Thursday 10th April.
3:30AM – the alarm sounds loud and harsh. I should be groggy, tired, dead. My eyes snap open like twin gunshots. I am immediately awake. Clothes are whipped on, with some grumbling from the woman (who would be going on that weekend to complete some of the Yorkshire Three Peaks on behalf of The Group Company – well done!) for being a bother, and I’m downstairs. The lights are on. The van is mostly packed from the night before. The last few bits are thrown into the back. Abel and Ryan arrive. Ryan wishes Mary Mack could join us. Abel simply goes about offering purposely unhelpful advice and handing out scathing remarks. The weekend has started.
6:55AM – The drive down to Donington was swift. We time it almost perfectly – we roll right through the gates at 7:00AM and are rewarded with a prime position garage for the test day. Great stuff. We unload quickly, getting all the essentials out – the bike, teabags, chairs, tyre warmers, paddock stands. In that order.
8:00AM – Matty has signed on, no noise testing to worry about, and we end up playing with a frisbee ring thing in Donington’s temporary car park before having a delicious bacon butty. Good stuff! The excitement is palpable, it’s not even the race weekend yet but to be around the paddock, the bikes, a ton of other racers – bloody brilliant!
9:00AM – Three groups (essentially Inters, Fast, Faster) are put out for the day. The Inters go out first. Matty is in the “Faster” group, so is due out at 9:40AM. We have checked everything over, and the Continental Race Attack CS tyres are set at 29 front C (Cold), and 26 rear C. Matty goes out for his first session, and as he is leaving the pits, tries to adjust his clutch. He sets off. He comes back in a lap later – the clutch is slipping at higher revs.
We make a clutch adjustment, and also worry that he has recently put in totally new oil. The clutch itself we don’t believe is near the end of it’s life but we also aren’t sure of how long it has left. Slightly worrying. Big shout out to James Wilcockson (who is Adam Shelton‘s race mechanic) for having a chat through, sorting out the adjustment with us (which in retrospect is a tiny little problem, but it always helps to be re-assured by experienced guys!) and Adam himself for offering Matty advice.
Second session comes along, and the the clutch issue disappears. Perfect. Matty completes three laps to be sure and then comes back in to get his head back on properly – an adult choice from a growing racer.
Amazing how these little issues have a knock on affect. By the time the second session takes place, we have already contacted several people about clutch plates, transport issues, oil slippage, clutch adjustment and other scenarios. It’s been a while since we’ve raced, and it shows. Matty sets a 1:56.5 during the second session – we use this as our starting point for the day – Matty originally just wanted to be under 2:00. With our immediate goals already hit within two sessions, we set some new goals for the day. We want to break 1:50. Not an easy task with a relatively unknown bike (2 easy going trackdays so far to get used to race shift, and a bike that is not set up for Matty’s weight) on a circuit that is different to what he has raced before (GP Layout).
Matty knows what he has to achieve and gets out there for the next few sessions. We don’t alter the tyre pressure at all, or the suspension settings. We just let him ride it out, checking the pressures and wear constantly to see how we are doing. On the warmers, these were at around 32 front HW (Hot Warmers), and 33 rear HW. Coming in from each session, the track pressure of the tyres were at 30 front HT (Hot Track) and 30 rear HT.
In the next two sessions, Matty drops his time to a 1:54, and then to a 1:52. In less than 16 or 17 laps, he has dropped four seconds off his times, and is consistent with it. He has words with Gordon Wright of Spartan Racing, who is set up to help mentor Matty through this year with his riding. These chats help Matty focus on certain areas of the track, and the times drop again.
17:00PM – The last session of the day, and quite a few people have packed up to go home before returning on Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. Not us. We need to push more tracktime to keep Matty on the ball. His times are stuck at 1:51.5’s – consistent, but not where we wanted to be. As the lap numbers increase throughout the session, we see him hit traffic. 1:52. He clears the traffic and pushes. I hang out over the start finish straight waving my arms like a retarded lunatic. If we don’t hit the goal we set out to hit, Matty’s head will drop temporarily. We don’t need that. We want positivity all the way through.
I look to Ryan who is timing. We see Matty exit the last hairpin and hammer on the throttle, tucking in his tall frame behind his small screen and tearing up to the rev limiter in every gear. He passes Ryan and myself on the pit straight.
1:49.93.
Beautiful. Nicely done Matt. Nicely done. Racing – a strange state of mind meaning that a point in the distance decided on that day, that no one else is even aware of is matched by the reality of a situation, and we rejoice like we’ve won something as a team.
A swift phonecall back to the parents, Phil and Jackie (Silverback and Mothergoose) who are eagerly awaiting updates.
And then – time to pack it all away, and go and set up camp. One crappy bbq later in the night air, and some laughs, and we are all in tents. Matty forgets to close ours up. We wake up on Friday morning as cold as ice.
Cheers Matt. Good shout, kid. Good shout.
Matty Laws Racing 