Round 9...The Final Round of 2022
There were so many reasons that I was excited for the final round of the British Talent cup. The main one was that I was heading home after the weekend. Being away this long from my family as been really tough and getting a small taste of home a few weeks ago didn't make that feeling any easier to manage.
Thursday's arrival to the track was the same as the previous rounds. We did our briefing with the BTC coaches and headed out to the track walk as well. My confidence was at a super high since I have been on this track before and truly enjoyed it. I knew what areas I needed to focus on and those are the ones I mainly asked questions about and noted some new ideas and approaches that I could use in order to get the fast lines correct. .
Friday was another tough day full of UK weather "enhancements" to my experience. So much was the impact that they cancelled our FP2 outing due to the amount of rain that came down. FP1 was a decent showing again in mixed conditions. I was out on rains and the track was drying rapidly. Decided to stay out and just focus on the areas I wanted to work on the track, especially since we anticipated the rest of the weekend to be dry....boy were we wrong!
Saturday morning and the weather is not sure what it wants to do. The track is wet so we went out on wets for qualifying. About 8mins left to go and the track had gone dry. Another learning experience here, during these mixed conditions, might as well try going out on slicks and waiting it out. Some riders came in and got slicks mounted; I was not one of them. I qualified 24th and that was not where I wanted to be. Race 1 started and I knew I had to just go. I managed to be in P15 by turn 3 and the race was one. Leading the second group for the majority of the race, I ended up being drafted at the line and finished Race #1 in P17. But being that my race pace was much better than qualifying; I would be starting from P13 in Race #2!
Morning warm up on Sunday went well. I was still in the same race pace laptimes as Saturday and was looking to find that next .5sec so I can keep up with the lead group times. Race 2 started and were out. I was in P9 by turn 2 and working on latching onto the lead group. They were running 42s while I was in the 43s and I was creating a gap to those behind me. I was focused and started to see that front group getting closer and closer when all of a sudden the SAFETY CAR came out...I had seen it in Superbike races but never experienced myself. So as we all bunched up together behind the safety car, the crash was cleaned up and we took off. Everything was fine until the first turn where I must of lost some decent amount of temperature in my front tire and washed out in front of me. How I saved it I have no clue but now I got passed by two riders. We fought all race and I finished P10 by the end of it battling with teammates Kiyano and Matts.
I was extremely pleased with the weekend. I felt good, emotionally and physically sound and it showed on the track. Massive thank you to Jay and Elle for another weekend at the race track. To my mechanics Josh, Rhyse, Jay, Alan and Sandy thank you for a perfect machine. Thank you to John C as well for this opportunity and amazing season.
I have so many things that I learned and experienced these last 7 months being away. I am working on getting those thoughts all organized and some soul searching to do as well to find out who, what, why, when and how the season started how it started and ended how it did. Stay tuned for that blog!
Thank you again to everyone involved and I look forward to another to a strong off-season to prepare for 2023. Still not quite sure what's in the cards financially and opportunity wise; but I will keep everyone posted. If you want to get jumpstart that process head over to MERCH tab and click on the fundraiser options.
