Here are some photos from the recent No Limits trackday at Oulton Park, taken by the official photographer...
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After 8 months of waiting (and following months of beautiful weather), we finally got back out on track again - and thunderstorms were forecast all day... Typical! Despite Oulton Park being only 20 minutes drive from Two Daves Racing HQ in Northwich, we hadn't ridden at Oulton Park since 2014 on our Kawasaki Supertwin so needed to brush up on our track knowledge prior to the No Limits Racing meeting in August. We arrived early (06:30) to secure a spot in Garage #1 and after a few minutes of unloading we were ready to go. The coronavirus pandemic appears to have impacted the track day experience for the better - with online briefings prior to the event and no static noise testing (drive-by only), the morning was a very relaxed affair.
Prior to the first session the rain fell, so a switch to wet tyres was necessary. The first two laps were supposed to be "sighting laps" under yellow flag conditions (no overtaking) but it took until our fourth lap for the lights to be switched off. In all honesty, that probably worked in our favour as it gave us a chance to blow away some cobwebs and get used to riding a bike again - as everything just seemed to be flashing by in a blur!
In session 2 we started to settle down and that gave us the chance to think about what racing lines and which gears to use around the circuit. With our Darley Moor gearing, we were only using 3rd-5th gears at the speed we were circulating. Here is a wet flying lap from during that session... By session 3 the rain had stopped and the sun had come out. The track was wet when the session started but very quickly started to dry - there was steam coming off the track on the Lakeside straight (towards Island Bend) which was a very peculiar sight.
We swapped over to our brand new dry tyres for session 4 and spent the first part of session making sure that they were properly scrubbed in before we started to pick up the pace. After the lunch break and into session 5, we tried to push harder to go faster but ended up going slower! The onboard footage from this session also shows the demise of our GoPro Hero camera, which broke nearing end of session... For the final two sessions, without the GoPro we were able to see the dashboard clearly which was actually a great help. Once we started to relax, we felt comfortable and took another few seconds off our lap times. The lap times we achieved were not suitable for (or comparable to) racing, but we now feel like we are in a position where we would be ready to enter a race meeting - and we are confident that the excess time would drop away in the competitive qualifying and race sessions.  More rain at the end of the day! It was difficult to tell whether the engine tuning by MSS Performance has made any difference, due to us never having ridden the Kawasaki Supersport machine around the Oulton Park circuit. However, we have a trackday booked at Darley Moor on Monday 20th July so hopefully then we will be able to see what difference the changes have made.
Following a review of the government policies and recommendations, Darley Moor have announced their plans for activity at the cicuit for the remainder of 2020. The official statement is as follows: After 3 long months we are pleased to announce our gates are about to re-open. We like all other venues are re-opening under strict Government guide - lines including having to race for the time being without spectators. The Darley Moor Sports Centre programme of events for the rest of the 2020 season is: Monday 20th July Loose Cannon Track day Saturday 8th August Darley Moor MCRRC Practice Day Monday 17th August Loose Cannon Track day Saturday & Sunday 22nd & 23rd August Classic RMCC Race days Friday 4th September Loose Cannon Track day Saturday 12th September Darley Moor MCRRC Practice Day Sunday 13th September Darley Moor MCRRC Race Day Monday 28th September Loose Cannon Track day Saturday & Sunday 10th & 11th October Darley Moor MCRRC Race Day Monday 19th October Loose Cannon Track day This recent announcement means that our 2020 racing calendar now looks as follows: Friday 26th June - Oulton Park (Track Day) Monday 20th July - Darley Moor (Track Day) Friday/Saturday 14th-15th August - No Limits Oulton Park Saturday/Sunday 12th-13th September - Darley Moor Round 5 Saturday/Sunday 10th-11th October - Darley Moor Rounds 6 & 7 |
AuthorDavid Carson Jnr, Archives
September 2023
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