Spies happy with floodlit debut
Added on Friday, March 19th, 2010 by Carole Nash Editor
Spies happy with floodlit debut
Rookie Ben Spies was delighted with his first day showing in Qatar despite having his session curtained by a crash late into day.
Spies posted the third fastest time of the day in Losail in his first every floodlit outing, beating teammate Colin Edwards by more than half a second in the process before walking away from a crash in the closing stages. With only Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner ahead of him in the time charts, the Texan was understandably delighted with his performance but has vowed to keep his feet on the ground for the time being.
“I know this track from last year but riding under the floodlights is definitely a bit different and nothing I’ve experienced before,” said Spies. “The perception of speed is much faster with it being at night but I’m having a lot of fun. It’s really well lit up but there are a couple of darker spots on the track that you have to get used to but I’ve not done too bad in adjusting to the lights.
“I know the track but any track I go to on a MotoGP bike makes it definitely different because of the lines you take. Some of the lines I’d take on the superbike just don’t work but I felt like it was coming together good and following a couple of people it felt like I was doing more of the right things than I was in Malaysia.
“Obviously it is great for me to be high up the timesheets but I’m still taking baby steps to improve and not getting carried away. The crash was nothing too serious. I was running the hard front and I wasn’t getting a good feeling from it. We changed the pressure to try and help for my second run but I just lost the front at the second corner. But to be third is fantastic for my guys at Monster Yamaha Tech 3. They have been giving me great support.”
