We arrived at Donington Park on Wednesday evening in order to use Thursday to setup, and get ready for the weekend ahead.
Going into free practice it was raining hard and track conditions where a little tricky. Grant went out to get a feel and found things quiet greasy so he decided not to do too many laps. He finished the session in 9th position.
Qualifying 1 was again wet conditions but not as bad. A few people sat this session out as they thought it was going to be dry the following day. Grant was still trying different gearing out to see if it would help him improve his lap times. Grant was struggling in the wet condition which is not like him at all. He finished the session in 11th position.
Qualifying 2 was the following day and with the bad weather gone, it was going to be dry. Grant went out on a new tyre and tried to get his head down and put in a good lap time. At the time Grant could not improve and get under the 1.36.7 lap time, this left him falling down the standings every lap and at the end of the session he was in 21st position. This was terrible for Grant as he did not know what was hindering him.
Grant and the team had a discussion after the session and decided to make everything on the bike softer for the evening’s warm-up session for the following day’s race. Warm-up, Grant went out with a totally different bike from what he had in qualifying and it felt alot better.
He felt more comfortable on the bike and posted the 14th fastest time.
The race was here and Grant knew he had to make a fantastic start so he didn’t get left behind. He did this and by the end of the first lap he was up to 15th position. Grant continued to improve his lap time and get a feel for the bike. He was very consistent with his lap times which proved to be key as this allowed Grant to keep in touch with the faster riders in front. This helped and Grant got towed along a little and with riders battling and bashing fairings in front it enabled Grant to move past a couple as they fell by the way side. With 3 laps to go Grant was up to 10th position. He was following a faster rider which was helping Grant catch the group in front which led all the way up to 6th position. Unfortunately Grant ran out of laps and finished the race in 10th position. After the race there is always a post race technical inspection. A rider who finished ahead of Grant was disqualified for failing an inspection therefore this moved Grant up to 9th position. This was overall a reasonable result considering Grant’s starting position.
Grant would like to thank the following for all their support:
J&S Accessories
HWW Racing
Economy Spares Ltd
Ferris Racing
Bond-A-Band Transmissions Ltd
Barnes DAF
KneedownUK.com
Stavros-Sports.com
HWW Tyre warmers
General Banner Company
Springfield Cleaning Services Ltd
Thank-you to all the 79 club members & people who attended over the weekend for your help and support including:
Laura – my girlfriend, Gordon – my dad, Georgina, Sam Black, Andy Standen, Tony – Tracy & Family, Jim & Katie Higgs, Chris and absent 79 club members.
The winner of the 79 club who will win 2 VIP tickets to the next round at Silverstone Arena GP is:
No. 5 Nanny & Pop Pop