Race

Race Report For Oulton Park 18th October (Round 7, Wirral 100 MC)

Oulton park was the last meeting of the year so we were very excited to ride there as its such a amazing track.

A very early morning start still in the dark since were are well into Autumn , track conditions early on were very slippy with damp under the tree's but as the sun came up and there was blue sky's it looked to be a good day for the weather.

Out for practice and the track was pretty much dry apart from one or two places were it was still abit greasy, since not riding at oulton since my first race of the year i felt abit rusty, but after a few laps i got to grips with it and also the bike felt much better and more powerful since the last time there i was only racing with around 88bhp so i could definately feel the difference.

First race and i was 22nd on the grid, right next to Graeme Winstanley so i knew i had competetion into the first corner. Off from the start and i got an amazing run down to the first corner, ran a good pace and felt really comfortable with the bike, ran the 5 laps with no major mistakes and felt stronger and stronger each lap had a few battles and managed to pass a few before pulling away abit and holding a comfortable pace, finished in 14th and i finally beat my personal best lap time by 3 seconds with a 1:54.562 lap time, so with that i was very happy as my goal for the day was under a 1:55.

Race 2 and with coming 14th in heat 2 for the formula 600's that put me 18th on the grid for the championship race, once again i got a fantastic start putting myself in 14th in the first lap although a little mistake on the second lap and i lost 2 places to gaz knowles and paul turner although i fought back dicing with both of them overtaking and them retaking me, gaz managed to get passed the both of us and pulled ahead so it was me and paul dicing in laps 3, 4 and 5, on the last lap i managed to get by paul on the lake side straight and kept him behind me around island bend, all the way through to the finish line i stayed in front and finished in 15th place with paul only a few tenths behind me.

Once again very happy with my results and i feel that i have made improvements in my riding by providing yet another personal best lap time of 1:52.643 in the second race, so a total of 5 seconds faster than my previous personal best.

Also with hitting my personal goal of laptimes for the day it was my tenth signature that i needed to get rid of my orange bib, so for the new season next year i will no longer be a novice racer.

I would just like to say a thank you to everyone that came on saturday, alot of friends came to show support and it really helped me push and come out of the last race meet with results i was happy with.

And lastly a thank you to everyone else that has played they're part this year! :)

Paul

Race results and lap times can be seen here...... www.mylaps.com