MIST Suzuki Racing

Chris Northover, 23/06/06 - 24/06/06
European SuperStock 600 Championship
Round 4

Italian run championship, Italian Track and lots of Italian Riders, this’ll be fun!

After the highs of Silverstone, Misano was one hell of a struggle. It was hot. Really hot. Like, oh dear my feet are burning from the heat of the tarmac through the soles of my shoes hot. As every good Brit should, we moaned that it was too hot, then moaned when we returned to England because it was raining! The heat didn’t even have the common decency to go away at night, making it impossible to sleep in the tent before 11:00 at night, and staying in bed past about 9:00 was akin to about gas mark 6.

Thursday

We arrived in Italy early Thursday morning and crammed into the worlds smallest hire car with Tricky (Walker the Stalker Fan Club Man) and headed for the track. Despite the Sat Nav playing a couple of little pranks on us, we made it to the circuit. Now I’m telling you, these Italians have it sussed;

“Heey, eeet very hot weather, we put swimming pool in paddock for racer to play in, yes?”

What a great idea! Mind you, I couldn’t imagine taking off my leathers after a race at Snetterton and jumping into an outdoor swimming pool, not without at least two wetsuits on!

Once we’d sorted the usual bits and pieces, it was 7 o’clock in the evening and as the paddock restaurant shuts at 6:30, I headed down to the nearest town with the guys from Pirelli for dinner. The Pirelli guys spent the whole time making threats to my hair, with the final deal being that every position I finished outside of the points, would cost me one inch of hair! Unfortunately, we didn’t get back until 10:00, by which time it was too late to walk the track with Mike’s guidance as I had intended. Although I had already walked the track on my own once, this cost me dearly the next day; lesson learnt!

Friday - Free Practice

First practice was spent learning reference points on the track and getting used to the, well, interesting surface. Whilst about a third of the track has been resurfaced in the last century, the rest of it appears to have been commissioned by a certain Mr Caesar, some time ago! Misano is not a forgiving track and wandering off your line not only knocks your lap time right up, but you shortly find yourself hitting nasty bits of tarmac that seem intent on matchmaking between you and terra firma. Having survived the first session, finishing 33rd on a lap time of 1′49.417, it was straight into the cold showers to get back to usual operating temperature!

Friday - 1st Qualifying

After much head scratching and going out to watch at the first bend (a corner where I had been struggling) I headed out to the track for the first qualifying session. Despite posting a lap time a second faster, I ended the session in 36th place, more commonly known as last. Disaster.

After the highs of Silverstone, this was a kick in the teeth with a big Doc Martin, to say the least. Friday night we walked the track with Mike, in search of the Holy Grail, well the right lines. The walk revealed several areas where improvements could be made, but as always, it is easy to talk a fast lap, but actually pulling it off is another matter!

Saturday - 2nd Qualifying

After a shaky start to the second qualifying session, also held back by having to bed in new brake pads, I pulled into the pits for some much needed Mike guidance. Once back on track I began progressively chipping away at my lap times managing a 1′47.331, over a second faster than the first session. Unfortunately my charge was ended by a slight discrepancy between the speed I intended to take one of the slow hairpins, and the amount of grip available Nonetheless, I managed to qualify 35th, so at least I wasn’t last.

With no injuries it was all hands on deck, even Kirsty (acting brolly girl) was roped in to paint the seat unit, doing a fantastic job! After much hard work from everyone, especially Uncle “Spanners” Clive and Uncle “Pure Englishman” Richard (you should’ve seen his white socks!) the bike was ready to race.

Saturday - Race

Lining up on the grid, there was a mass rush to get all the mechanics and brolly girls off the track, resulting in an overexcited Italian marshal breaking his umbrella and it landing on my team as they left! Anyone would think that the people on the grids were out to get us! On Mike’s instructions I made a steady start and after the usual first lap mayhem (ahem Matt!) I went for it. “It” in this case being a half respectable finishing position and getting the lap times down further.

I had a fantastic race in a three bike battle which I came out on top of when the race was stopped and declared a result with 2 laps to go. My final position was 28th, which was disappointing but I managed to go faster still with a lap time of 1′46.049. I also was pleased to learn that the bike I had been trading paint with was one of the PSG-1 Kawasaki Corse Junior team bike, have that ya flash sod in your big fancy team!!

Not very gentlemanly I know, but I can’t help laughing when Matt or Myself manage to stick it to a team that have four times the budget of us!

Conclusion

Overall it was a very difficult weekend, with the heat, tough track and endless lemon slushies (ok, perhaps not the toughest part!) and to finish 28th was, in all fairness, a bit poop [eng. Slang. /~ Not frightfully good, less than adequate]. Despite that, the race itself was a corker. Even if I left an inch of track unguarded, before you could say “Don’t stick it up the inside”, two bikes would stick it up the inside and it’d be time for a bit more overtaking practice! I may have resorted to riding round the outside of them once, possibly twice (apparently I’m not supposed to do that too often, something about a SV650 and Druids at Brands last season).

All I can say is roll on Brno and lets see if we can get back into the points where we belong!

Over and Out

Ten - Four

CG

Matt Bond, 23/06/06 - 24/06/06
European SuperStock 600 Championship
Round 4

Friday - Free Practice

Out on track for the first time and just to summarise the course in a few words would be; fast, technical and slippery, oh and far from easy too, just like every other track in Europe really.

I can remember going down the back straight for the first time and thinking to myself “Chuff, this is going to be damn fast” and guess what, I wasn’t far wrong at all! By the end of the session I was taking the final turn completely flat out in fifth with my knee still on the deck, and my face just inched from the floor, or what fun! Just learning the track was proving to be tough and with very few markers and reference points around the place it was going to be a lot harder than any of the other circuits we had visited previously.

By the end of the session I’d begun to find a decent rhythm and had settled into setting some better lap times, despite still languishing near the bottom of the timing boards. I ended the session well down, in about 29th place, while the Italians filled ten of the top 11 places, showing just how local knowledge plays into the advantage of the home talent.

Friday - 1st Qualifying

The plan for qualifying was simple, go out on track, build the pace up gradually and then get a tow form one of the quicker guys to set a decent time towards the end of the session.

I completed a few laps at an increasing pace and then entered the pits to try and sort the problem of a rather loose rear end. I just couldn’t stop the thing backing into the turns and it just didn’t feel stable on the brakes at all. A few quick changes on the suspension seemed to help, but not cure the problem, but it made the bike a lot more stable and easier to ride, so I just got my head down and tried to set a decent time.

By the end of the session I remember getting towed round by one of the many Yamahas out on track but it really didn’t improve the time too much as I struggled to stay with them, no matter what I tried. Once they had broke a gap on me I just decided to try some new lines and get some more reference markers set ready for the next day. It was usually when everyone goes quicker anyway! SO I wasn’t to overly fussed with being so low down at this early stage of the weekend.

Saturday - 2nd Qualifying

After a fairly poor showing, judging by the way this year had been going, in the opening qualifying I was determined to hoist my backside higher up the grid for the race. The plan was pretty much the same as the first session, only to get up to faster speeds sooner and ultimately go a heck of a lot faster.

The squirming rear end really wasn’t helping at all and every time a quick guy came past I followed them, hit the brakes where they did, only for me to go flying sideways and wide, while they got in and through the turn with no trouble at all. It was frustrating and although I went quicker, I didn’t improve on place at all. This really hacked me off to be honest. In the last few minutes I got a tow off Daniel Beretta and stayed with him for a few laps before he just simply got further and further away, but if I was having a bad day Chris must have been worse as I saw him lying in the gravel, bike upside down and in a slightly less than first class state. It was good to know he was ok afterwards though.

The thing that let me down was my bike set up and I can only blame myself for it, I should just stop thinking about making so many adjustments and just ride the thing, and that was what I’d have to do to even salvage a decent result, and riding the wheels off the thing was all I had on my mind come the race.

Saturday - Race

The first thing I thought when I rolled onto the grid was “Chuff it’s hot here!” and that was swiftly followed by “From here it’s win it or bin it!”. The time spent on the grid for the media seemed to take forever and I just began to focus in and take in a few final sips of fluid.

The lights went out and I launched it off the line, again catching a glimpse of Chris out of the corner of my eye as he made his usual ballistic start, but at the first corner I just thought “Stuff it I’m going for it” and threw the bike into the corner as hard as possible and rode right round the outside of half the field. I barged my way through and into a gap at the next turn and then opened the gas onto the back straight. But all the hard work came to no avail as entering the second flat out kink WHACK. I got hit from the inside by Gregg Black and that was it, I was shooting off the track and over the grass at some ridiculous speed, and the ten-foot concrete wall was looking ominously close. I somehow kept the thing upright and rejoined but was miles behind.

I was so angry with myself and Mr Black that I just charged as hard as I could, but after 6 laps I knew I just couldn’t catch the next group in front and just rolled it off, and with the heat taking most of my attention, the lap times just faded away and it was a simple ride round just for track time, in what was the loneliest time I’ve had all year.

Conclusion

Well we all have a bad race once a year and hopefully that was mine. Time to focus in ready for Brno and get some testing done in the meantime to try and make it easier to learn circuits quickly, in the hope that we can go fast straight from the off! Fingers crossed I suppose! And one thing I am never going to do again is leave half an inch gap on a fast turn on the opening lap!

Mike Edwards, 23/06/06 - 24/06/06
European SuperStock 600 Championship
Round 4

Coming Soon…