On Saturday it was a perfect Phillip Island day, quite fresh in the morning but blue skies and for a nice change, not much wind. In the morning session we made some small improvements, nothing major but improvements and started to get a balance and compromise between the fast and slow corners.
We had managed to get rid of a bit of chattering which made the bike slightly worse in the tight corners but overall it was better. I did a 1min 36.3secs, and did a few low 36s on an older rear tyre. The problem was for the afternoon if I wanted to qualify any good then I had to do at least a low 1min 35secs which I couldn't see happening unless which stumbled across something really good.
In between the morning and the afternoon session I normally try to have a power nap, not that Im tired but I think its more nerves that make me feel tired! So I lay down underneath our table in the office buildings that we have and fell asleep just as the
MotoGP session was starting.
Then the next thing I knew, 13 minutes before I was supposed to be on track, my team boss Dieter was shaking me trying to wake me up! I was in a hell of a deep sleep! I reckon I set a new record for getting my leathers and all my gear on anyway! I got on the bike, still feeling half asleep but I was one of the first out of the pits and on the track.
But on my out lap I came around the second corner, and rode straight through a pack of about 20 seagulls! They were flying left and then at the last moment turned and flew straight back towards me and I hit the one proper job and it really smacked into the front of the fairing (pictured)!
I stood up on the pegs to look over the front of the bike and saw that it had cracked the front of my fairing, there was blood on it and then I could see a load of feathers coming out of the air intake, which is on the front of the Aprilias. It was only when I stopped at the end of that lap I realised what a mess it was.
