We wake up in a slightly warmer tent (I have a wooly hat on) and begin the shower procedure. I walk back from the showers and pass hundreds of campervans, race vans and tents. There are absolutely tons of people here now, and it’s bloody brilliant!
I walk down to the HQ area from the camping area at around 8:00am, and find Matty pottering about. We get the “doors” (loose flaps) opened up and reveal the #193 bike (now, a 2000 J1 ZX6R, previously 675, previously CB500) (previously #18, previously #93) to the paddock for the first time in 18 months. What a feeling.
The parents arrive around 8:30am, and we all catch up with current events over a good brew. Silverback isn’t too impressed with my stand in crew chief efforts, and Mothergoose is hobbling about washing pots for some reason.
10:00AM – Warm Up
Warm-up. Just need to get some laps in, get settled for the day. His fastest lap is a 1:52.5 – we know he’s faster than that, so no heads are dropped. It puts him 26th in the table of 35 riders. His eye is in, he’s been out with the lads he will soon be competing against. Bike feels ok, though we are battling against a totally stock bike, that has been set up to a lighter rider. We knew this and expected it – the funds are going into the racing itself at the moment so we can gauge what is needed on the bike.
11:30AM – Qualifying
Qualifying is at 11:30am. The tyre pressures are checked again and set to the same as the test day. The bike is fuelled to the set amount we discovered on Thursday left him enough in the tank for a test of fuel if required. The warmers are on 25 minutes before qualifying.
She’s ready to rock.
Matty is nervous. It has been a long time since he has been out there with a transponder attached, and actually aiming to beat other people in a one shot sprint. There are 39 riders in his race (Golden Era), with 11 riders in his class (Super Sport). Matty’s bike is completely stock other than how it looks. We don’t know how this will compare against the others in class, but Matt is aware of the quality of his fellow riders too, with names such as Ian Popplewell out there on an R6.
He suits up, and mounts the bike. We get the warmers off, drop her off the paddock stands, I forget to turn the contour on (too much to worry about!) and a few slaps on Matty’s back. And he’s off to qualify.
His opening lap is a 1:53 or thereabouts (memory starting to haze a little now) and he quickly drops this to the 1:51’s consistently in traffic.
Matty finishes qualifying with a 1:50.2. This puts him in 24th for the race, out of 39 riders – and he is sitting 7th in class out of 11! Absolute brilliant for his first time back out in the saddle. He is also only 0.4 seconds away from the next 600 rider in his class. There is a relatively large jump in laptimes to the next 600 group, with Sam Nicholson putting in a 1:46.4 – 3.8 seconds from Matty’s. The fastest 600 rider qualifying time in his class is Mike Horberry, with a 1:44.3. So Matt is sitting at 5.9 seconds behind the current leader of his class. Quite a jump to make. Enough of that however, we keep Matty’s head clear. Great qualifying. Time to get into the races and make it count.
Matty Laws Racing 