BSB Superstock 600 - Donington Park - 24-26/05/2013

         The 4th round of the British Superstock 600 Championship was held in conjunction with the World Superbikes at Donington Park over the weekend. This was a great meeting to be apart of, in front of the world stage and at such a prestigious track such as Donington. The weather started out really windy on Friday but it was forecast to get better as the weekend went on.

In practice on Friday morning the bike was feeling good and I was running in 2nd place. I came into the pits to talk to my team about how it felt. As I went on track again I was warming my tires up for a lap. I must have been pushing a little harder than what the tires could cope with and I tucked the front at the very fast and common crash site, Craner Curve. This section of track is an extremely fast down hill left hander. The bike dug in as it hit the grass and cart wheeled quite a few times. We got it back to the garage to asses the damage, which was a lot! We were unable to get it going for Qualifying 1 that day but the team worked extremely hard to get it going for Saturday.

The weather improved a lot on Saturday so I didn’t feel to bad about missing qualifying on

Friday as I knew all the times would drop in the second qualifier. As I rode out of the pits the bike was spluttering and not revving cleanly. I had to go out to put in a lap time to qualify for the race, so I did 3 laps with the bike accelerating badly. I came in and the team had to disconnect some of my electronics for the fuel injection system. This improved it to make it accelerate better but we were still down on acceleration to normal. I managed to get 3 flying laps in, which in this time my

steering damper came off! I put it 16th on the grid. Not where I knew I could be but I was just

thankful to have made it on the grid at all after such a big crash on Friday. After such limited track time and lack of setup time I just new I would have to get a good start and work my way through as many riders as I could in the race on Sunday.

Finally our race came around at 4:35 on Sunday afternoon. I managed a good start to be 12th on the first lap. I worked my way up to 9th before a crash caused the safety car to come out. I was

running with the group fighting for second and had gapped the group behind me, but the safety car bunches everyone back together. Once it went in we only had two laps left. I was up to 7th but got pushed wide on the last lap and dropped two positions. To come across the line in 9th was positive for me this weekend. I feel like if the weekend had gone smoothly we could have been much higher up. But considering the work the team had to do just to get me back out on track and starting from 16th on the grid, I was happy to bring home some more championship points.

So far the consistent point finishes have been good. With two 9ths, an 11th and a 5th place, I am currently 6th in the championship. I’m now looking forward and working hard to achieve some high point finishes to cement my place as a front runner in the championship. Thanks to my team for working extremely hard this weekend to repair my bike and get me out for the race on Sunday. Our next round is at Knockhill in Scotland in three weeks time. Thanks to all my sponsors and supporters and everyone who is following my progress this year!

Levi Day #57