| 01/01/2001 | Title | Circuit |
| arrived at belfast on the thursday night with ivan and stopped at billy mckinstry's house so after helping loading up the transporter, we arrived at the bush circuit around dinner time friday a bit more refreshed than the previous 2 rounds. for this weekend i was to be riding the McKinstry/JML gsxr750k7 instead of my gsxr750k4, and also an outing on the zxr400 in junior support also. my first immpessions of the bush circuit was that this was going to be good fun, some nice twisty bits, fast jumps, it has a bit off everthing, except a straight! first qualifying was on the little kawasaki 400, i did'nt really know what to expect on it as i'd never riden it or any 400 before, so basically just had a bit off fun on it. however i was suprised that i qualified it in 2nd place. second qualifying was on the 750, which was a disapointment as i only managed 17th, however i knew the problem was because of running straight on at the first left hand road end after the start/finish line each lap, because the standard front forks were way too soft for me and were bottoming out. i wound up the preload and put in some more oil friday night, and looked forward to the saturday raceday. first race was on the 400, though the conditions were now wet, and after a bad start moved up to finish 5th after a close race with 2nd to 6th seperated by just over a second. the race was comfortably won by alister haworth. for the 750cc race, roads had dried up, though there was light drizzle about but nothing to worry about. my poor qualifying meant a second row start from the second wave, and a reasonable start saw me 3rd into the first turn followed by leading my wave by the twisty bit off the course. with clear track i got my head down untill i caught & cut through the tail of the first wave riders, and was enjoying the awsome bush circuit. i did'nt know my race position untill lap 6 when i saw a pitboard saying position 1, + 5 secs, on the start/finish line and then promptly outbraked myself at the next road end having to turn back in. i knew that had just cost me probably 7 seconds so tried upping my pace but on lap 7 my steering damper came loose, but managed to finish 3rd, and really enjoyed the circuit and the race and moved up to 3rd in the championship so all in all, had a good weekend. qualifying 17th race result 3rd | ||