In his latest update for Crash.net, rising 250 GP star Chaz Davies reviews the two opening rounds of the 2005 world championship; the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez and Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril, which saw contrasting fortunes for the 18-year-old Aprilia Germany privateer...
Jerez
After the final pre-season test of the year, at Jerez at the end of March, I went home for the two weeks before we were back to the circuit for the first GP. During these two weeks Casey (Stoner) came back with us from
Jerez, for a bit of fun and something to do, before the season started.
During the two weeks we both bought a 120cc minibike each (probably not the wisest idea at the start of the season!). We have a small track at home in the car park for my dads go-kart circuit which we were thrashing around on and we also took the bikes up in the woods behind our house for a big enduro-style loop around the hills which was good fun.
As well as playing around on the minibikes and a few laps on the karts we went to
Brands Hatch to watch the first round of the BSB. We stayed at Shakey’s house on Sunday night as he only lives 30 minutes from Brands and went with him the following day to watch some racing.
Me and Casey both pointed out that the last time we were in a BSB paddock at the same time was when I was leading a damp 125cc race at Rockingham and he was right behind me when I highsided and he rode over my bike and crashed which cost him the championship. That’s a sore point with him so it’s best not to go there!
It was good for us to see a few old mates from the BSB paddock and good to watch some racing. There were quite a few guys there from the GP paddock. Apart from Stoner and I, ‘DJ’
John Hopkins was there, Randy Mamola with Jamie Dobb and also Paul Denning who still has quite a bit of involvement with the Suzuki team in the UK.
