Darley Moor - Round 7 Race Review (2015)

Sunshine welcomed us when we arrived at Darley Moor for Round 7 of the championship. Arriving on the Saturday, we setup the caravan and awning and got scruitineering and signing-on completed early, then ventured over to Stuart Hall's caravan to enjoy a BBQ before later visiting Tim Poole's caravan to watch some of the finest international talent perform on the X-Factor.

Baby Lucy awoke once overnight for feeding but a decent nights sleep was had otherwise, awaking to a clear sky that provided dry tracktime throughout the coming day. We changed the wet front tyre for a new tyre as it needed a refresh but it wasn't to be required today - Stu Lacey (tyre changer & sidecar racer) was injured in a crash on the final sidecar race of the day, so we'd like to wish him all the best with his recovery!

With the tyre warmers on our Kawasaki ER650 Supertwin nice and early (and working fine), we took them off to perform noise testing, then after passing the noise test popped them back on. Around ten minutes before our qualifying session we checked the tyre warmers (as we often do) and the front was not working, so we quickly swapped to our spare front tyre warmer and decided to take a few laps in qualifying to make sure the front tyre was nice and sticky.

In the Formula Darley qualifying there was a lot of traffic and it was only on the very last lap that we managed to get a clear lap in - but that lap was good enough to qualify us in 2nd position on the grid. The Mini Sound of Thunder qualifying provided more clear lap time but again we qualified in 2nd position in class (11th on the combined grid).

The first race of our day was Formula Darley Race 1. A decent start saw us third into the first corner. In the race we moved up to second after passing Keith Shepherd, then fell back to third when Brad Vicars came passed, before passing early race leader Stuart Hall to take second position on the last lap. But Stuart made a lunge on the last corner and pipped us to the line by 0.07 of a second, so we crossed the line in third place.

Mini Sound Of Thunder Race 1 was our second race of the day. We managed to get the holeshot (in class) into the first chicane but were passed by Brad Vicars into the second corner. We spent the rest of the race in second place which we held until the flag, eventually 3.4 seconds behind the race winner.

After the lunch break we had Formula Darley Race 2. An average start saw us entering the first chicane in fourth position. A lack of aggression in making passing moves meant that we got involved in a battle between Nick Anderson, Michael Brookes, Keith Shepherd and Brendan Brown. By time we had made our way through the pack and got clear the leaders were in the distance. We finished in a lonely third place, 11 seconds behind second place and 12 seconds ahead of fourth place.

The final race was Mini Sound Of Thunder Race 2. We again got the holeshot (in class) but couldn't keep in touch with eventual race winner Brad Vicars when he came passed and remained in second place until the chequered flag.

After some solid point-scoring finishes, we remain 2nd position in the Formula Darley championship (22 points behind the championship leader) and 2nd position in the Mini Sound Of Thunder championship (9 points behind the championship leader). With the final round of the championships having a single race with quadruple points available (a maximum of 36 points available per race), both championships will be decided at the final round on Sunday 11th October.

Before then we have a one-off meeting with ThundersportGB at the Donington Park GP circuit this coming weekend (26th/27th September). If you come along, please pop over and say Hi  :-)