13/04/2025
A little bit of a belated post but time for a race review from Round 1 of the 2025 Southern Downs Road Racing Championship out at Queensland Raceway on the 5th & 6th of April.
I went into the weekend after not racing since March 2024 with high hopes of beating my previous best of 1:15.8 on the National Circuit.
Booked in for the Friday practice with a fresh set of the Pirelli Slicks thanks to Dave Fuller of ART - Advanced Rider Training & was doing consistent low 1:18s with a best of 1:17.9 after a wet start to the day & only doing 3 sessions. I was okay with that although like all racers I wanted to be a bit quicker.
Along comes Saturday & the times that actually matter & I feel I was going well with a bike under me that was finally starting to feel like it was doing what I wanted both through suspension setup & throttle feel. We had 1 Practice & 2 Qualifying sessions to see where I ended up starting from for the 4 races over the weekend. Q1 I managed to do 1:16.8 & then got down to a 1:16.3 in Q2 which had me starting 9th on the grid for the weekend.
Race 1 was Saturday afternoon & after a reasonably good start off the line I managed to finish 6th with a best time of 1:16.1. All in all a pretty good day to be within 0.3 of a second of my PB.
Race 2 was Sunday & would normally be a warmup race for me so I wasn't expecting too much in the way of times. Even so I managed to go a touch quicker than Saturday straight up with a 1:16.0 & finished 7th. Bike felt really good & didn't feel like I was asking too much from it to do the pace I was.
Race 3 & was feeling really confident of getting into the 1:15s. After making some more suspension tweaks & getting a medium start I felt like I was behind the 8 ball at the start of the race. The first lap & a 1/2 the bike didn't want to turn in & also didn't seem to want to hold a line which was really strange to me. After the initial lap & a 1/2 though the bike seemed to come to me & did everything I wanted so I knuckled down & tried to gain back the couple of places I lost off the line. All went well & I finished 9th with no idea of what my times were. Once I got back to the pits & got my helmet off I asked my pit crew what my times were & was greeted by a massive smile & even a hug with the news I did a 1:15.0. So close to a 14 but oh well, with 1 more race I thought I might just get the 14 I wanted.
Race 4 & the last race for the weekend. This is usually when I do my best times on a Race weekend but it wasn't to be. I got an ordinary start again & had a decent race overall for a 10th place finish & my times were in the 16s for all but the last lap. Bike felt great I just ran out of steam I think.
All in all a really positive step has been made with the R6 after several years of trying & not as much time racing as I would like. I now feel that I am not over riding the bike & can just concentrate on doing my best with a better package beneath me.
Massive thanks to Jordan Brian for being my pit crew for the weekend & Chris Jones from ### Rated Race Suspension for all of the help with Suspension setup. Also Mark Carlsson from Suncoast Powerhouse Dyno-Tuning for the new tuning setup for my R6.
I cant wait to get back out racing, although I am not sure whether I will be able to race until the end of the year as my plans have changed to hopefully include some interstate race events this year. Stay tuned.
