hutchinson. The posters were pinned up all around the paddock and they went down really well and I thought the wind up was complete. But there was more, Steve Day our lovely commentator decided we should have a handbag fight on camera ready for the TV show. This was quite funny to do and I hope it comes out well on TV, especially the part when we turned on Steve and started hitting him instead. The posters have backfired slightly though as it now appears that I seem to have adopted the nickname of ‘Sugar Ray’, oh well, the wind up was worth it, just to see Heaton’s face!
Saturday morning came and we went out on track for our qualifying session, it was slightly overcast but it was dry and not too cold. I got my head down from the off and by my 4th lap had posted a 55.8s lap to put me in provisional pole position. Unfortunately I was then black flagged due to some smoke coming from the bike, so I pulled straight off the track at the hairpin. I therefore had to stand and watch the remaining 15 minutes of qualifying and it was only towards the end when Connor Tagg and Alex Heaton posted quicker times demoting me to 3rd on the grid. Still it was a front row start and as we only completed 4 laps we couldn’t complain too much. Standing at the hairpin it did give me chance to have a chat with Stu the scrutineer who had unfortunately suffered a heart attack shortly after the Anglesey meeting; hopefully he will be back to full fitness soon. Although I am not sure he was ever that fit! Once we got the bike back to the awning we quickly traced the cause to a hairline crack in the clutch cover casing, which was allowing a minute film of oil to leak out onto the exhaust, thus creating the smoke and making it to appear a lot worse than it was. The cover was quickly changed and we readied ourselves for the first race.
The first race of the weekend got away well and into Gerrads for the first lap I was in 2nd place behind Heaton on his booming orange Ducati. We battled it out over 14 laps passing each other at least twice a lap, Heaton was a little better on the brakes into Edwina’s chicane and the hairpin whereas I had the speed around Gerrards and out of the Devil’s Elbow. This made the race a cat and mouse affair with neither of us able to make the break. Throughout the race Connor Tagg was nipping at our heals ready to take advantage of any mistakes we made. Finally heading into the hairpin on the final lap we approached two riders to lap, Heaton shot down the inside of them both and I shot down the outside. We were neck and neck as we turned in to the hairpin but Heaton had the inside line. This gave him the lead which he managed to hold to take the win leaving me in 2nd place. This was a great race to be involved in and sums up what racing is all about.
The second race on Saturday turned out a little different, Heaton once again got the holeshot and I looked in behind him in 2nd place. After a lap I could see his rear brake caliper was hanging off. At this point I was very worried as I knew this could easily cause him to crash. Not wanting to get tangled up if he did come off I dropped back by about 6 bike lengths a rode around pointing at his bike trying to get the marshals attention. They had just readied the black flag for him when his rear wheel locked at Edwina’s chicane and down he went. On the one hand it was very unfortunate but on the other it was very lucky that it happened on one of the slowest corners on the circuit. I had a quick check behind me and Tagg and Gautrey were right on my rear wheel. Tagg managed to get past but I knew 2nd place was a good 20 points now that Heaton was out of the race and settled for that.
Sunday morning dawned and a new Dunlop rear tyre was fitted by the top guys at Holbeach Tyres. We took the decision to sit out the warm up session to preserve the tyre as it had to last the days two races. Although we had made changes to the suspension during the weekend the long 100mph+ corner of Gerrards was taking its toll on the rear tyre and we thought the least amount of laps we do on it the better. The weather had improved over Saturday, and with the sun shining it was down to T-shirts for the day.
For both of today’s races I was also carrying the onboard camera for the TV footage and hopefully we have given them some good shots to use on the Thundersport programme.
We lined up on the grid for the first race of the day and as the lights went out we all charged away. This was to be an epic race. I slotted into 5th place entering the first corner and over the next few laps managed to fight my way to the front of the pack but all the time there were 5 of us covered by less than a second. James Folkard came by me at Edwina’s chicane on lap 7 but as we headed up to the hairpin we clashed fairings. James ran a little wide and I re-took the lead. This I held for the next 2 laps until the red flags came out due to a crash involving Phil Cox at Gerrards corner. The result was therefore taken from the previous lap and we had our win, but boy was that hard work! The racing should look great on TV!
The last race of the weekend didn’t get away too well when after less than a lap the race was red flagged due to 3 riders falling at the Esses with one being our good friend Ian Popplewell who I am pleased to report is not as bad as first thought and will soon be on the road to recovery. On the restart I jumped off the line with only Heaton and Gautrey ahead. After a couple of laps I managed to hit the front but could not hold on to this for long as Folkard managed to get passed and pull a small gap. Concentrating on keeping hold of second place I managed to hold this position until the chequered flag. It was only after the race that I realised Heaton had crashed out again, this time at the hairpin giving us another handful of points.
We now have a 78 point lead in the championship over Alex Heaton with only Donington Park remaining. That means there are still 100 points up for grabs so the job is not done yet. Keep your fingers crossed for the 23rd & 24th October when we will be trying to bring the championship home.
Remember to keep a watch out on MotorsTV next week for the Thundersport programme which will show both of our Sunday races from Mallory Park including the onboard footage and the handbag fight!
Thanks to Chris Boland for all his help over the weekend and to his Mrs for keeping us fed!
Also thanks to Glyn Richardson for the photos!