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9th August 2010
Doodson Motorsport Racer Tom Tunstall ended his latest race weekend on a high, overcoming bike issues to end the weekend with a storming ride back into the points.
Brands
Hatch in Kent hosted the British Superbike Championships for a second
time in 2010 with the latest round taking place last weekend on the
renowned 2.3mile “GP Circuit”.
Following
the free practice and qualifying sessions it was clear all wasn’t as
planned for the Yorkshire based team with Tunstall back in 23rd
position on the grid.
Tunstall explained:
“We’ve
been suffering from Chatter [High Speed Vibration] coming from the rear
tyre. It starts after a couple of laps then just gets worse. As soon as
I turn into any of the faster corners the back end of the bike starts
coming around and I have to shut off loosing time and it means I can’t
ride the bike like I want to.
“Initially we thought it was just a
one-off issue and because it rained in the practice before qualifying
we didn’t think about it again. In qualifying there was nothing I could
do with it, I tried to modify my riding style around it but we just
need to cure it.”
The
first of the weekend’s three races was held on Saturday afternoon and
after eight laps rain brought out the red flag and the race was
restarted on a drenched track.
Without time to change the bike’s
setting to suit the wet conditions Tunstall was forced to start the
race with a modified dry set-up which he’d never tried before and to
make matters worse he had to start from the back of the grid having
missed the pit lane opening.
After coming home in 23rd Tunstall remarked:
“As
there wasn’t time to change to our normal wet setting the race turned
into a test session for us – I didn’t know how it’d work until I tipped
into turn one! As the race went on my confidence built with it but the
front was still a bit hard and in a race you can’t come in and change
it.”
The weather was kinder on Sunday with broken sunshine throughout.
Race two again saw Tunstall afflicted with the “Chatter” issues and it was clear that the
Yorkshireman was far from happy ending the race in 20th.
“It's
like racing with one arm tied behind your back, very frustrating. I’m
hardly racing out there just surviving to keep the bike on the track”.
With the Chatter problem traced to the tyre spinning on the rear wheel rim the team did all they could to eradicate the issue.
The
work paid off with a revitalised Tunstall lapping at his fastest ever
pace around the Kent circuit, almost a second a lap faster than the
previous races.
Charging through from 25th on the grid with a
top-12 pace finishing 15th at the flag, taking home more championship
points and narrowly missing a seasons best 14th by only half a second.
“It was like racing on a different race track without the chatter and was a relief to finally get my bike back.
“I really enjoyed the race; I’m over the moon that we turn the weekend around and added points to the board”
The
next round of the British Superbike Championships is the popular
Cadwell Park bank holiday race, known as “Party in the Park” over the
weekend of 28th -30th of August..
photo courtesy of motoprofessional.com
photo courtesy of motoprofessional.com
photo courtesy of motoprofessional.com
