Round 4 - Mallory Park

On Thursday we loaded the race truck and set out for Mallory Park ready for a test day on Friday and the 4th round over the weekend. 30 minutes away from Mallory Park the truck broke down. This left us waiting for hours to be recovered. After a long evening of recovery, last-minute changes to the van insurance so that I could drive one of the vans and multiple trips to and from the lorry to unload and reload the vans, we finally made it to Mallory Park Friday morning to complete the test day. 

On Saturday I went out for my qualifying sessions I had a good qualifying; R1 – 2nd on the grid and R6 – 4th on the grid.

The first race of the day was the R1. Another good battle for 2nd place. However, I ended the race in 3rd. On the first lap, I lost the transponder off of the bike. Race officials decided I would not be able to compete in the next race without one. As the marshals had my transponder across the other side of the track (not accessible to me) I had to borrow one. This caused me to be late to parc ferme. Officials would not allow me to my starting position for my first race on my R6 so had to start from the back of the grid. I was able to make good time progress and fight my way through the pack not made any easier by a failure of the quick shifter. 

The afternoon sessions were much of the same story. Another good race on the R1 where I was again able to battle with the top 2 riders this time resulting in a 2nd position finish. The last race of the day was the R6 this was another good race and I enjoyed some good battles. Unfortunately, this was hindered by the continued failure of the quick shifter.

On Sunday I was first out on the R1 this was another good race. Where I eventually finished 3rd. The second race of the day was the R6, I had a good start and was battling for 3rd position when another rider had several big moments unfortunately I hadn’t made it past him when he went down leaving me nowhere to go with his bike fastly, approaching me. I had to make the quick decision to jump off and watch my bike hit head first into the wall. This resulted in my bike being completely trashed and unmovable. 

Having pulled myself together I headed out on the R1 the final race of this category. The story didn’t get any better. After a good few laps in 2nd position, I had a mechanical breakdown which resulted in a DNF. Between races, we were able to make my wet bike into a dry bike and head out for the final R6 race. Despite this bike being down on power and not having time to get the set up right I was able to secure a 4th place finish. I enjoyed a good battle for 3rd place throughout the race but in the end, didn’t have the power to hold the move into 3rd position.