Silverstone Nightmare!
Added on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor
Silverstone was definitely a weekend to forget.
What a weekend at Silverstone, and one to forget I think! The problems all started on the first day in free practice, once the team had only just finished sorting the engine problem ten minutes before I was due to go out for the first free practice. I started out with new handle bars and a different engine set-up but the handle bars didn’t feel quite right. They stopped me from getting arm pump so they will be an advantage in the long run but they take some getting used to.
I was half way free practice but it just wasn’t going the right way. We had made so many changes throughout the 50mins before disaster struck with just 10 minutes to go. I had one of the biggest high side crashes I’ve had in my racing career. It wrecked the bike and I smashed my ankle, rupturing some screws that were in there. My ankle was black and blue and the swelling made getting my boot on for race one a nightmare.
After the bad qualifying and the two engines blowing up, it was time for race one.
It started very well and we were soon battling with the factory teams. Then, Michael Rutter put me on the grass at the hairpin, forcing me to rejoin the group at the back. I eventually came through from last to 20th place from last. Eleven laps into the race however, the dash started flashing a water temp warning. The water had boiled over. I tried to carry on but didn’t realise that it was leaking water in the belly pan of the bike. That meant that when I went round the hairpin, water was spewing onto the rear tyre and spat me off. That left us with no engines left and a broken bike, forcing us to retire from race two.
Hopefully all is better at Oulton Park! Speak to you all soon.
