MIST Suzuki Racing

Gareth Jones, 09/05/08 - 11/05/08
FIM Superstock 1000 Cup
Round 3

Friday - First Practice

Two weeks after Round Two at Assen we headed off to Monza in Italy, yet another new country to visit and of course a new race track. I’d heard that Monza was a great fast track so I couldn’t wait to get back on the bike. The Suzuki has proven to be able to well and truly hold its own in a straight line, so if there was any circuit going to wind a bike out, Monza it was.

We arrived at the track Thursday morning to finish getting setup as usual and the bikes ready to go. As soon as that was seen too, on the scooter I was to check out the track. I did a few laps with my good mate Chris Seaton who had raced there recently and could give me a bit of a run down of the circuit.

On a side note, being able to look around the circuit was also a real history lesson. Monza is like a big park, the race track runs through the middle of an enormous forest, which is also home to the old Autodrome which Monza became famous for. It was really interesting to see the old track and the huge banking that appears in parts of the park.

I was keen to be on the track for as long as possible to do as many laps as I could to get familiar with the high speed circuit. For those of you who don’t know the basic layout, Monza consists of very high speed straights and very tight chicanes, with a just a few fast flowing corners. Braking hard and getting on the gas hard was of the essence, and there was so much time to be gained or lost in these sections.

Friday - First Qualifying

The second session on Friday afternoon is a 45 minute qualifier, so we have a chance to make quite a few adjustments mid session, while still learning the track, before putting in a new set of tyres near the end, to try and put down a time. I pitted several times making changes, chasing the setup. As I’ve said in previous reports, I have had quite a lot of difficulty getting things right on the Suzuki, so the team has been working hard with me to get this sorted. I finished the qualifier in 19th position.

Saturday - Second Practice and Qualifying

Saturday, as usual consists of morning practice and a final 25 minute qualifier in the afternoon. We had made some substantial changes to the forks for the morning and I found it to be a benefit in a lot of places on the track. Therefore I felt that I would be able to improve on my position in the afternoon. We also felt that we could improve those changes we had made by making some more adjustments for the afternoon session. This required another set of forks to be built, and they were not going to be ready in time for the qualifier.

Disappointingly, we had to keep the same internal settings that were to be altered for the qualifier in the afternoon. We changed the spring rate hoping to have a similar effect. The change wasn’t as eventful as I had hoped and to make matters worse, on my out lap I had a serious technical fault that only allowed me to complete 1 flying lap. I pitted several times in the hope to locate the problem but time ran out and I ended the session having dropped several places to a very disappointing 25th.

Sunday - Warm Up

Having had trouble in qualifying, and not having had the forks to try in that session, meant that I would have to use morning warm up as a test session, which obviously is quite a gamble. The forks went in and I found them to be a better choice.

Sunday - Race

Only an hour and a half later I took my grid position for the race. I will mention here, that turn 1 at Monza is extremely tight for even a few riders, without bottle necking 40 bikes in there, straight off the start. Those of you who saw the footage would know what happened. As one British newspaper quoted, “40 into 1 won’t go”. As the whole field ran into the first chicane flat-out, one rider hit another, triggering a massive incident.

As these two tumbled, more bikes were collected, including some that were in front of the accident, when the bikes spewed forward at speed, and to add insult to injury, another rider taking to the grass to avoid the carnage, couldn’t wash off enough speed and took out another two with him. 11 riders in all went down. This is certainly not something you’d like to witness too frequently. Luckily I just managed to avoid it. The rider that first went down was just off to my right, so it was a matter of getting through without getting taken out.

My start was good and I had already made up quite a few positions, so I didn’t hesitate in getting into it flat out, as soon as I got through the crash. As I came around after the opening lap onto the straight my board showed I was in 12th position. By mid race I had moved up into 9th and had a decent gap behind me. There was a pack of riders a few seconds ahead of me and I was pushing to get onto the back of them. It’s so hard to chase down a group when they are towing each other along. There were plenty of times where I used the entire track and then some, but try as I might, I had to settle for 9th. A top 10 result is definitely a step in the right direction and the time from the leader was 10 seconds better than Assen, which was the most pleasing thing for me.

Racing in this class is ultra competitive but we are moving forward one step at a time. The next round is at Germany’s Nurburgring in just over a month’s time. However we head back to Italy in a couple weeks for a test at Misano. Hopefully the extra track time will put us in a good position to be more competitive for round 4 and with any luck, bring home a better result once again. Standing on podium is hopefully getting closer with every ride!

Gareth Jones, 25/04/08 - 27/04/08
FIM Superstock 1000 Cup
Round 2

Two short weeks went by after Round One at Valencia and we headed off to the Assen TT Circuit in the Netherlands. Every circuit in the championship this year will be new to me, and every country is another one to add to my list. I was looking forward to Assen, and planning on starting with a clean slate after a very frustrating and disappointing time at Valencia.

We got on a plane Wednesday morning in England and less than an hour later we touched down at Amsterdam airport. I’m finding it a bit surreal that just an hour’s flight away and I’m not only in a different country but a different language and culture. On arriving at the track we assisted with some of the set up and organization of the pits, so we would be ready for scrutineering and rider’s brief on Thursday. The scene over here is very different to Australia, but I’m learning my way around pretty quickly. Here you need pit scooters to get about the area its so big.

I was very keen to get into practice and learn the track. I was also feeling a bit anxious as the last thing I wanted was the problems we had at Valencia, so we started with fairly neutral suspension settings on the bike. Unfortunately I joined the Mist Suzuki team at the 11th hour, so my track time has been very limited and have not had an opportunity to get onto a track between meetings. Anyway UK tracks over the past month have been covered in either snow or rain. I did however get a few flying laps Thursday afternoon on Brendan Roberts rocket ship scooter, and we had turns in cutting laps with some of the other guys!

Friday - First Practice

The first practice at 9 a.m. Friday morning was not much more than a ‘learn the track session’ but at the same time I was trying to find a good feeling with the bike for the first qualifier in the afternoon. I stayed on the track for most of the session and came in only to make a few adjustments.

Friday - First Qualifying

After the session we made some larger geometry changes and hoping that we wouldn’t continue with the suspension problems. We made a little bit of headway with the changes for qualifying, so I stayed out on my old tyres for as long as possible, using the time to adjust to the settings and learn the lengthy track before putting in a new set at the end. I only got a few laps in on fresh rubber so my qualifying position of 31st was not at all desirable, leaving me concerned, as there was a chance of rain for Saturday so this qualifier may have well been where I was going to start the race.

Saturday - Second Practice

After having a good think about the bike Friday night, I needed to get onto the track again and get as much time as I could. Unfortunately this session turned out to be extremely limited. As the bike was being wheeled off the stand, we noticed a fuel leak. This put a big dent in the first part of the short session and just as I jumped on the bike and went to ride off it started raining. By the time we got the wets in and headed onto track, I only had 6 minutes of the 30 minute session left.

Saturday - Second Qualifying

For the qualifier in the afternoon, the circuit was dry, so I was anxious to work with the team to get the most out of the available time on track. I was in and out a fair bit during the session and was able to find a bit of time, by improving the basic setup. In effect, the qualifier was being used as a test session still, so I was trying to think about getting the bike sorted as well as trying to put a lap together. I ended up 28th out of a full 40 rider field. Times are so critical at this level, just a few hundredths’ of a second means numerous positions on the grid.

Sunday - Race

The time had come to get into it and put difficulties aside and push hard for 13 laps of the 4.55km Assen TT circuit. However before that we had one more large suspension change to try to the rear end before the race. Warm up was a less than ideal place to be trying that, but I wanted to attempt to improve things further, hoping we could find time in the race, luckily it helped me so I was keen to run with it.

Shortly after warm up was our race. The crowds were pretty big by then and the atmosphere exciting. I got a great start and quite a few riders parked it in turn 1 so I was lucky to be able to ride around these and move up about 10 positions on the first lap. I tried to make room where I could and push my way through and gain a few more positions on the brakes but I found running high corner speed a problem, which was really hindering us in practice and qualifying so I did what I could and tried to pick off as many people as I could.

I found myself in 16th fairly quickly. One certainty with this class, if you run wide or find yourself out of the seat, you can guarantee that more than one rider will slot their way back past. On one occasion about mid race I had a rather large out of seat moment in turn 2, and slipped back 4 spots!

I tried to ride consistently knowing where I was having difficulty and managed a 14th place finish. I tried hard as always and despite the setup trouble I’ve had with the Suzuki I feel I’m getting there, obviously the fact that everything over here is new to me makes it harder, but at least we are moving in the right direction. So upwards and onwards from here ! And I hope to achieve my realistic goals in the coming rounds and building confidence as we go.

Although I won’t be able to get to Monza before the next race meeting like many others have been able to do, we do have some testing planned shortly after that, so I expect to get on top of things then.

Before I finish up I’d just like to mention how good it’s been to have a heap of Aussies in the pits. The camaraderie between us is just like being back in Oz, probably even more so now as we’re all so far away from home.

A special thanks to Garry Crilly, John Chiodo and Justine from Monza Imports who have made arrangements for me to get a new AGV helmet delivered to the track within days so I had a European compliant helmet, it’s great to that that type of support from home.

Gareth Jones, 03/04/08 - 06/04/08
FIM Superstock 1000 Cup
Round 1

I’ve been over in England now for a month, and the weather here has been rather brisk with peak temps during the day around 9 degrees. So I was looking forward to heading back to Spain ready to start fresh after my not so successful test. I couldn’t wait to get on the bike. This was my first round at a world event and I knew the pace would be hot straight off the bat and with limited track time I was hoping that with the help of Mike and the team that we could get the bike sorted.

Friday - First Practice

Friday practice was upon us very quickly after the tedious job of scrutinizing the bikes and getting the pits setup and ready to go. There was a lot to take in but with all of Thursday up our sleeves I got to know how things worked, my new team mate Matt was very happy to help and im looking forward to working with him this season.

We headed out with a new suspension combination in the first practice session which I immediately had trouble with, so I was in and out of the pits frequently making adjustments, even though it was only first practice it was an anxious time as I was trying to make use of every minute. With 40 bikes on the track there were a lot of people to contend for a line with! Before I knew it the checkers were out and it was time to pit and debrief with the team what information we had gathered and make changes accordingly.

Friday - First Qualifying

We had a lengthy discussion about where to head however for the second practice/qualifier that afternoon the changes we made didn’t really give us what we were looking for. Once again I can’t stress how hard the team was working to try and get it sorted for me. It’s great to be surrounded by people that want to achieve the best possible result we can come up with. It was a challenging day and used as more of a test session, but sometimes in racing this is how it is and getting things right doesn’t always happen first go.

Saturday - Second Practice & Second Qualifying

Saturdays schedule was somewhat as per Friday. With the first session of the day being practice and the second session the final qualifier. By this time I was getting to know how the team was working and we were all becoming a much tighter group. Getting to know the team is just as important as getting to know the bike really. As we hadn’t made a lot of progress with the bike on Friday I was hoping we could turn that around with some better results with the bikes setup. I realized time was getting slim and we were still having trouble getting everything working as I wanted too. Unfortunately time got the better of us and I ended up in 25th on the grid, less than desirable that’s for sure but Mikes outlook was very positive and the team was still trying everything to find a setting for race day.

Sunday - Race

For me race day came far to early, but nevertheless it was time to do my best with the settings we had come up with. I knew that finishing the race was of absolute importance here. Before the race I was quite stressed and I hadn’t been stressed at a race track for a long time, I wanted like any ride would to have had more time to get everything right but this is the way it is. Mike was very supportive and even 5 minutes before the race we were still discussing settings.

I lined up on the grid hoping that I could get a way to a good start. That way I could at least try and make up some positions before turn 1. I got away well and was 21st at the end of lap 1. My plan was to ride the bike as smoothly as I could and finish the race with making up as many positions as I could. But plans don’t always go the way you hope.

Before the completion or lap 2 I was on the outside of another rider when he ran wide pushing me out with him. I had no choice but to run it straight on into the gravel. I was lucky to keep it up right! The field was still very closely packed at this stage and I rejoined absolutely dead last with the next rider nearly a straight length ahead.

The day was really not going to well for me by this time. I had no choice other than to push on and finish the race and make up what positions I could. I finished a disappointing 31st. It goes to show that racing is not always fun and games and tough weekends happen. Mike and the team gave their best to me and I worked with them getting to know how they operate along the way. I cant thank them enough for giving me their best and I look forward to Assen where I really hope to turn things around and start fresh. I have a great bike that has lot of potential and a great bunch of people trying to achieve the best result along side me.

Thanks as well to Matt, my new team mate who showed me the ropes and got me up to speed with how the European meetings operate. I look forward to reporting back with some good results form Assen!