Ben McConnachie - Oulton Park 20th July 2008 - Official Report

[Spree]

“Bad Luck always comes in three's”

This weekend saw the seventh round of the Relentless British 125 GP Championship move onto the picturesque circuit at Oulton Park, Cheshire. This was a weekend the team would like to forget and as the saying goes "bad luck comes in three's" and it certainly did for the Team...

Ben's first free practice session out on track was wet and he was told to just ride round and dial in but unfortunately the rear sprocket collapsed and brought this session to a premature end. The second session was damp but drying and Ben again set out to gain the valuable data needed to set up the bike for tomorrows qualifying. Ben did a fantastic job and brought the bike home in 13th Place with a lap time of 1.50 and with a few minor adjustments told the team he knew where he could go even faster and the team were very excited and looked forward to Qualifying 1 but unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worst overnight and conditions were not ideal to be risking injury for the first qualifying session.

With the forecast stating the afternoon would be dry, Ben was told to just ride safe and not push too hard in the wet conditions. Just as promised the weather was dry for qualifying 2 and on lap 6 of 14 Ben was up to 12th and looking very good for a top 5 position on the grid but disaster struck and the bike seized solid due to a faulty new piston. Session 2 over for Ben and because the weather conditions were getting even better towards the end of the session, Ben's earlier time dropped him down to 30th on the grid and a major rebuild was needed for Morning Warm up.

Ben now needed to run the bike in during the 4 laps of morning warm up and as the session started dry the choice of tyres were slicks but on lap 2 the heavens opened up again and most of the riders pulled in, but Ben knew he must get in the laps needed to run in the new barrel and he made a very brave choice of staying out on slick tyres, he completed the whole session as planned and was congratulated by the team for this very mature attitude and skilled achievement as he returned to the awning with the bike run in as planned.

Ben took to the Grid in 30th position - a place he did not deserve and the whole team knew they had let him down, but being a very determined rider he just got his head down and set about carving through the pack and by lap 9 of 14 was up to a incredible 21st place and catching the leading group, but again disaster struck and the bike began to lose power, then finally stopped and Ben could only watch the remainder of the race from the side lines.

“We really feel that we as a Team let Ben down this weekend as we all believe he was easily capable of a top 10 finish. We again were all very impressed by his attitude and skill and will now completely re-new the engine for Knock Hill in two weeks time.

We would also like to thank Cougar Red and all of our Guests who turned up in the poor weather conditions only to be let down by us and assure you all that this will make us even more stronger and determined to get Ben the results that he as a rider, truly deserves.”

Gary Dawson – Team Manager – Repli-Cast UK Racing

[lady clara]

Awww....nothing worse than mechanical failure to sicken someone off. Riding sounds positive though! Fingers crossed for Scotland.