In the latest of his exclusive columns for Crash.net, Stobart Honda’s Michael Laverty talks about his best finish of the season at a sun drenched Mallory Park ….
Hi guys!
Nice to be riding in the sunshine for a change! The weather at Mallory Park was superb, it was not as hot on track as you’d think, but when you come back in and sit there in your sticky leathers you soon realise the temperature.
I was pleased with my result, fifth is the best I’ve achieved all season. I really think the test the weekend after Oulton put us in the ball park, so we came to Mallory and were pretty much on the pace straight away. That seems to be the issue for us, we spend most of the weekend trying to get a good race set up and today we are all ready and if we can improve over the weekend then it should all come good on race day. It is nice to be up there with the bikes working well, we are making head way. Nice to see smiling faces, it helps buoy up the team a bit when it goes well and creates a better atmosphere in the pit box.
Everyone was talking about the new chicane that Mallory has added to the circuit on the exit of Gerrards. I’m quite happy with it, I think it is fairly good, it lengthens the lap time a wee bit and gives you a couple of other opportunities to pass. The initial bit is quite tight but on the way out is fairly good, I think they did a good job with the space they had.
My team have been racing with Ian Lougher on the Isle of Man, where they took second place in the Superbike race. I was thinking about going over for it but I’m just going to stop at home, if the weather is like this all week I’ll get a bit of cycling done and tune in in the evenings on Men and Motors, I normally do that. I’ve never actually been to the Isle of Man on TT week, we normally make a trip over in the winter and do a bit of trail riding with all of the team which is really good fun, but I’ve never experienced it during TT week. I could be persuaded but at the moment I’m just planning on staying home!
