Race Report...

Qualifying
Having not sat on the bike until the first practice session on the saturday I can tell you I was very nervous. I had my own goals for the weekend but to be perfectly honest I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen and how fast I was going to be. After first practice I was happy enough knowing I was at least on a good enough pace to not make a complete fool out of myself and then when I got 4th in the first qualifying session I was over the moon. The next qualifying was the day after and with heavy rain overnight I thought I was guaranteed a front row position but the next moning we were met with a dry circuit. Everylap my pitboard went down 1 at a time P4, P5, P6, P7 oh dear. I had been trying to get a tow off riders all weekend to try and learn as much as I could but as I dropped dowm the leaderboard I decided to just go it alone. The next lap and I went to provisional pole and it was good enough for 3rd on the grid. I was over the moon!
Finished: 3rd

Race

The whole weekend my bike had been between 5 and 7 mph down in all the speedtraps so I knew I was in for a difficult race. I got about the best start I've had all year and thought I was going to head into the first turn in the lead. Then about threequaters of the way down the straight everyone came past. I settled down into 5th position behind Venter on the Triumph and I thought I was being held up a little and the pack infornt started to break away. The safety car came out after a few laps which was a totally new experience to me but it allowed us to bunch up to the front group and also let those behind me to catch up. On the race restart the the speed differential really showed. I was passed by one rider on each of the straights on the first lap and it was very demoralising. By the end of the race I ended up 5th which was pretty good considering the lack of track time I'd had and the lack of speed but I was still gutted which is odd considering at the start of the weekend I had no idea if I'd even qualify or not. All in all though I had a great weekend.
Finished: 5th