Castle Combe - 10 and 11 June 2006 - Grand National
Well it was off to Castle Combe last weekend for the annual Castle Combe Grand National. Castle Combe only runs one motorcycle race a year and this year they were hosting the second round of the World Sidecar Championships. We were invited by the cicuit director Rodney Gooch to take part in the support race, The Castle Combe Superbike Grand National. This is run on the same format as British Superbikes with two timed qualifying sessions on the Saturday determining starting positons for the two races on the Sunday.
We took Victor Cox, Phil Bevan and Matt Whitman to ride for us with Vic and Matt aboard our Superstock Yamaha R1's and Phil on a Suzuki GSXR 1000 Superbike. Unfortunately there are few track days at Castle Combe and we were unable to get any testing there before the race. This put Matt at a particular disadvantage as he had not ridden the R1 since last season.
We arrived at the circuit on Friday night and set up in the garage allocated to us. After the awful weather at Mondello it was nice to set up in the dry.
On Saturday morning there was a half hour free practice. After a few adjustments, Vic and Phil were soon on the pace and finished the session with Phil 2nd and Vic 3rd fastest. Unfortunately Matt was struggling with the bike's handling and finished a disappointing 28th.
First qualifying saw Phil and Vic both improve on their times but this time it was Phil 4th, Vic 5th and Matt still strugling down in 26th. So for the last couple of laps of qualifying we sent Matt out on different tyres - with an instant improvement but too late to improve on his time.
Second qualifier saw Victor pull the pin and go straight to pole position with Phil slipping a couple of places to 6th and Matt jumping up 13 places to 13th, a fantastic ride from him.
With a track temperature of 40C and air temperature around 30C, the two Yamaha R1's were running very hot because the cooling fans usually fitted to the road bikes are removed for racing, so the heat build-up was a cause for concern. We cooled the bikes down as best we could using electric fans but would they hold out?
The first race saw Vic leading on lap one, only to be overtaken by top club rider Richard Norris and unable to retake the lead. Making a late charge on the last lap, but a little too late, Phil was having his own battle and finished 8th. Matt finished a good ride in 10th, so all riders in the top ten. The Yamahas were pushed back to the garages and cooled down again ready for race two.
In race 2, Vic, Phil and Matt all got great starts with Vic going straight into the lead, but the race was red flagged on the second lap beacause of several accidents around the circuit. One of the fallers was previous race winner Richard Norris, and another was NG Roadracing regular Steve Lake. This meant that the race had to be restarted causing yet more concern over the bikes temperatures.
At the second start Vic was on it again: he went straight into the lead and stayed there from start to finish, building up a gap of 12 seconds from second place Superbike rider Dean Ellison aboard the Slingshot bike. Phil had another great start and went up to third place with Matt just behind, however he made a mistake at the chicane and taking to the grass cost him and Matt who followed him 20 places. Phil battled back up the field to finish a very creditable 4th, Matt unfortunately had to retire with brake problems.
So a very succesful weekend for STP and a fantastic result for Vic. Next week sees them all back at the British Superbike round at Snetterton, hopefully for some more podiums (we're getting a taste for champagne)! Lets hope the bikes have cooled down by then!
Castle Combe results - Castle Combe results
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