Oulton Park Track Day

Cascades

Booked this track day 6 weeks ago, Oulton is always popular and it usually gets booked up early. Sometimes you can find a place, but in the wrong group. These days I prefer to be in the Intermediate group, not too slow but not too fast! The trouble with booking so early is the weather, and it's been a really wet and horrible July so far.

Set off at 6am. It was raining hard and the weather forecast didn't look promising. heading over onto the M62 past Manchester and onto the M6, and still no improvements. I thought I was wasting my time, I'm not that enthusiastic to go wobbling around in the wet, so it did look like I'd be sat in the van hoping for better weather. As we left the motorway we got out of the rain and unbelievably by the time we got to the circuit everything was dry. It was cloudy, but didn't look bad.

Heading onto Lakeside

Normal routine, sign in, riders meeting and noise test. Kept my fingers crossed for the weather, there was one or two pretty dark clouds. Headed out for my first session and took it nice and easy. Went a little bit faster in the second session. My goal was to sort out Island Bend, and stop the front end pushing in some of the off camber exits. By the third session I was getting my knee down through Island bend, near 100mph so I was happy with this. The front was much better at Cascades and Druids so all in all I was happy with the bike.

Knickerbrook

Just before lunch there was some spots of rain and I took is easy in the 4th session. At lunch time I had a quick look around the bike and found the front brake pads were within a couple of millimetres of the metal, this played on my mind for the afternoon sessions and I didn't do my normal late hard braking, something you have to do on such a small bike. I still enjoyed the afternoon and got into good rhythms during the sessions.  All safe at the end of the day and no dramas!

So I was happy with how the bike felt on the off camber sections of the track. Island Bend and Clay Hill didn't concern me, and I was happy with both these areas. I need to work on Hall Bend, it's funny that you can't see the curb on the exit until you're past the apex, at this point you realise that you can hit the bend faster. I also struggled with Cascades and just need to be braver on the way in. Stuff to work on next time!!