Keith Stewart Racing

Anyway, I took out the ZX10R but from the off I never felt comfortable. On account of my right leg limitations we had added a bit more seat foam to rise me up a bit but it still wasn’t in the right place. I knew I had to stay out and get miles under my belt but when I came in I had a word with Davy Morgan and Liam Quinn who both said the bike looked bad over the jumps.

Next up I was out on the R6 Yamaha. Compared to the big bike, I felt better straight off and although I was over 13 seconds a lap quicker there is still a bit to go in the set up department. The right hand corners didn’t inspire confidence because it was as if she was trying to step out on me but it may be down to the tyres….it’s something we have to look at. We had also put more seat foam on her and my leg felt really good so that was a step forward but there are clearly big moves to make with the big bike to get her performing the way she can.

The next practice for me was the next open but with the hold ups from earlier they could not run it but I wanted to try and fit it in first thing after roads closed on Saturday morning….more bike miles.

When I returned to the awning and after taking my leathers off, I noticed that one of my sets of wheels had been moved. After closer inspection I noticed that it was a set of R6 wheels with brand new wet tyres fitted to them. Someone had basically come into our awning and stole a set of wheels and new wet tyres! This behaviour is totally alien to the close knit biking fraternity and sadly it is becoming all too common these days. Racing is hard enough to pay for without someone doing this as it amounts to someone stealing over a £1000 from you.

Saturday morning came and so did the rain so with my wet wheels stolen, we had to get a set of wet tyres fitted to the dry wheels for the practise that was missed from the Friday night. We had just got all that sorted then we were told that the practise would not run and it was straight into racing. As I was not fast enough on the big bike I could only take out in the 600 but by the time the 600 race was near ready to start the sun had come out to dry the roads so we had to get the dry tyres fitted again….more unnecessary expense.

The 600 race started and the first wave went away clean but there were a few riders from the second wave down at the chicane which took a bit of tidying up. We finally got going but on the first lap I knew the rear end of the R6 was not just right so I decided to pull in at the start/finish line after one lap to see what was up. Seconds after that the red flags came out ending the days racing and I have to say, all my troubles paled into insignificance when the sad news filtered in.

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