Chris Chapman Racing 2010
Pembrey 3rd / 4th March 2010
Well off to an early start, Chris and Jane had the van packed and the bike loaded when I arrived at 4am Friday morning, the new addition to the caravan for this year is a remote mover and I must admit - was the easiest caravan I’ve ever moved. I just stood and watched Chris with remote in hand as he maneuvered the caravan out of the driveway…..
The trip down the M4 was uneventful, light traffic interspersed with rain showers so a good call for an early start. We arrived at Pembrey around 10am and watched a couple of brave souls circulating a rather wet circuit. Around 11am we were allowed to cross the track into the paddock which apart from the main concrete area resembled Chinese Paddy Fields.
The Garage next to the Hotel Knaus
Luckily we found a dry area and so set up camp, It was a nice feeling, the smell of Castrol R wafting in the damp air, the sound of bikes racing around the track, yep it’s been a long winter….
Jason Woodland (Fatty) was out learning the track along with Tony Rainford on a nice sounding Triple, I don’t know much about Tony but he proved to be a very fast chap indeed winning several of his races by good margins. Chatting with him in the paddock reveals that he will be at most of the CRMC meetings this year and I’m sure he’s a definite contender for taking a number of championships.
On Friday evening we were joined by Tony and Hilary Hayward, Tony brought his 750 Bonneville Bandit and a 500 Triumph, last year Tony had decided to race with the VMCC this season but I think he likes the atmosphere of the CRMC paddock that I am expecting to see him at a number of our classic events this season.
Between rain showers we met quite a lot of the regular faces whilst wandering around the paddock, one face that was missing though was the infamous Lea Gourlay, I know that he has bagged a ride with the new Harley Davidson series that will be supporting the BSB meetings but that doesn’t kick off till May at Oulton Park, the series should be the one to watch as Lea goes up against a couple of his old adversaries such as Mike (Spike) Edwards, Shaun Emmett, Jeremy McWilliams and a few other names yet to be officially announced, Eurosport TV have promised to show all of the support races on the box so we should be in for a real treat during the summer.
First race up for Chris was the 1300 group 2 and Chris made a good start, the track was wet but Pembrey seems to offer reasonable grip be it wet or dry, Chris finished 7th overall with a 5th in class, I could see that Chris didn’t look as comfortable on the bike as he usually is and sitting down with him after the race over a cup of tea discovered that the gremlins from Cadwell were still floating around his head. So we spoke about keeping it smooth, keeping it upright and consistency, well consistency was the key word for the weekend as you’ll see a little later.
The rest of the days racing went well, sometimes a very wet track and at other times the sun out and with a hint of a dry line appearing, thank goodness the forecast for Sunday was a lot better – less wind and more sunshine.
During Saturday Rob Hall had a very nasty high-side which immediately brought out the red flags, Rob was out for a long time before they lifted him in to the ambulance and whisked him off to hospital, I am pleased to say that he was moved up to Barnsley General Hospital on Wednesday evening, he’s still very poorly and doesn’t remember a thing about being at Pembrey, but it sounds like he’s thankfully on the road to recovery, We wish him a speedy one…. And all credit to our marshals and medics for taking quick action at the track.
Chris was called in to race control to give a witness statement, which was a first for him and then it was back to racing.
Sunday morning saw Chris lining up on a pretty full grid for race 23 the 1300 National, a great start and he managed to hook on to the back of Cormac Conroy, passing the start / finish line Chris seen the yellow last lap flag so stuck his head down for the final lap, was less than a second behind Cormac as they crossed the line only to see the LAST LAP flag, by the time Chris realized his mistake 4 riders had passed him before reaching the hairpin, he still ended up with a reasonable finish but he was really close to a 3rd place, incidentally Gary Thwaites who was leading did the very same thing but had around a 20sec lead at the time so was able to carry on and take the win. Looking at the lap times Chris should have had 4th but being so close to Cormac may have hauled him in for a third….
It transpires that a marshal was showing a yellow flag on lap 6 by the starters post for an incident down in the hairpin, so that’s racing as they say…
So where did Chris end up:
Saturday
Race 2 – 7th overall - 5th in class
Race 6 – 8th – 4th
Race 12 – 5th – 4th
Race 17 – 6th – 4th
Sunday
Race 23 – 8th
Race 27 – 8th – 4th
Race 34 – 6th – 4th
Race 38 – 6th – 4th
Fastest Lap – Race 38 – 1.08.387
So consistency was the key
word of the weekend, 5th in the first race, 8th
in the unfortunate 1300 Nationals and then 6 x 4th
places, A great start to the season, hopefully we have a warm and
dry day at Mallory Park
on May 2nd as Chris
has
now shaken off the gremlins
from Cadwell and looking forward to
bagging some good championship points in May.
John Mitchell