Race	Rider	Position	Laps	Fastest Lap	Overall Time
600 Heat 2	#20 Rich	29	6	01:22.38	08:33.40
600 B Final	#20 Rich	DNS	-	-	-
Open Heat 1	#20 Rich	26	6	01:18.03	08:05.08
Open B Final	#20 Rich	22	6	No Record	08:03.66
Novice Open	#20 Rich	DNS	-	-	-

Race	Rider	Position	Laps	Fastest Lap	Overall Time
600 Heat 2	#20 Rich	30	4	01:19.91	05:29.86
600 B Final	#20 Rich	16	6	01:28.24	09:08.83
Open Heat 1	#20 Rich	28	6	No Record	No Record
Open B Final	#20 Rich	24	6	01:19.83	08:09.33
Novice Open	#20 Rich	DNF	-	-	-

Finally the season is here! The long winter wait has ended and it’s time to get back on track and into the field of battle. Well, for me at least – Ian was called into action as Best Man at a friend’s wedding and so had to give this one a miss.

It would be nice to say that all the preparation was complete and there was nothing for me to worry about but that would be lying. Parting company with my new bike at Spitfires during the pre-season test weekend had meant that my plans had suffered a bit of a set-back. 

There was some damage to repair, the bike still hadn’t been set up very well for me, I hadn’t had much time to get myself up to race speed and my confidence was low due to the crash (I’m sure I’ll think of even more excuses later). But I turned up on the Friday afternoon ready as ever and excited that the new season was just about to get underway.

A big thanks to Matt and Shell for spending the Friday evening with me to help get the bike ready for racing (Note to self: don’t leave outstanding jobs until the night before a race – unless you want a nervous breakdown!). They got the bike sorted, kept me smiling, and even cooked me dinner. What more could you ask for – especially from a racing rival!

Like the test weekend, it was March and we were in west Wales so you could probably guess that there would be at least a little moisture in the air. In fact we had high winds as well as prolonged patches of rain all weekend. Virtually every race was a tyre choice lottery with dry lines appearing from time to time and everyone watching the sky for any indication of a change in the conditions. Unfortunately all that most people saw when looking up were the many awnings, gazebos and tents which were heading skywards due to the wind!

A lack of confidence and a wet track did not make for a happy Rich and I wasn’t at all comfortable on the bike. After wobbling around the practice laps I pulled in feeling very disenchanted with my tyre choice. Due to the extremely tight budget for this season I had elected to take a risk and remain on the Dunlop D207RR’s which I had been using for the practice weekend. Bad mistake (Note to self: don’t ever, ever, ever scrimp on tyres!). Grip is everything in bike racing and the RR’s felt slippery everywhere.

In my first race, the 600cc heat, the theme was continued and with little remaining trust left in the tyres I struggled to pull myself together. Every time I leant the bike over both wheels were drifting sideways and all that I felt I could do was hang on and get the thing to the finish line. I got dropped off the back of the pack pretty early on and eventually crossed the line second from last in a dismal 29^th place.

Next up was the Open class heat. I was feeling quite dejected which strangely seemed to help me in this race. Instead of worrying about things I just got my head down and rode as hard as I dared on those tyres. I finished in 26^th position and managed to knock 4 seconds off my best lap time from the previous race. Still not great but at least my performance was heading in the right direction.

Then disaster. After chopping and changing rims and tyres during the lunch break it became apparent that there was a problem with one of my wheels – the same one I’d had a problem with before during the test weekend. Despite having the bearing replaced with the correct part between the two events, the divvy that had done the work hadn’t seated the new one deeply enough. This ultimately meant that I missed the second 600 race whilst walking round the paddock looking for someone with the tools and technical know-how to knock the bearing into place. Enter Rob Jones, motorcycle mechanic and fellow racer, with a big hammer…. and five minutes later the problem was no more – cheers Rob!

That was by no means the end of my nightmare weekend though. Although I managed to climb another few rungs of the ladder to finish 22^nd in the second Open race my main focus was the last event of the day, the Novice Open race, as this class is my best hope for good results this year. But alas it wasn’t to be, whilst waiting in the holding area to be called onto the grid my battery ran flat and I was resigned to the fact that I’d have to push my bike back to the paddock, tail between legs, without even starting the race. I thought I couldn’t feel any more gutted, but another 24 hours at Pembrey would prove me wrong. 

A lot can change overnight at these two-day meetings and you often find that riders wake up on the Sunday with a quiet calmness about them after getting a whole day of racing under their belts. Unfortunately I woke up still reeling from the previous day. My thoughts and feelings were quite negative and this showed on track. The bike was still wearing the “demon tyres from hell” as I couldn’t afford to replace them and I felt that my performance was not going to improve a great deal over the previous days. In the 600cc heat it didn’t and my fastest lap was a second adrift of the previous day’s best. I crossed the line in 30^th wondering why I was spending so much money and having so little fun.

Little improved for the Open heat and I rolled across the line in 28^th with very similar lap times bemused by my 10 second loss in performance over my best time from 2003. Then Wales delivered what we’d all been anticipating. A biblical swarm of cats and dogs later and the track had been replaced by a river meandering around a series of lakes. This is when my slightly simple brain decided that this would be the ideal opportunity to play the marginal tactics trump card.

Upon viewing the track from a distance and talking to other riders I decided that there would be a dry line by the time my race started, and as such I should run GP’s instead of wets to gain an advantage. Most played it safe and plumped for wets. Guess what?....... I was wrong, they were right. The line didn’t dry in time for my race and a further 10 seconds per lap was added to my time. My final placing was 16^th – not too bad you might think, but not many turned out for this race, probably something to do with the conditions.

My confidence was receding further and I was at the point of giving up when I was handed a lifeline by a work colleague (and racer) Ricky Ross who generously offered to give me some part warn Dunlop 207GP’s on credit. Still not my first choice tyre but a vast improvement over the RR’s.

I got these on in time for the second Open race in which I had a much more comfortable time. The difference was amazing, my penultimate race of the weekend and I finally felt in control of the bike…….oh well, better late than never! I thought I would use this race to get used to the new tyres and prepare myself for the main event, and my best chance to take something positive away from this meeting, the Novice Open. I ambled home in a lowly 24^th but at least the bike felt good at last and my confidence was up for the last race.

So here I go. The last race, the last chance to rescue the weekend and my first chance of the meeting to put a proper ride in on my new bike. I made it to the grid which was already better than the previous day’s performance. I even made it round the warm-up lap, although the rear of the bike did feel a little unruly. But after the lights went out and the race got underway I found that the bike was bucking like a rodeo bull. I was losing ground all the way round the first lap and then I scared the sh*t out of myself round the full throttle kink in the back straight when “buckaroo” tried to throw me out of the saddle at about 130mph! Time to call it a day. Fifty yards short of completing an entire (yes, just one) lap I pulled into the pits where the marshal pointed out that my rear tyre had run flat!

I have no explanation for why this happened, it has never occurred before or since. But I suspect that whoever was doing the rain dance all weekend was also casting a spell on me because I definitely felt cursed. All that was left to do was pack up the van and drive home which, unlike the rest of the weekend, went without a hitch.