Race Report...

Date: 24/03/08
Event: NORA Rd 1
Track: Three Sisters, Wigan
Bike: Aprilia 550
Weather: Dry

Qualifying
I've ridden around 3 Sisters about a million times so it was straight into qualifying and get a time in as quickly as possible. You only get a short amount of time at NORA meetings to qualify and I never felt I got a good time in but it was good enough for pole.
Finished: 1st

Race 1

Andy Mitchell got the holeshot at the start of the race and because of the freezing conditions I gave it a lap and a half to get my tyres warmed up before pushing. I was able to make my way into the lead and put in a couple of quick laps to break those behind and it was enough to allow me a relatively comfortable run to the finish.
Finished: 1st

Race 2

We put on a different tyre for the 2nd race which theoretically should have had more grip but that really wasn't the case. It was terrible and I had no drive out of the corners at all. I got a pretty decent start but lost the rear end in turn 2 and rounded the first lap in about 7th. I had to work my way through the field and was really struggling with the rear of the bike. By the time I got to 2nd, Carl Shields had pulled a 6 second gap at the front. For a few laps I made no inroads but then I smoothed everything out and tried upping my corner entry speed in an attempt to reduce the amount of sliding I was getting coming out of the turns. With just 1 lap to go there was still a big gap and I really pushed on. Coming into the final bend I went right round the outside and got the inside line for Lunar to take the lead and the win. It was an amazing race to be in. I had so much fun :-)

Finished: 1st

I missed the final race of the day as I had a plane to Italy to catch to go testing.