Crash stops Grant picking up valuable points
We arrived at the wonderful Knockhill circuit in good time for our round 5 of the championship.
The practise & qualifying sessions would be split into 2 groups due to the nature of the small 1.2mile circuit.
Grant went into free practise straight off the back of a test a couple day ago at Cadwell Park where he found a better setup for his HWW Yamaha R6.
During the first free practise session Grant was just getting into the swing of things as Knockhill is a very technical little circuit. At the end of the session Grant was 14th in group A.
Qualifying 1 was a little later in the day and with new tyres on Grant improved his feeling with the circuit and began to gel and his bike was feeling good. He did 22 laps of the circuit and finished 8th.
Qualifying 2 was the following day and the weather was very cloudy. A little grim but Grant didn’t mind the conditions and finished 5th but due to it raining earlier on in the day this would still leave him overall 17th when they combined the groups together. This was hard to grasp for Grant as he would have liked to be further up the grid.
The following day was race day and with 22 laps scheduled for the race it was going to be about getting a good start and trying to jump a few rows in the first 2 laps. Grant got an excellent start and moved up to roughly 12th position.
The safety car was deployed and this helped Grant get an idea of where he was in relation to the group. Once the safety car went in Grant managed to get an excellent run out of the final turn which therefore meant he could pass them on the run into the first corner.
As the race progressed, Grant passed a couple of riders and made up positions, he could see that a rider in front was holding a fellow rider up but he was beginning to struggle with arm pump. This was very very frustrating for Grant as he wanted to push on into 5th position as he feels he could do but not with the problems he was having with his arms. As the race got closer to the finish it was hampering Grant in the braking zones and also with turning the bike. 3 laps from the end coming into the final corner Grant could no longer brake and unfortunately suffered a crash. The bike went down hard and Grant got flown into the gravel, fortunately the bike missed him and he didn’t hit the barrier.
This caused the red flag to be brought out and a result to be drawn.
This was a huge disappointment for Grant and the whole team as arm pump has very been a problem for him throughout any form of motorsport.
Grant will now seek medical advice from the staff of the BSB series to try and help prevent this from happening again.
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
All the 79 club members & all the people who attended over the weekend Laura Standen, Dad, Sam Black, Jonathan Heaton from Bond A Band transmissions, Tony, Chris and Dave .
The winner of the 79 club who will win 2 VIP tickets to the next round at Snetterton is:
No. 39 Jenny & Tony Black.