Another marvellous work from the Team in securing a garage for Friday's test day practise all the way through till Sunday. With the Go Star mailing list forum the team is now really working to logistically where before each person would be trying to sort out garage space for themselves which is counter productive and wastes time with everyone trying to do the same thing.

One of our riders from the deep north of England was able to leave for Brands on Friday night secure in the knowledge that a garage was sorted and hence no need to bring his geny. By this time next year we should hopefully be one slick and professional team.

Anyway it was a weekend of birthdays and all sorts. There were a number of people off from work on Friday and hence there was no way I could make the ACU day. Saturday was a another affair as I had to go to London Zoo et all and do the family thing as it was Della's birthday. The downside to this family day was that I was in the garage till 12:00am changing engine oil, replacing the body work with newly sprayed items et all. Did not see the bed sheets till 2:00pm. The plan was to get up early and take the whole family with me. The usual drama of getting 2 kids out of the house with packed food etc all saw me arriving at the track on Sunday morning for 8:45 at the gates.

It was so good to be able to drive through to inner paddock and see the boys in the garage with a nice space left empty for me. Chaps team work and organisation is really the only way to go if you are reading this. As the years roll on this type of arrival could be seen as stress but it was all taken in step and I got out to practise the same time as anyone else.

Still trying to save the odd pound or two and stretch the tyre wear of the Michelin slicks which saw be qualify in 53.80 seconds which is a whole 1 second slower than what I did about a month ago at Brands on a practise day. The problem was party due to using old tyres and partly to using slightly slower lines here and there.Still qualified but then I changed the rear tyre for a nice new one which I was confident that I could again see the 52's and hopefully high 51's if all went well. However I would have no such luck and it started to drizzle and rain one race before mine. On went the wets with help from Michael one of Barry friends who made light work of changing the from wheel. Nice one mate! 10 minutes of tyre warmers went on and it was time. The first two laps of warm up felt fairly easy and I was trying to find the grip as this was my first wet race on the R1.

The race started and from the back of the grid I made up about 2 places by the first lap. There were a number of fallers at the first corner as could be expected in a wet race. As the laps went on I moved up on a number of other riders who I could see were sliding around and went by a number of them. It definitely felt like pay back time to some extent as some of these
boys were kicking my arse in the dry. I was having major vision problems as I had no fog city or mask and my visor is long due for a change. During the slow corners it would fog up and I had to estimate at times where to go. Things were getting so bad that I even contemplated coming in because of the visor problem. However as I am a bit of a hard B****d I refused to give in and continued.

The end result of the many DNF was that I finished 12th and scored by first MRO championship points. I also produced faster times than a number of other riders out there on higher spec machinery. For a first wet race it was not bad and I really could do with a few more wet races right now for more practise. I had no slides what so ever but had a few moments going in too fast and still dragging the brakes into the corner. All in all it was a good first wet race and an enjoyable weekend all round for myself and family.