troutslayer
06-04-2008, 05:57 PM
well, i use the term 'king' pretty loosely, but anyway...
the 2007 season ended something like this:
http://data1.blog.de/media/642/2043642_154cf1f4e2_m.jpg
http://data1.blog.de/media/647/2043647_b0d0fd3a6e_m.jpg
http://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v141/134/101/537315457/n537315457_386938_5516.jpg
so, onto 2008!
after bending the frame back to straight-ish and repairing/replacing the snapped bits, i rolled up to mallory last weekend with a rolling chassis, and assurances that all my parts would be arriving at mallory on saturday for me. Sure enough, in several vans that arrived in the afternoon, was the rest of a ducati! Spent a few hours building her on saturday night, then went out for qualifying sunday morning.
i wasn't really expecting to be too competitive, i considered this to be a test session for me rather than a race, and i even went out on old tyre's from last year. I was quite pleasantly surprised to find that my Ducati qualifying i was just one second slower than at mallory last season, and in the SV qualifying, i'd matched last years time. I followed this up by taking it fairly steady in the race, but matching and bettering my laptimes from last season. Not bad, this was my first time out on the bike, on old tyres, that would put together the night before... whereas last year, i'd already done a couple of trackdays (including mallory) and races.
my positions weren't where i'd like them to be, but that wasn't too important, i was more concerned with the times and regularity. I'd improved over last season's mallory times by a second, with no previous tracktime, but i know i could have gone a second or so faster if i'd had the confidence in the tyres to push at the first corner.
Ducati race 1 - 12th
Ducati race 2 - 13th
SV race 1 - 3rd
http://www.nova-images.co.uk/Gallery/Class%20A%201/images/gtc_9276.jpg
http://www.curzonweb.co.uk/images/mallory2008/mallory_8.jpg
the 2007 season ended something like this:
http://data1.blog.de/media/642/2043642_154cf1f4e2_m.jpg
http://data1.blog.de/media/647/2043647_b0d0fd3a6e_m.jpg
http://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v141/134/101/537315457/n537315457_386938_5516.jpg
so, onto 2008!
after bending the frame back to straight-ish and repairing/replacing the snapped bits, i rolled up to mallory last weekend with a rolling chassis, and assurances that all my parts would be arriving at mallory on saturday for me. Sure enough, in several vans that arrived in the afternoon, was the rest of a ducati! Spent a few hours building her on saturday night, then went out for qualifying sunday morning.
i wasn't really expecting to be too competitive, i considered this to be a test session for me rather than a race, and i even went out on old tyre's from last year. I was quite pleasantly surprised to find that my Ducati qualifying i was just one second slower than at mallory last season, and in the SV qualifying, i'd matched last years time. I followed this up by taking it fairly steady in the race, but matching and bettering my laptimes from last season. Not bad, this was my first time out on the bike, on old tyres, that would put together the night before... whereas last year, i'd already done a couple of trackdays (including mallory) and races.
my positions weren't where i'd like them to be, but that wasn't too important, i was more concerned with the times and regularity. I'd improved over last season's mallory times by a second, with no previous tracktime, but i know i could have gone a second or so faster if i'd had the confidence in the tyres to push at the first corner.
Ducati race 1 - 12th
Ducati race 2 - 13th
SV race 1 - 3rd
http://www.nova-images.co.uk/Gallery/Class%20A%201/images/gtc_9276.jpg
http://www.curzonweb.co.uk/images/mallory2008/mallory_8.jpg