Deano at VMCC Round 2

**Deano** · 16th June 2010, 08:31

Qualifying.

I new that I needed to qualify well as there was a lot of competition this year and a lot of hard chargers all trying to get to turn 1 first. Luke Mair (who was sharing our garage) had already been out and qualified in pole position in F2, so the pressure was on to meet the standard LOL. I ended up chasing Geoff Booth for most of qualifying so had the best of benchmarks to gauge myself by. It was quite damp but the track felt grippy enough to push fairly hard.

I was very happy when I qualified 2nd on the grid and first pro twin bike, with Geoff right beside me in 3rd.

Race 1

I got a great start and chased Geoff into Turn 1. I felt good, the bike felt good, the track had now dried with plenty of grip.

I saw an opportunity on the left hander onto the rear section of the track and kept the throttle pinned and ran it wide past Geoff and up the inside of the next right hander to take the lead. Then the cursed red flag came out and we had to grid up again……I was pretty gutted after such a good start.

Restart.

Typically I did not get as good a restart, chasing about 3 or 4 bikes into Turn 1. Then Paul Duncan (F3) came past me, and soon after he passed Geoff Booth also. Rob Smith and Dan Kempthorne were buggering off into the distance in a close battle for first place.

I was chasing Geoff and Paul into splash when Paul hit the inside seal of the left hander and low sided, which put Geoff off his line also. He managed to stay in front of me but I was able to block pass him on the extension into the 2nd right hander before the hairpin and held this position until the chequered flag. So 3rd in this race and very happy to have beaten Geoff for the first time and set a new PB of 2.03.03.

Race 2

The weather wasn’t as kind on Sunday, so the wets went back on. It was very cold too so track conditions were not expected to be flash at all. I didn’t get the best of starts (braked too early into T1) and found myself in 5th place. It was a pretty lonely race for me and took half of it to get my head in the right place for the conditions – getting a knee down always helps to reassure that there is actually some grip there. My visor was getting a horrible film across it also, reducing visibility considerably. I was very slowly catching up to a bike ahead, and thought that it was Duncan Keene – because he is in F3 I hummed and haa-ed about trying to get past, eventually getting him on the last lap. Only to find it wasn’t him but Tom Weston (Pro Twin). So it was just as well I did get past as it gained me a few more points to and I took 5th in this race. Pretty disappointing though – I definitely need to get to terms with very wet conditions quicker. Might be time for a new rear wet tyre as well.

Race 3

To be honest, after a disappointing Race 2 I would have been happy for the meeting to have been called for the day. But I told myself I had to pick myself up and be positive. Thankfully it wasn't quite as wet as it was earlier.

I got a great start charging for Turn 1 beside Geoff. I braked momentarily then let them off to try and get past him, but he did the same and moved across in front of me closing the door pretty hard. I thought he was going to clip my front wheel and so I took evasive action, running wide into Turn 1 and letting about 4 or 5 bikes past. Damn.

I put my head down and pushed as hard as I could in the fairly wet conditions. This caused me to make quite a few mistakes, but I eventually caught and passed Dan Kempthorne, who to my surprise dropped back pretty quickly.

I could see I was slowly gaining on Paul Duncan, and even though we are in different classes, I still wanted to beat him if I could. Then coming into the back hairpin, Rob Smith came out of nowhere and I had to stand the bike up and ran a little wide. Rob had started from pit lane and was riding like a man possessed to have caught us all back up. Paul had got a bit of a gap on me and as I had a good buffer back to Dan, I backed off a little for the final lap and a half to take 3rd.

So 4th overall for the round, and still holding 3rd place in the championship behind Geoff Booth. There is a decent buffer behind me to 4th place, but I really want to bridge the gap to Rob and Geoff.

Thanks to Jimmy and Drew for all your help/advice in the pits and towing the bikes. Great to finally meet you Paul and that was a lot of fun on the track. See you out there next time !

Thanks to the Vic Club for putting on a great round, and all the volunteers for devoting their time and standing around in the freezing cold wet for two days.

Big thanks again to my sponsors below.