Joe Lawrence #888 Reports on Round 1- Brands Hatch 6th-8th March 2015

Well it was Round 1 of Thundersport GB and we were blessed with great weather at Brands Hatch!

I will be visiting a lot of tracks that I have never seen this year, and Brands Hatch is one of them.  We got there Friday for some afternoon testing and the first session I was surprised how technical the track was, even though it is very short (the Indy circuit), the undulations, long sweeping and tight corners were tough to get used to.  However after a few sessions I found my feet and managed to get into a rhythm.  It was the first time I had managed to fully test the new suspension setup by TW Suspension Tech and I was amazed how well the bike handled, a massive improvement from last year!

After testing on Friday we decided it was going to be more beneficial to run new tyres for the race weekend in order for us to be competitive rather than running used worn tyres.

Saturday morning came and it was time to go qualifying on the new tyres.  I had never raced on new tyres before and what a difference it made!  The Continental race tyre was awesome, providing a lot more grip and great feedback, which by the end of the session saw me qualify 27^th out of 44 riders with a time of 54.648s.  I knew there was room for improvement, but I was very happy to actually qualify for the races.

Race 1

I managed to get a good start off the line and straight away slotted myself mid pack.  With the new tyres working well I managed to chase down the rider in front but unfortunately we ran out of laps and couldn’t get by.  We finished the race in 22^nd position and improved my lap time to a 52.984s from 54.648s, a massive improvement on the qualifying times in the morning, and I was starting to really enjoy Brands Indy circuit.

Race 2

Again I got a good start off the line and managed to get into 22^nd place, this race was great with a lot of battling throughout.  On the last few laps I managed to catch the 20^th place rider but then was passed by the rider behind…I wasn’t best pleased so with 2 laps to go I got my position back and then immediately got into 20^th place, we swapped positions 4 times in 2 laps, even though it was tough I was grinning ear to ear inside my lid J, but by the chequered flag I held off the other riders to claim 20^th place, with a fastest lap of 52.722s, just marginally slower than the first race.

Sunday - Race 3

On the second race day, for qualifying they take the quickest times from the Saturday and then put you on the grid accordingly, this meant that I had moved up from 27^th to 24^th on the grid.  The weather was again awesome, warm, sunny and dry.  I got another good start and managed to again get mid pack.  I was keeping up with the pack in front until I made a mistake in the early laps, running wide through the left hander “Surtees” resulting in me running onto the kerbs on the exit,  which allowed my mate Adam Gittings through on the last corner, however I got a great drive onto the start finish straight and got back past Adam and then got my head down for the rest of the race.  We didn’t see anyone else for the rest of the race and we came home in 23^rd but again we improved on my fastest lap time and got a 52.172s!

Race 4

For the last race of the day the temperature had cooled down and the clouds had come over, we were praying for it to stay dry and luckily it did.  I got a great start off the line and managed to get myself in with the middle pack.  I was on the tail of the group for the first part of the race however I hit a false neutral coming out of the last corner which meant they gapped me by a few seconds, leaving me to race on my own trying to catch them down for the rest of the race.  By the end of the race we came home in 18^th, just outside of the points.  I was over the moon, my goal was to get in the teens and to get 18^th in our first race at Brands against the quality of riders around me was great!

We are now looking forward to Donington Park Round 2 on 10/11/12^th April.  Again we will be looking to run new tyres if funds allow and luckily we have raced there before so fingers crossed we are looking to improve on last years times and positions J

Thanks again for all of your support for 2015, it wouldn’t be possible without your help!

Anthony Vanlooy Reports on his sucess in the F400 Races at Castle Combe with NGRRC - 14/15/June 2014

It was baking hot conditions this weekend at Castle Combe for the NGRRC F400 races, Saturdays racing resulted in a 3rd place for the qualifier and a 2nd place for the championship race that day whilst managing to break the lap record held by the local man Simon Gates, but I was unable to chase him down in time, good result though on old tyres.