22.06.2008 AJ's View of the Snetterton Race Weekend

Hi all, here is an update to how the Map Embassy Triumph Racing Team went at the 5th round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship held at Snetterton Race Circuit situated just outside Norwich in Great Britain.

With Snetterton being a track with extremely long straights and not so many tight and twisty corners, we knew we were going to be in for probably our toughest race of the season. This being because the Triumphs make really good power off the turns, but cant keep up top end with the 4-cylinder Japanese bikes.But the MAP EMBASSY TRIUMPH mechanics were well equipped for this situation and did everything in their will to prepare the bikes to their maximum potential.

Friday morning,the two supersport bikes of Glen Richards and Paul Young were first out on track, with both riders using their valuable experience in getting to grips with the track straight away and ending the 40min session with Glen quickest and Paul 4th(0.5sec off Glen)This was good for myself as I had not tested there with the Triumph prior to this weekend, but it wasn't an issue as we got a pretty good idea of gearing and a close guess with the suspension off the two supersport riders feedback.

My first session out on track was Free Practise, but because we only get one 20min session before Qualifying in the afternoon it is really important to get your bike dialed in as quickly as possible and thus we did. We ended the session in 4th position(0.4sec off pole) and the top 11 riders all within the same second. This was great for us at first as we thought we were going to get "eaten up" by all the Yamahas and we already in the top 5!!!! I was also really confident that after some minor tweaks to the bikes suspension and gearing I could put the beast on pole in Qualifying.

With Glen and Paul only Qualifying the next day, they still had another Free Practise session to try improve their bike from Free Practise 1. Glen had made quite a few changes to his bike, one being his front forks. He is in the process of doing suspension development with K-tech Suspension and they had given him a set of "gas forks" to try. He has used them before and they had worked really well for him, so he was pretty confident that he could better his time as well as keep his name at the top of the time sheets. His time was bettered, but only managed a 4th position losing out on the top spot to his rival Hudson Kennaugh. Paul on the other hand also bettered his time ending the session in 6th place, but still battling ith a "backing in" problem which was costing him valuable time. Anyhow both riders were keeping their heads high and were still confident for Qualifying.

The second last session for the day was Qualifying 1 for myself and with the weather playing games the whole day, I was hoping for the clouds to hold up just for our session as I had a good "dry" setup that we needed to test. Myself and Graeme had made many changes to the bike, mainly going shorter on the gearing in order to pull out the tight chicanes and re-building the front forks with softer front springs. We also raised the back 2mm to help the bike steer a bit better. Just our luck, as Pit Lane opened.. so did the heavens!!! We quickly put the "wets" in the spare bike so we could still get on track and make sure we get on the grid as this particular weekend we had 59 entries and only 40 qualify. It is also good to get a good stating position in order to set yourself up for the race.Most riders sat the first 15min out hoping that the track would dry out, but we were out no matter what. With 10min left of our session and me being quickest on "wets", the track was dry enough to run dry tires, but still wet in some places. So all the riders started putting in some quick laps as the track improved. Many riders were also caught out in the wet spots, one rider being World Supermotard rider Christian Iddon who high-sided and knocked himself ot cold breaking his arm and thumb.

Nevertheless on the last lap of the session I managed to get a clear lap in and post a time quick enough to put me 2nd on the grid and only 0.2sec off Luke Jones who was quickest.With me in a good position for the race on Sunday, the pressure had eased off a bit as I had a good place on the grid.

Saturday morning soon arrived and it was Supersport Qualifying. Glen went out and straight away put in a cracker of a lap setting a time that nobody could better the whole session and thus leaving him with pole position for the race!!Paul on the other hand also put in some cracker laps ending the session in 7th place. I had my second Qualifying session in the afternoon and the track being alot drier than yesterdays we/dry session.Qualifying 2 turned out to be a lot tougher than we expected as the Yamaha's began to show their true speed down the straights and the top of the leader board filled with riders all on Yamaha's.In the dying moments of the session,we put in a fresh back tyre and went out and i managed to straight away go quicker.I ended the session in 4th place on the grid with the closest Triumph being 17th. An interesting fact was that 13 of the top 15 machines were all Yamaha's and the the other two being my 675 Triumph and Luke Stapleford on a Kawasaki in 10th place.

Raceday soon arrived and my race was before Glen and Paul's. I had been looking forward to this race as I knew it was going to be a really good battle.Off the line I managed to jump to 2nd place straight away chasing down Luke Jones as hard as I could. We made a quick break from the rest of the pack pulling 2sec gap right away. 5laps into the race Lee Johnston on his R6 caught me halfway down the back straight and I passed him straight back on the brakes. This turned into a good tassle as he was quicker than me down the straights,but I was quicker on the turns. The only lap that I didn't lead him across the finish line is the lap the race got "red flagged" because two riders crashed in the first turn. It was frustrating for me as they called it a race because we had done more than 75% but i felt I could have beaten him in the end. The team were still really happy with the result as it brought another podium for MAP EMBASSY RACING!!!

All that was left of this eventful weekend was the Supersport race.This also turned out to be exciting as Glen,Steve Plater,Hudson Kennaugh and James Westmoreland broke away from the pack in a mad dash.At the same time of the race, there was a great big storm cloud on the verge of breaking so between Glen and Steve, they were trying to lead as many laps as possible in case the race was stopped.Glen managed to lead every lap except the one that counted as the race was stopped when another rider had a big fall coming on to the straight and knocked himself out.This gave Steve Plater the victory ahead of Glen.But Glen still gained on his championship extending his lead to 30 points.Paul on the other hand had a nightmare of a race.On lap2, whilst coming on to the pit straight he got caught out with a highside which he dis-located his ankle preventing him to carry on.

Other than Paul's unlucky incident,it turned out to be another productive weekend for MAP EMBASSY TRIUMPH.Our next race is 2 weeks time at Mallory Park and I'll keep everyone updated.

Regards

Allann-Jon Venter

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