During September Andrew and the crew of Team Sennett Racing took in two meetings that were rounds 9 and 10 of the British National 600 Superstock Championship.
12th/13th/14th September Croft The first was at the Croft circuit in the county of North Yorkshire. Hoping for a dry round this time was wishful thinking as more rain fell during the course of the weekend. In the free practice session on the Friday Andrew had to relearn the 2.12 mile circuit as he had not ridden a 600cc machine there before and needed to not only remember his way round but to also gain some information on what gearing and suspension set up to use.
During this first session held on the Friday the conditions were good albeit somewhat cloudy and Andrew put in a time that was 15th quickest.
Later in the day the first timed session was held but this time the weather was held in much different conditions of the wet. Andrew this time proved that he is improving in racing in the rain by setting the 18th quickest time out of the 43 competitors vying for the 40 grid positions.
Saturday morning was the second timed qualifying session held after it had rained and with the track very wet at the start of the session but drying towards the end, the only option was to go out on heavily patterned rain tyres and hope that conditions didn’t dry out too much.
Andrew improved his lap times by 2.5 seconds but slipped to 23rd overall for his grid position for the race later in the day. Because of the noise sensitive nature of the venue Croft it is one of the rounds where some races have to be completed on the Saturday as there is a noon start on Sunday and there would not be enough time to fit all the races in.
Andrew’s race was held during the middle of the afternoon and the conditions were good. He hadn’t had the opportunity to set the bike up for the dry and had some settings that he wanted to try but it would be a gamble.
Unfortunately the gamble didn’t pay off and the bike was made much more difficult to ride with the changes that were made. Andrew did however manage to complete the race and took the flag in 26th place at the end of the 15 laps. With only a two week gap before the next round Andrew and the team did not have much time to prepare the Yamaha R6 before the next round which was to be at Silverstone on the 26/27/28th.
26th/27th/28th September Silverstone With the bike prepared and ready the Team set off for Silverstone on Thursday in readiness for Round 10. The venue was the home of the British Formula 1 GP Silverstone. The 2.2 mile Northamptonshire circuit was a former airfield and as such is flat and fast. Andrew had good results there last year in practice and qualifying and was looking forward to a good result in the race when he was cruelly taken out on the first lap. This year would be the first time he had ridden a 600 machine there and once again he had to relearn the circuit.
The first free practice session was held on Friday and the conditions were ideal with the sun shining this time. From the outset it was apparent that we had some serious suspension issues that were causing some very scary moments but Andrew used the session to gauge what gearing would be required and in doing so set the 19th quickest time out of the 51 competitors vying for the 40 grid places.
Andrew made some changes to the set up and it looked as if we had made some inroad into curing the handling problems and he again posted the 19th quickest time in the 1st timed qualifying session also held on Friday.
On Saturday once again the conditions were ideal for racing and the second timed session took place at midday. This time the changes that had been made did not seem to work and gave Andrew an uphill struggle to improve on session 1 times.
He managed to circulate quicker than he had in session 1 but slipped down the order to end the 25 minutes in 27th position. His time of 1min 33.379 was only 1.95 seconds off the pole time such is the competitive nature of the class. Sunday was race day and again the weather was fine but this time there was some clouds and the forecast of rain later.
Andrew went out for warm-up in the morning and was 15th quickest but was still unhappy with the handling and the resultant tyre wear that it was causing.
For the race he decided not to make anymore changes as there would be no opportunity to try it out and hoped that it would be ok.
Andrew made a good start but starting from row 7 he knew he would have his work cut out to get through the field. This problem was compounded by the fact that once again he was caught up in someone else’s mistake at the first corner and pushed out wide which resulted in him losing the places that he had gained from the start.
He survived some scary moments in the race but at the end finished in 32nd place.
Although once again obviously disappointed he is now looking forward to the next round at Brands Hatch on the 10/11/12th October.
Andrew would like to thank:- Ward Gethin, Mick Culey, Signtech, T.W Suiter, T M Browne & Steelemedia for their help.
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