Round 8 - Oulton Park

Difficult times

As I left Race Techniques in Cheltenham I thought to myself this is going to be a busy weekend. It was Wednesday evening around 6pm I had yet to travel back to the shop and then make a game plan of how and when we would get the newly rebuilt engine fitted & the bike ready for Friday Free practice.

The most sensible option was that I would leave early Thursday collect the bike and bits from the shop and then build the machine up once at Oulton Park, although I had never fitted the engine before I felt that with the information Jamie had armed me with and the common sense I have that it shouldn’t be beyond my capabilities. With Steve there to help me we were all done and dusted by ten that night. Easy!

Friday free practice was wet and this gave us the opportunity to run the machine in steadily for the first session, also testing our newly set machine geometry at a leisurely pace. With the first session out the way we made some small adjustments to the settings but with the forecast giving a dry Saturday we decided against fitting new wets and ran the old tyres that had already covered 5 sessions. As you can imagine it was quite entertaining with several interesting moments both on entry and exit of turns but also down the back straight where it managed to spin from second through to fourth. Not my best idea but conserving the finances was the main objective.

Qualifying was dry but all my clothing from Friday still wasn’t so I had to opt for alternative leathers which proved to be a problem straight away giving me arm pump up. I pitted after a few laps and we tried to improve the situation but to no avail. Mid session I once again pitted as I was unable to hold the bars and decided sensibly to leave it to the second session and go about drying out the rest of my clothing. By the end of the session we had dropped to 32nd.

I decided that for the second qualifying session I would go out at the front to put in a fast time earlier on then hopefully one of the front guys would come past and drag me on further. I got away just behind the first group and had a good first flying lap chasing the group down which improved my qualifying time. As I passed the start finish line heading into turn one ‘flat-out’ in fifth gear I went for the brakes at my marker but as I pulled the lever nothing happened, I tried again but again nothing. Trying to react as fast as possible I downshifted the gears to try and take some of the speed away but instantly it locked the rear wheel up and I fell from the bike trying to push it away.

As I hurtled toward the air fence all I could do was try and make myself roll so not to stop dead in the fence. I bounced out of it an instantly and got to my feet. I was lucky not to have been tangled up with the machine in the accident and as I looked on, the bike had cleared the air fence & tyre wall and had laid to rest in the marshal point having hit the steel crowd protective fence at about 8 foot in the air. My injuries seemed minor considering the speed of the accident would have been in excess of 135mph, I had bitten my tonque and had deep friction burns on my forearm and thigh, my back felt as though somebody had taken a base ball to it but everything seemed to be in the right place so I felt quite relieved.

The bike however is not so good, the huge impact had destroyed the engine casings, forks, yokes, wheels, tank & frame. Basically the bike is scrap and to continue the season a whole new machine will be required, a huge burden in an already over stretched budget.

The next round is Mallory Park this coming weekend where we do have the offer of a loan machine but without a lot of additional help and support both physically & financially it looks as though the 2007 season is over.

‘I can’t understand what happened there, there was no warning of a problem but obviously the machine is in such a condition that we’ll never know what caused the failure. We had missed the last round while the engine was being re-built and had worked with the bikes geometry and had finally found the settings which I was able to work with so we definitely expected to be in the thick of the points on race day, how things change eh?!’ A disappointed yet upbeat Brian said after the incident.

Should you be able to assist in any way or now someone who might, please don’t hesitate to contact us:

077 140 180 60 or brian@brian-clark.co.uk
Alternatively Tamworth Yamaha and speak with Jon or Lisa 01827 254994