BONNY WEE SCOTLAND, NOT QUITE SO BONNY !!

After the long drive to the Knockhill circuit just a few miles north of Edinburgh on Thursday we set up camp with the team's new Supersport rider Jason O'Halloran.
Things were looking good for an enjoyable weekend's racing including some decent weather. Practice day on Friday was dry and Jason got his first try out on the R6, unfortunately in the first of two 30 minute sessions Jason's bike developed a mechanical problem early on which only allowed him to complete 4 laps.
Jason's crew of Spider and team worked hard to replace the engine in time for the second session later on in the day.

Jason finished the practice day in 13th position only 0.7 of a second off the fastest time, a good start. Pat had two trouble free outings on his R6 and finished in 19th place overall and 3rd in his cup championship.
The following day Saturday was again warm and dry with two 30 minute qualifying slots. Jason was getting more familiar with his machine and finished in 14th position for a 4th row start on the grid for the race.
Pat got his head down and achieved a lap time of 51.198 in the first session, he was hoping for a quicker time in the next and final session which he managed on his last flying lap but only by one thousandths of a second with a time of 51.197, a little frustrated by this he was starting from 19th position on the grid one row behind Jason.

There were 33 riders this weekend competing in the British Supersport class. The weather forecast for race day on Sunday was not looking good and we awoke to rain and high winds. The race schedule was badly effected with flooding to the track, eventually we got a 8 minute warm
up session to try out our Pirelli wet weather tyres and try to find a suspension set up that would work on a wet track.
Pat and Jason were both comfortable and finished the short practice in 11th and 12th positions. As the weather continually changed a lot of track time was lost and many of the other class's races were cancelled including the Harley Davidson's, 125's, Stock 600 second race and also the second British Superbike race. The organizers managed to slot us in for a shortened 15 lap race instead of the planned 25 lapper at about 4 o'clock.
The high winds had dried the track very quickly and our bikes were sat on tyre warmers with dry tyres ready to go and then the skies opened again and it was back to wet tyres and softer suspension settings, it's not easy this sport.

Jason had a good strong first race for the team and finished in a very encouraging 10th place, this leaves him in 11th position in the championship. Pat had not the best of starts with some clutch judder but found some places over the race distance and was pressurizing Dan Kneen and Paul Jordon just in front of him. Dan was an early victim of the appalling conditions and crashed heavily breaking his collarbone in the process. Then on lap 12 Paul Jordon went off in exactly
the same place after high siding on the painted very slippery kerbing. The race was then red flagged and stopped and a result was declared as over 2/3 of the race had been completed. Pat had finished in 17th place overall and a very pleasing 2nd place podium finish in his championship. This result now put's Pat in 1st place in the standings at the half way point of 6 out of 12 race weekend's completed. We now have a two week break before the battle
continues at the super fast Snetterton circuit on 18th July. Can't wait.