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Chaz Checks In... Donington Park

Since my last update just before Donington I’ve been waiting to hear if I’ll be riding this weekend at Sachsenring. I was hopeful to try and get another go on the Honda but it looks like Vincent has recovered well enough so he’ll be racing this weekend and I‘ll be on the settee (not really, I‘m in Germany now but am only here until Saturday afternoon just to speak to Dorna and find out if they have any plans).

As for Donington, on the Tuesday before I did my Riders For Health Charity Cycle. I left home at 9:00am, went from mine over to Kidderminster, Kidderminster to Birmingham, Birmingham to Lichfield and then up to Donny. I’ve got to say I felt surprisingly good after the 100 miles considering I’ve never done that amount before. The only problem that I had on the whole trip was that I got properly lost in Birmingham, it all looked so easy on the map! I was stood in the middle of a huge roundabout, talking to my friend, Simon, who was on the computer at his work looking at multi-map on the internet and trying to suss out exactly where I was. Luckily, after about 45 minutes of total confusion he pulled me out of it and I picked up the road that I wanted to be on, on the other side of Birmingham and I was well away. From my house over to Kidderminster I took it pretty easy because the roads were hilly and I didn’t want to burn myself out in the first 50 miles. When I got the other side of Birmingham I could relax a bit now because I knew exactly where I was going and still felt really fresh so I started to push it a bit more for the last 40ish miles.

I had a couple of stops on the way, the one long, unintended one in Birmingham and then a couple of short ones between Birmingham and Donington to meet a member of my supporters club, Chris Handy, who gave me a bit of water so thanks for that Chris and secondly to meet my friend Johnny and Casey (Stoner) who had been staying at mine and said that he would meet me along the route somewhere. All in all it took me about 6 hrs 45 minutes but I reckon without getting lost and the two other stops it could have been done in about 5 ½ hours. I’m glad I did it and have raised £865 all in all so that‘s pretty good as well. Thanks very much to those who contributed, it’s money well spent.

The Donington weekend didn’t go to plan to say the least but it was a good opportunity for me to try a Honda. In actual fact, only the engine is a Honda and the chassis is a Dutch one, called a Bakker.

We managed to get to Mallory park on the Wednesday afternoon but it was a bit of a write off. After meeting the team at Donington we loaded up the van they had, in a bit of a rush, and just took the essentials as I wasn’t planning to go crashing any bikes that afternoon. The aim was to just try and get a general feel for the bike and get the pegs, bars etc set in the right position for me. For my first impressions of the bike I was quite surprised because it was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. I asked them to put all the extended parts on, that Smrz used to use, and with all them on it turns out it’s actually bigger in length than an Aprilia so I could tuck in quite OK on it. Just as I was getting wound up and gaining feeling for the bike, at the end of my fifth lap, as I came down the Devil’s Elbow on to the Start/Finish straight, my foot came off the left peg and when I tried to put it back on I couldn't & I realised that it was because I had no peg there. The bolt had given way through fatigue and I cruised it back to the pits. Unfortunately we didn’t account for needing any spare parts like that and we had to go back to Donington after just 8 laps. I was reasonably satisfied with the very first impressions of the bike but knew that it would be a bit different on a track like Donington, so the real teller would be on Friday morning.

On Friday I was looking forward to trying the bike again. The first session was just learning the bike but it didn’t take too long before I was comfortable with it. I immediately noticed one problem with it in the first session which I have never been used to before. The bike felt seriously long, bus-like! It was extremely difficult to turn down through Craner and up towards McLean’s compared to what I have been used to in the past. All day we worked towards making the bike shorter and lowering the front to try and get it to turn better on the gas. From the morning session on Friday to the afternoon’s session we made quite a big step and improvement to the bike but we struggled to find anything else after that. Normally, to keep the first long right flat out before Craner isn’t too much of a problem, and also under the bridge at Starkey’s just before you flick right for McLean’s, normally I don’t have too much of a problem here but I was having to come off the gas early to get the front to dive and turn and then get on the gas again, a bit of a choppy way of doing things compared to what I have been used too but this was the only way I could get the bike to turn and set myself up for the next corner without being off line. Also something else that was very strange is that never once in the hundreds of laps I have done at Donington have I had to use the kerb coming onto the Dunlop straight. Always on the Aprilia, I could miss the kerb by a metre without any effort and probably could have done more if I wanted to. With the Honda I was fighting the bike off it every lap, I couldn’t help but use it which was underlining the turning on the throttle problems I was having.

On Saturday morning we raised the rear of the bike to put more weight on the front to try and get it to turn better. It didn’t change the bike at all so we put the rear back to how it was before and shortened the front again. I wasn’t getting big benefits from shortening the bike and it was making the bike worse in the hard braking corners like Redgate, Melbourne Loop and Goddard’s. We had tried just about everything to try and make it turn but nothing was making any big differences. From Friday morning to Friday afternoon we improved 1.3 seconds, then from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning I was expecting at least another second after my first full day on the bike but I didn‘t go any faster at all. The rate of chassis improvement had really slowed up and in the afternoon I only managed to go a couple of tenths faster than what I did on Friday which wasn’t quite right. My best on the Aprilia in 2004 and last year was over 2.3 seconds faster than my best on the Honda so I knew where we had to find the time, it was just getting the bike right.

On Saturday evening my suspension man, Tim, told me that the shock I was using is set to Vincent’s preferences which as Ohlins put it “Is MotoGP hard”. Apparently the valving in the shock I was using was rock hard because that is the way that Vincent likes it. We decided that for morning warm-up we would try the standard Showa shock that the team used to use with Smrz and set it what they thought would be somewhere near for me. Unfortunately it rained in the night and for the early part of the morning so I didn’t couldn’t get an indication of what the shock would be like on a dry track. As for riding the bike in the wet, that was good. I was in the top 10 all session feeling pretty comfortable. Also, in only 8 laps I went over a second quicker than I did on the Aprilia last year. I always liked Honda’s in the wet because they seem to give me more feel instantly whereas with the Aprilia you have to push the bike hard in the wet before it starts to respond. After warm-up I was hoping for a wet race but it didn’t look like it was going to happen.

We went with the softer Showa shock for the race as a complete gamble because I had nothing to lose. I made a good start from 23rd on the grid and went deeper than most, into the first corner, which put me into about 18th. I was trying to make up as much time as early as possible and see if I could get into a fight with somebody and hang onto a decent group. The first time we came onto the Dunlop straight I knew that something wasn’t quite right with the engine, I was getting romped. On the 2nd and 3rd lap I was with an Argentinean rider, Perren who was also riding a standard kitted Honda but I was still getting absolutely smoked every time we got onto the straight parts of the track. I thought “sod it, I’ll either crash or I’ll stay on the back of him”. At the end of the 3rd lap, I crashed. I went into the final corner, was slightly wide and the front let go pretty easily. I tried to get back on but the clutch lever was broke and that was the end of my race. I was obviously disappointed but felt that for the 3 laps that I did, I gave it a good go. It was difficult to tell how the different rear shock was after so few laps and with the engine the way it was I struggled to get a real indication.

I’m grateful to Molenaar for giving me the chance to try a Honda/Bakker bike and also thanks to the whole team, especially my mechanics Clinton, Roy, Hans and Tim, there were a real good bunch.

Somebody said on Sunday night that the Tour bus that goes around the circuit on the Day of Champions spilt some diesel at the last corner which dried up with the heat on Friday and Saturday, and then resurfaced with the rain on Sunday morning and stayed there, making it a bit slick in the race. Quite a few riders crashed at that corner on Sunday and my front seemed to fold quite easily so there may have been something on the circuit, who knows?

After the GP I took Casey and my girlfriend, Hattie, to Alton Towers on the Monday which was good fun. Last week Casey stayed at mine and we did some mini MX riding, mini Supermoto, Casey rode normal Supermoto and we bought some rods and did a bit of fishing. On Friday I took Casey to the Goodwood Festival of Speed as he was riding up the hill on his RCV and we stayed there all weekend. It was good fun, a fair bit different and good to see some of the old bikes as well, damn some of them were loud!

For now I still have no news as to what bike I’ll be riding next. Like I said, I’m at the Sachsenring this weekend to speak to Dorna and try and find out if they have anything in mind. I’ll keep you up to date when I have some news. Cheers,

Chaz#57!!!