Then, with about 15-minutes to go, I had the biggest front end save of my life and in a corner where I wasn’t really expecting it! It was tucking in all of the faster corners on the track but on this lap, in the middle of the 5th corner - the tight hairpin left - it well and truly tucked.
In the middle of the corner, just as I was about to get on the gas, it folded and I was on my knee for, no joke, about 10-meters and then it just came back and I picked it up with my heart in my mouth!
The next lap when I came around there was a huge black line from it, right the way from the middle of the corner to the end. I was hoping that somebody would have got it on camera as I’m sure it would have been equally as impressive as that picture of Mc
Williams on the Proton 500 when he’s just about on his elbow and saved it! I was proud!
By the end of the session I never improved on a 49.7secs as that was the limit before it was tucking everywhere, but I was confident that we could go pretty quick when we found the right settings. I finished up 15th.
That afternoon in hospitality, Casey and I were eating and talking about how the session went. He said he was also not getting a lot of feeling to the front. I said "Yeah me too, you should have seen my save at the left hairpin, it was a beast". He said "Holy shit was that you!? I saw the big ol’ black line there and thought whoa someone’s had a big near highside!" I said "No that was the front!". He said "Shit, you’re joking!!"
In the afternoon session we made a few slight adjustments to try and help the vagueness but it changed it very little. We dropped the front end of the bike which brings it closer to me and gives me a little more feeling but the tucking was worse.
I did a 1min 49.4secs and had many other front end losses (not as big as the morning!) and finished the session in 17th. After a big de-brief with my chassis mechanic we decided that we would go the opposite way for the following day and take weight off the front. I was using the hard front tyre and only getting 8 laps out of it which is very unusual.
