Moreton-in-Marsh rider Joe Newbould's debut in the 600 Sportsman Elite class of the Thundersport GB series ended in frustration after a strong showing in the opening meeting of the season at Brands Hatch, writes Mike Yiend.
The meeting began with a day of testing which unfortunately for Newbould was mostly written off after trying to pin down a braking problem, which eventually turned out to be a warped disc.
By the time repairs had been done there was no chance to get any meaningful testing done, so Newbould would go into the following day's qualifying and races with a lot to do to find a good set-up on his new 600cc Kawasaki.
Saturday dawned damp and foggy and Newbould found himself a little off his usual pace during qualifying.
He said: "This was mainly due to the lack of testing on Friday. My new Kawasaki is a lot lighter than my old Honda and I found that all my braking points had completely changed. I qualified 26th out of 38, which was disappointing but as I was getting faster with each lap I hoped this would continue into the first race."
This proved to be the case and despite having to contend with a lot of traffic in the early part of the race he moved through the field to 11th at the chequered flag with the encouragement of 4th fastest lap to take into his next race.
He had to wait for the following day though as his second race on Saturday was cancelled due to the rapidly failing light. Having spent a chilly night in the race team van he was greeted with freezing conditions with the threat of snow and the race schedule was interrupted by another rider grenading his engine off the start line and spreading an oil slick as far as Druid's Corner.
By the time of Newbould's race track conditions were extremely difficult and there had already been a number of fallers.
"I had a massive moment early in the race and nearly high-sided coming out of Druid's" he said, "so I eased off the pace a bit but then on the 5th lap someone fell off leaving the bike stranded in the middle of the track, so the red flag came out to stop the race. I had been as high as 4th but had dropped back to 6th at that point.
I wanted to use the re-start as an opportunity to get up front and stay with the leaders. I got a great start and was 2nd going into the first corner but in trying to pass the leader I got onto the dusted oil slick from the earlier engine explosion and the front end slid out sending me and the bike down the tarmac at speed. Luckily I slid pretty well but the bike sustained damage to the exhaust which we were unable to repair, so sadly racing was over for the weekend.
Although Sunday was a disappointment my progress through the field in race one and my lap times showed that I'm capable of riding with the front runners, so I'm really looking forward to the next rounds at Donington over Easter."
16-year-old Cirencester rider Kurtis Drew rode in the last two rounds of the Aprilia Superteen championship last year and after finding he was running in the top 5 on a machine put together out of spares, he is making a concerted effort to go for the title this season.
All riders compete on 125cc Aprilia RS machines and the series is acknowledged as a breeding ground for young talent.
In the first of four races Drew was in a furious battle for the lead with Bradley Perie but in the latter stages of the race he tried to go inside a back marker at Druids when the front wheel tucked in on the slippery surface and Drew was down and out of the race.
Uninjured he went on to record three respectable finishes, with a best of 4th, to make sure he came away from Brands with some points in the bag.
