Arrived to Manfeild nice and early to get a good spot in the stables, it was wet but wasn’t raining yet.
Just before qualifying I went to warm the bike up but wasn’t starting, most likely because it was cold. It did eventually start though.
Qualifying
I went out and just took it easy on the first 2 laps to warm up the tyres a bit as the track was still damp and a bit slippery. On the 3rd lap I went to pick up the pace a bit to get in a reasonable lap but hit the gas a bit too much coming out of turn one and had a big high side. I was a bit sore after that but managed to carry on for the day. I ended up 6th on the grid which wasn’t to bad.
Race 1
I went out and when going down the straight on the warm up lap found the bike was getting stuck in 5th gear and was hard to move down into 4th or even get in to 6th. So pulled back into pits to get it fixed and missed out on that race. The problem was the gear lever was just in the wrong place so just had to readjust it.
Race 2
I got a reasonable start and was keeping up with the leaders for the first lap but couldn’t maintain the pace and dropped back quite a bit. I was finding it hard to move around on the bike as I injured my leg in the crash and it was very sore. The plan for the rest of the day was just to finish and get some points and see where I was at the end of the day. I managed to get 4th in this race but wasn’t really keen on racing for the day, just wasn’t feeling it.
Race 3
I had the same start as race 2 pretty much and just wasn’t able to keep the pace up that the front group was doing but managed to get 3rd this time. I think my crash had a big effect on the day’s performance and just didn’t have enough confidence and the bike was moving round a bit on most corners.
This leaves me with only a 19 point lead now with one round to go at Taupo.
Thanks to Nigel Armstrong and Simon Robson who helped me out after the crash and the Pacific Club for the loan of the bike.
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