Round 4 Race report

Round 4 of the 2010 125cc British Championship was held at Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire in supreme conditions where Brian and the team managed a creditable top 5 finish in difficult conditions. After an unexplainable first lap crash at round three a fortnight ago Brian spent the weekend trying to re-build his heavily dented confidence and whilst still carrying the injured shoulder attempted to try and finsih the weekend sunny side up!

To try and assist in rebuilding Brians confidence Pete and the team worked well all weekend to sustain feel from the bike but also improve it on every outing, replacing both front & rear suspension among many other chassis items. The physical circuit of Cadwell Park proved hard on Clarks shoulder injury and whilst times and performance of the team improved throughout the weekend the injury was never far from Brians thoughts.

Qualifying didn't go as well as the team would have liked, the first session was cut short by a incident through the very fast first section of the circuit but fortunatley nobody was seriously injured and then in the second session Brian made a mistake over the infamous 'Mountain' section and de-railed the chain ended his session early and dropping him down to 12th on the grid for raceday.

Frustrated with his own performance Brian surpassed his best qualifying time in morning warm-up and although still over a second off the pace he felt he could improve further in the race if he could get away with the pack. An average start saw Brian finish the first lap in 9th  and after a couple of laps in he had moved upto 7th but had lost grip on the leading pack. The actioon packed race continued and on the 5th Lap Championship leader Lodge made a mistake whilst trying to pass Deane Brown and collided heavily with Ed Rendall bringin out the safety car while the debris was cleared. This incident moved Clark upto 5th and when the Safety car exited he set his sights on passing 4th placed Fraser Rogers, running almost identical times Clark looked like he was beginning to rebuild himself but as the race progressed he began suffering with gear selection problems and although it was only from the slower turns it was sufficinent to put pay to an attempt for a fourth place finish and with a 6 second gap to the next place rider, Brian settled for a solid Fifth place finish and had improved his lap times by 1.3 seconds from qualifying, a definite improvement and a step closer to rebuilding his confidence in the machine.

Round 5 is at Mallory Park, Leicestershire on 25th - 27th June where Brian hopes to be back to full fitness and ready to re-light his championship hopes.

It has its ups and downs but being involved with the team is never boring. If you’re interested, then contact Chris Parry on cp@parrisprint.co.uk or 07770688559. Alternatively speak to team owner Pete Banks at pete@banksracing125.com