Dobsy’s Isle of Man TT 2010: * Saturday 5 June 2010 * Friday practice * Thursday 2 June 2010

Saturday 5 June 2010 Posted: 06 Jun 2010 01:51 AM PDT The 1st race of the week is the 6 lap Superbike and it was delayed 3.5 hours due to fog. Our bike is a Superstock (basically a standard bike) so we were at a slight disadvantage in this race. I had my start number changed due to my practice times and we moved from 41 to 26, this meant a lot less traffic to get past during the race. We had made a couple of changes to the front end of the bike so the 1st two laps were a learning curve to see how she would react. I caught Ian Pattinson on lap one and got past easily only to get passed by Davy Morgan on lap 2 on our way to the pits. Davy was riding the ex Cameron Donald bike from 2009 so it’s a fast bike. In the pits for the 1st time it was hard to keep my speed under the 60kpm limit. Due to a slick pit-stop I left in front of Davy, he soon got past but I managed to stay with him until the mountain where he left me. I was feeling good and the bike was behaving well. At the 2nd stop Bridget said the times were good but I missed the rest of the report. On the run out of the pits Ian was with me again and he pushed me hard. On the last lap my rear tyre and bad knee were crying ‘enough’ but I managed my fastest lap of the race. Ian did get past on the run to the line but I only had to be with him at the line to be 10sec in front as he started ahead of me. I finished 19th overall and 4th privateer. My race average was over 120mph and I did a couple of 123mph (198.4) laps. I broke all my records and had a great start to Race Week. Many thanks to Barnes Racing, Dave East Engineering, North Drill, Atherstone Smash Repairs and all the team.

Friday practice Posted: 06 Jun 2010 12:35 AM PDT According to the programme, practice was to revert to solos first but there was a change of plans and the sidecars were sent out before us. We were told that the sidecars would get the full 1½ hours and we would get a short session again so we decided to do 2 laps on the R1 and only practice the pit lane speed limit on the 600. With about 25 minutes notice, it was announced that we’d go out 40 minutes early. With a bit more notice I could have got 2 laps on the 600 before I took the R1 out but I decided it was too late to change my plan. I had made a small change to the R1 front ride height and it didn’t work as I had expected it to. After the session I spoke to Richard from Maxton and we decided I had too much load on the front tyre and it was deforming entering corners creating the odd feeling I was getting. This was also causing the tyre to look like it wasn’t working. We have a plan for the race so I hope it works. I practiced the 60kph speed limit in pit lane using the speed read-out on pit lane and decided on the rpm I needed for a safe 55kph as the time penalties are very harsh for exceeding 60. Luckily Bridget picked up the official speeds for the session and it turned out that the read-out was 5kph under so we would need to slow down another 500rpm. We’re not in Ireland but at times we could be!

Thursday 2 June 2010 Posted: 06 Jun 2010 12:19 AM PDT We were out after the sidecars and there was a delay of 45min due to an accident on the mountain. This meant we had a short practice session and the sun would be at its worst plus there was the risk of an oil slick on the circuit. As luck would have it there was only one oil spill on the track and that may have been a solo. As we could only get 3 laps in and the biggest changes were to the 600, I decided to run her first for 2 laps. We also had to run down the pit lane to work out what rpm was 60kph for the new speed limit. The changes we had made had improved the 600’s steering but it had put a lot of weight on the front tyre and I had a couple of front end slides so I decided to change it back a little. The times weren’t the quickest of the week but with the low sun I struggled with visibility on some of the fastest parts of the track. I managed to get a rpm to try tomorrow in the pit lane. The R1 felt very big and fast in comparison to the 600 and the changes to her were hard to work out early in the lap with a full fuel load. As the lap progressed the handling did improve a lot. This is the problem with long races you have to set the bike up to handle across a range of 22 kg’s of fuel on board. We hope to do 2 laps tomorrow to see if the setup is right for the race.

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