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Oulton Park 7 July 2007
Oulton was a great meeting, another one to build upon for the future and
definitely positive overall. There were difficult situations, mostly out
of our control, but the result of the meeting means we are now in 6th
place in the British 250cc championship.
One of the main learning opportunities from the meeting is to be more
careful with 'pre meeting' preparations. The heavy exercise work outs and
2:30am mornings during the week previous meant I was physically and
mentally drained Saturday morning [one of the difficult situations within
my control!]. I was very grateful to Adrian from work who travelled with
me to the meeting and was a great help throughout. We arrived in good time
at 11:50 after a 4.5hr journey, unloaded the bike into the garage, setup
the caravan and were ready for bed at a respectable 1am.
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Preparations were made based on a timetable of practice, qualifying and 15
lap race (42miles!). We were disappointed to find upon registration that
infact there was only qualifying and the race. This immediately meant we
were at a disadvantage because most of the front runners have either been
to Oulton on a 250 this year or last. Having not ridden competitively at
Oulton since 2002 and only having had one outing on a 250 there in 2001 it
was definitely going to be a learning experience. Focussing was difficult
due to fatigue but positive decisions were made relating to fuel
quantities (Tesco Premium - top stuff), tyre choices and strategies. A
slight timing error meant we missed the first few minutes of the 20minute
qualifying session but is something to learn from so as to avoid next
time. A situation out of our control after 2 laps was it started to
drizzle! I decided to come in, as did others, but fortunately it started
to slow down and went back out on track after 5 minutes.
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