Donington Park, 7th May 2001

Monday

Had been awake most of the night as I was that choked with this cold it was difficult to sleep. Decided on getting up early instead of just lying there, and I thought I would get a head start on everyone else and get to scrutineering first, so, donned my leathers, etc and pushed the bike to the scrutineering bay.....was well surprised when I got there to find that loads of others had the same idea.........bollocks, and it was only 7:15am......so much for my cunning plan.

Queued for about half an hour and I still was nowhere near, then The Wad turned up......he said he was going to surprise me by being up early and he couldn't believe that he wasn't, so gave him the bike to put through while I went and got my kit checked, then went to race control and signed on. On walking back past the queue noticed Terry was up as well and he had Juan's bike and it looked like he would be there for a while, its a pain in the ass this queuing lark and its dead handy when one of your crew does it for you so you can get other stuff done.

It looked like it was going to be a nice day as the sun had started to shine, although it was pretty cold if you were standing in the breeze that was blowing, but as long that it was going to be a dry day, I wasn't bothered.

Was hoping that today, seeing as how it was my first trip to Donington, that I might squeeze into the top 20, which was my target for the day. Juan had been here twice before (although not in perfect conditions) and his fastest lap was in the 1'22's and this was Kev's favourite track and he had been here a lot and his best lap was in the 1'19's, so I was hoping that I may be able to get somewhere near this.....but I wasn't going to hold my breath.

The first practice session was for odd numbered 600's only, and as I was number 16, I went to watch at the first corner which is called Redgate. The sun was well shining now and standing there watching them hurtle down the start/finish straight, tip in to Redgate and then disappear over Hollywood down Craner Curves, I was saying to myself, 'you should have walked the course last night, boy'.

Not long after, I was out on my practice session and tootled around for the first couple of laps just to see where the corners went, then tried to go faster at the same time as staying on the track. I had a little trouble with two corners.......Redgate, cos your hard on the brakes and then it sort of comes back on itself and you can run wide, which I did more than once, and the other was Coppice, which is a ninety degree corner as you go over a brow of a hill, and you have to tip in blind, I basically mean that you have to have the bike banked over before you can see where you are going, and while you're cranked over there is another corner that takes you onto the back straight so if you don't know where you're going, its really hard to get right. Was a little miffed that the clutch was still slipping after I had adjusted it, but was told that it might bed itself in and be ok, but I've never been that lucky. It was also still chucking water out onto the inside of the screen, which had me a little worried, and baffled, because I couldn't work out why it was doing this. So far nothing was really going right, and then I felt worse when Ann told me my fastest practice lap had been in the 1'28's......Juan had been circulating in the 1'22's, Kevin had managed a 1'21, so I went to see what Jason had been doing, and he said he had done a 1'24...oops, way off the pace......looks like getting in the top 20 was going to be a harder task than I thought.

We were all in the first race of the day - Race 1 New ERA Superclub Formula 600, again, your finishing position would reflect in your grid position for the next race.....I was on the grid in 16th spot (row 4) along side Jason in 15th, with Kevin a row behind in 19th.........Juan was on row 2 in 5th spot.....had the warm up lap, then settled down for the start.....the lights went from red to green and we were off, the clutch slipped a lot off the line and I got passed by a few, but stayed wide and left tipping into Redgate to where Darren 'Archie' Murphy had told me and went around the outside of a few and made up some places, passed a couple more going down Craner Curves (mainly because you can see quite a bit of the track from here and I could see where I was going) going into Coppice (the one where you can't see) was a little too cautious and was out braked by two riders, the second of these being Kev.....thought, "fair enough", now to see if he could drag me along and teach me some lines. Going into McClean's on the second lap, some bloke highsided right in front of us.....ouch, brought back a few memories, I was hoping that his bike was going to slide away from us and not in front, and thankfully it did.......on the third lap, Kev was still right in front of me as we rounded the Old Hairpin and then he stuck his hand in the air......I was that close behind I wasn't expecting it and nearly hit the back of him, I thought he must have broken down till I saw somebody else do it then saw that the race had been red flagged........so it was back to the start for another go.

Sitting on the grid with the engine off, noticed that my temperature gauge was still creeping up, but it was not long before we were off again, this time I got a slightly better start although I did get passed by a few again, but left tipping in to Redgate till the last possible moment and made a few places back (Wad reckons I was up to about 9th at one point), as we all headed down Craner Curves I saw that it was Juan in the lead........go on my son!

Lost at least a place each lap into Coppice, and because I was out braked and pushed wide into here each time, I never once got the corner right, so I was definitely losing time through here, down the back straight just as I was going underneath the Dunlop Bridge the bike was revving out in top gear....oh great, I had the gearing wrong as well, so had to roll the throttle and couldn't pass anyone here, had a look to the end of the straight and could see Juan ahead but with lots of bikes in between us, so I thought that I must be doing alright, anyway soldiered on but because I was holding on too tight again my arms pumped up and started to get knackered, it's well tiring without feeling the way I did, then going around the Old Hairpin had another huge slide as the back end let go again, which put my heart in my mouth for a while and on the last two laps lost about four places, two of them being Jason and Kev... ...........bugger.

Got back to the pits to be informed that I finished 14th.....and I was well chuffed, only to find that I was classified 18th....which deflated me a bit after thinking that I had finished four places higher, but a top 20 position was what I had hoped for......but was made up when Ann had told me that my fastest lap was 1'20.5.........so I was pretty happy after that. Juan had a fastest lap of 1'17.2 and finished 4th...........Jason in 14th and Kev in 15th. Was thinking of changing the gearing as I had (for the first time) plenty of time to do it, but couldn't be bothered with the way I was feeling, so just refuelled the bike ready for the next race.

My second and last race of the day was Race 11, and I was in this one with Juan and Jason, Kevin had been out in Race 10 and finished 15th again. When the lights went green, got a visor full of water as I gave the bike a fist full of revs......shite. Noticed that the clutch was slipping at ten thousand revs now instead of twelve, it was a pain in the arse when you pulled along side someone and couldn't drive past, but it probably slowed me down enough to stay out of trouble. For the first three laps it felt like I was doing alright and was at the back of a group of about five, with Jason leading the bunch, started to get knackered again and tensed up that badly that I started to lose feeling in my arms and found difficulty in twisting the throttle and grabbing the front brake and nearly overshot a couple of times, started to lose touch with the group I was in and started to go backwards and just wanted to get to the finish and lost about five places on the last three laps and finished........23rd. Jason got 16th and Juan got 5th. The only consolation was that I had got my lap time down to 1'20.04......just outside the 1'19's.......was pretty happy about that on my first attempt. I'm pretty upbeat about going there again, hopefully I'll be 100%, so will the bike and now I know where the track goes, so I'm pretty confident of going quicker...............my target next time is to get into the 1'18's.

Had plenty of time to pack up, and was probably the last to leave of the four of us after a shower etc... ........and headed up the motorway to Heysham.......about half an hour later, saw Dawnio waving frantically at the side of the road and had to swerve to avoid something.......turns out that their truck door had swung open and their steps had fallen out....gave them a beep and Juan just stood there shaking his head.............nobbers.

Went to a pub in Lancaster to kill a few hours as the boat wasn't till 02:15 and watched Ipswich v Man City (Terry is an Ipswich fan), then went to the boat. It was a really calm crossing and arrived half an hour early. Dropped the boys off then unloaded the van with Ann, then went straight to work............. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Took the clutch out of the bike and found that the springs were bent, so this time put a Kevlar race clutch in it, along with HRC springs and spacers so hopefully this one will last longer. Also gave the bike another once over ready for the next one.

Next up is Jurby on May 19th........looking forward to it, it'll be interesting to see if I'll go quicker seeing that the bike has had the cylinder head done and the forks have been improved............providing I stay on the bastard.

So, tune in next time for another very exciting, clutch slipping, sneezy, nose running, knackering episode of...................Tommy Clucas Racing.