I could be drinking cocktails…

A Bird’s eye view from the pitlane :

We set off at 9am on Friday morning for the long trip to Oulton Park. Poor old Madge was feeling a bit under the weather with a cold, so I did most of the driving. I kept telling him that the best thing he could possibly do for his cold was spend a whole day standing by a race track in the (possibly) pissing rain. Not sure he believed me…

We got to Oulton Park and straight away found Keith, Mark, Phil and newbie Ben. From the get-go there was a great team atmosphere. My biggest worry is always that we’ll turn up and feel like spare parts – but not so. We’d only been there a short while when Mark asked us to go and pick up Keith’s tyres from the Michellin stand. Over we went and before I knew it I was walking back with a tyre over each shoulder, while Madge carried the wheels. Hang on a minute I thought, it’s Friday night and I should be sat in a bar with a pink cocktail by now – how did this happen? As Keith said, it’s not exactly a dream Friday night date.

You know what, I can’t think of a better way I’d like to spend a Friday night – cocktails or not. The team vibe was amazing – we were kicking it already and everyone felt confident for the Saturday.

This was the first, and only, race of the season where all the action was compacted to the Saturday only. Usually we get to qualify on the Saturday and race on the Sunday so we get a bit of time to adjust. Not this weekend.

So, Saturday arrived and the weather was bright and sunny. I was happy. It was also Keith’s Birthday and we’d bought him a little present. Before the race we gave it to him and he seemed to like it. Everything was looking good. Little did I know that actually our boys were praying for rain. I think I was the only one in the team hoping for dry conditions. I was to be disappointed.

The race was manic. We had sunshine, rain, rainbows, showers, dark skies, bright sunshine. Everything nature could throw at us. For the first time we’d brought a monitor so we could see the team timings live on the pitwall. The first two stints went like clockwork, we went from 2nd in class to 1st and everything was playing out. The strategy was solid. Then, due to visibility issues Ben came in a lap early. Fuck. And by visibility, I mean a monsoon. We had to quickly signal the garage and get Keith out fast. We took a punt – held him out to the last possible minute – made up the time and ran the race keeping the lead from there on. The Redmond Racing boys were next to us on the pitwall and we could hear/feel their pressure as they realised that not only were our boys faster, but that our strategy was stronger.

The last two sessions were mega stressful. We knew we had a great opportunity to win and to be honest as long as our boys kept it rubber side down we were fine. Oh, and as long as we didn’t balls up the timings. No pressure there then…

We knew that on the last stint Keith was P1. Mark came over to the pitwall. We discussed whether to signal to him that he was first but I decided that I was too superstitious to do so. I told the boys that I wouldn’t put the P1 board out until the flag had gone down and I knew he had it. Funny how motorbike racing brings out the superstitious side of you – even when you didn’t know you had one. But the boys let me go with it. Once we knew it we gave Madge the honour of putting it out. To be fair, he’d done most of the hard work.

So, we took the top step on the podium. Until the timing sheets were issued I wouldn’t believe it.

So there you go. Yes, I could have been drinking cocktails. Would I swap that experience for a couple of pink drinks? Would I fuck.