Thrusting Harley at Thruxton

We arrived at Thruxton on Friday afternoon and proceeded to the communal awning that is set up by Harley Davidson for all the competitors to house their bikes and gear in. The placed looked great and is set up in a very professional manner as you would expect from such a prestige company. We unloaded the van, set up our area in the awning and settled down with a cup of tea. We didn’t have the luxury of the caravan this weekend as my brother Leigh was racing at the ThundersportGB meeting at Cadwell Park so myself and Rob had to make do with the next best thing to a caravan, ‘back o’van’. We did have separate camp beds though so all was good; this truly is living life at the high end! We did have the pleasure of the Smith Sisters, Mick and Gary coming to help us for the weekend and you could hear the paddock rejoicing! They have worked on a lot of bikes and their help was greatly appreciated.

Free Practice
It was 10 years since I last raced at Thruxton and that was on a Yamaha TZ250 GP bike, so a little different from the XR1200 we would be on. As this was the case I was keen to get out in free practice and re-learn the circuit and understand how the bike handled around the fastest circuit in the UK. I left pit lane alongside Jeremy McWilliams, (ex MotoGP rider and Warr’s Championship winning rider from last year!) only to notice his front mudguard was rubbing on his front tyre creating a lot of white smoke. I pulled alongside Jezza and pointed at his bike, he must have noticed as he returned to the pits on the very next lap. Unfortunately for me the marshals must have thought the smoke was coming from my bike as they displayed the black flag with an orange circle on along with my race number which means, leave the circuit immediately. I pulled of the track and alongside the marshal’s post, I knew exactly what the problem was, they had mine and Jezza’s bike mixed up. After what seemed like an age they finally got authorisation from race control to let me proceed with the session. Not the best way to start the weekend, but I got my head down and finished the session in 8th place but not entirely happy with the handling of the bike.

Qualifying
For the qualifying session we made some minor adjustments to the suspension to make the bike ride the bumpy Thruxton circuit a little better but even after only a handful of laps I knew it hadn’t improved the bike at all. As qualifying is only a 20 minute session there isn’t enough time to come into the pits and make any comprehensive adjustments so I decided to stay out for the full session, do the best I could and make sure I had learnt the circuit as much as possible. The bike was proving to be a real handful around the fast bumpy corners of ‘village and church’ and this was losing us the majority of our time and did give me more than the occasional heart in mouth moment, which necessitated a change of underpants once back at the van. We still managed to place ourselves 7th on the grid but felt it could have been much better without the issues we were having.

Warm Up
For the Monday morning ‘Warm Up’ session we decided to try something different with the rear shocks and fitted stiffer springs in an effort to cure our handling woes. The session was dry so it gave us a good chance to try the different setting. After only a handful of laps I knew this was not an improvement and so it was back to the drawing board for the race.
I did try a practice start at the end of the ‘warm up’ as I had not done a racing start on this bike before. Anyway my approach was as with any other bike, lots of revs and slip the clutch. The moment I did this on the Harley the front wheel was pointing towards the sky and I realised this was probably not the best way to launched the bike off the line! My second attempt was a lot more successful so I was happy for the race start.

Race
Mid morning and the heavens opened and down came the rain. This was set in for the day so we knew it was to be a wet race. We changed the suspension back to how it was the previous day as although we knew it was not great it was still the lesser of two evils. The wet tyres were fitted into the bike and we headed off to the grid ready for the race. This would be the first time the Harley Davidson XR1200’s had been raced on full wet tyres in the UK so we were all a little apprehensive. We all collected on the grid after 2 warm up laps and waited for the lights to go out. I thought I had made a reasonable start but then seemed to get a little boxed in around the first couple of corners and lost a few places in the process. I settled down and started to pick off a few riders over the next couple of laps and once clear of these I settled into 5th place with 3rd and 4th only a stones throw in front of us. At this point I thought brilliant, a great chance to get a podium in our first race on the bike. But over the next few laps our handling problems were still evident and if you managed to see the footage on Eurosport you will know that I certainly had my work cut out to hold onto the bike. I therefore knew that I wouldn’t be able to catch the guys in front and tried to safeguard the position I was in. After a good tussle with Wardy he just managed to pip me to the line and we came home in 6th place, not too shabby but a little frustrating as without our problems we could have been higher up.
As Jezza was a guest rider he wasn’t eligible to score points so we now sit 5th in the championship table after the first round. For further info check out the series website at http://xr1200trophy.harley-davidson.co.uk/

The next meeting is at Knockhill in Scotland on the 18th/19th June, so if you can make it, please come along and offer your support, if not you can catch the races live on Eurosport or check the live timing at TSL Timing (http://www.tsl-timing.com/?loc=major&season=2011&series=BSB&event=races)

Lastly a big thanks to all our sponsors that enable us to be out there competing.