27 April 2008
Jnr. Team: Round 3 – Cadwell Park

Only the MiniTwins were racing at Cadwell this weekend, so Piers was on his own without team mate Simon to help show him around.

It took Piers quite some time to get his head around what is probably one of the trickiest tracks in England to get right. But slowly it came right, corner after corner, race after race he improved his lap times.

After a slow and crowded qualifying session on Saturday he started the first race 17th place on the grid out of the once again large grid of 38 bikes. Soon he had moved up to 12th but the front of the grid had moved away too far to make any further progress. However Piers had reduced his lap times by two seconds to the 1. 44s.

Then came the long wait for his second race scheduled to be the last of the day. The weather was suddenly hotting up and although a sun tan was on offer the race delays meant that his second race was moved to first thing Sunday amid a forecast of the end of the fine weather and a really torrid wet day.

After a period of rain during the night, the weather once again delighted, but always had a feeling that with storm clouds circling a dry Cadwell it could deluge at any minute.

Piers rescheduled race on Sunday morning saw him launch himself off the grid into 8th place and he finished the race in 6th place improving his lap times by almost another second. In his next race he reached fifth place but then ran wide at the esses and finished 7th - but again finding another half second to dip to a flat 1.43.0.

Then again a long wait for his final race scheduled to be last on the agenda. The storm clouds circled - the races ran later and later, but finally it was called. In what has now become his style, Piers launched himself off the grid into 4th place after the first corner and pulled away with the front runners, up to third - but then on the fourth lap slipped off at the notoriously precarious Old Hairpin/Barn corner, having recorded the then fastest lap of the race at 1.42.4.

So not necessarily the points he would have liked but he now has showed that he is becoming a match for the fastest MiniTwins in the dry as well as in the wet.

The weather finally had its revenge travelling home on the A1 when we thought the end was nigh with torrential rain and the most spectacular thunder and lightening that made one exceedingly grateful that the race meeting was behind us!

With BSB stealing our date on 10/11 May at Brands Hatch - our next race is scheduled at Silverstone on 24/25 May unless we can find another race to fit in with a different club!

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