Nipping past a 350 Gold Star at Druids.

The situation was the same in the 500cc race; if I had going two seconds a lap faster – as in 2017 – I would have been in third place in the class instead of fourth or fifth. We were out with the 350cc post-classic bikes, full-on race bikes much faster than our road bikes, especially accelerating from the start, so the first task was to get past the slower riders round the bends. I was then in pursuit of two Ducatis; in the first race I was ahead of one of them – overtaking him at Druids bend, then he would close up at the other end of the circuit and come past on the straight, I would close up at Paddock bend and overtake again at Druids, rinse and repeat, good fun but we could not quite catch the other Ducati. On the last lap I was ahead of my main protagonist, but he got a flyer out of the last bend and blasted past me to the line. So, the aim had been to uphold the honour of Morini by beating the other Italian bikes, two Laverdas were well behind but I had been beaten by both Ducatis. Not good enough.

Close racing.

In the next race John, who had just beaten Stephen and me, got held up by a couple of the TZ Yamahas that would come past on the straight and get in the way on the corners, so it was one Ducati down and one to go. Stephen was once again just behind me on the last lap, I was determined to keep him there and put in extra effort on the last bend, resulting in grounding the exhaust and bouncing off line, so he got past again, albeit only by a whisker. In the third 500 race, on Sunday morning, I fluffed the start, took a while to get past the resultant extra bikes in the way, and couldn’t quite catch the Ducatis. Much determination for the final race, which was to be the very last race of the day. Alas, there was a nasty multi-bike crash early in the afternoon and despite shortening the last races there was not quite time for ours. Drat.

Chasing down a TZ.

Looking back at the 2012 Brands meeting I see that I was a second a lap faster on the Daytona than on the Morini in 2017. The Morini is the faster bike, but I just seemed to flow better on the Daytona. And maybe I am getting a bit cautious in my old age – must try harder, as the school reports used to say.

In the mix.

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