By Brent Gladwin
May 4 2006

The whole team were pleased to welcome Manchester United and England football player and team supporter, Allan Smith, with his family and friends, to the British race scene. Allan and his Dad have a great passion for motorcycles, and have even visited the Yamaha factory in Japan. We left Thruxton with the pleasant surprise of Steve Brogan on the podium, moving into second place, and now lying third overall in the series, and Jon Boy and Steve A both in the points. Thruxton had shown some need for improvement in chassis set-up and air filter performance, so we headed off to Oulton with Brogie for the BSB test. After three sessions, we found that the set-up gain at the last test, with Steve A and Jon Boy, was where we needed to be for Brogie too. Mike at Pipercross Air Filters responded to our request, and made a special filter ready for Oulton – fantastic work!

We also collected from Amsterdam a third Yamaha R1 SP, which Andy is currently building into a spare.

GP125 – Lisa gets to know Hizzy’s too closely

Oulton is a fantastic riders’ circuit, but it is hard work on the little 125, with its many line wide open spaces. Lisa worked hard throughout practice and qualifying to secure a place on the grid, but not quite matching her previous personal best times.

Sunday morning warm up saw the rain return to our race program, and a smile to Lisa’s face. She was running sixth fastest in the session when a mistake, going into Hizzy’s, saw her bite the dust - giving me plenty to do before the race. As the race approached the rain started to move away ,leaving the tyre choice extremely difficult. Half the grid started on wets the other on the correct choice, slicks – we went the wrong way. Lisa started well, moving through the field, but diving up the inside of another rider on the brakes into Hizzy’s put her off line for the exit and down she went again – entertaining the spectators and Sky TV viewers, who, I am sure, would have given top marks for style and elegance!

Superstock - Steve Allan puts together the Man of the Race performance

Oulton is a fast flowing track, which takes away the advantages of the Yamaha chassis and brings in the power of the Suzukis. However, we were a little surprised to be down in 13th, 14th and 20th places in qualifying, and Brogan taking a massive crash almost destroying his race bike. The grid split is very tight in Superstock and a little cough can move you ten places.

The first lap of Superstock, as we have all witnessed at every race this season, is always something to see - and Oulton was in no way different. All the team made good starts, which seemed to keep them out of the mêlée which brought out the pace car for a few laps. At the restart, Steve Allan and Jon Boy took advantage of the rolling restart, jumping into seventh and twelfth places respectively. Brogie made a huge mistake at the same place he crashed in practice, and hit the deck again, putting him out and dropping him to fourth over all in the standings. Steve A started to battle forward and put together lap times to equal his qualifying, and very quickly moved into contention for the last place on the podium. His fantastic effort ran out of time at the chequered flag, taking an excellent fourth place. This performance gained him the Metzeler Man of the Meeting award.

Jon Boy put together a sterling performance, pushing forward from 20th on the grid into the top ten, and looked set to grab this slot when, with just a couple of laps to go, his bike developed an electrical glitch - making it very hard to get it through the many Oulton turns. He was forced to slow, and back into the grasp of his pursuers - Brands race winner Craig Fitzpatrick and a small group. Jon Boy dropped three places, but grabbed one back on the run to the line – good effort!

We feel that things are continuing to come together. Andy and I are now off to WSB at Monza to collect some technical advances from our friends, ready for the next race in Ireland at Mondello in a couple of weeks. We hope to see you there!

Best Regards,

Brent Gladwin
GR Motosport Ltd