I had a couple of stops on the way, the one long, unintended one, in Birmingham and then a couple of short ones between Birmingham and
Donington to meet a member of my supporters club, Chris Handy, who gave me a bit of water so thanks for that Chris and secondly to meet my friend Johnny and Casey (Stoner) who had been staying at mine and said that he would meet me along the route somewhere.
All in all it took me about 6 hrs 45 minutes but I reckon without getting lost and the two other stops it could have been done in about 5 ½ hours. I’m glad I did it and have raised £865 all in all so that‘s pretty good as well. Thanks very much to those who contributed, it’s money well spent.
The Donington weekend itself didn’t go to plan to say the least but it was a good opportunity for me to try a Honda. In actual fact, only the engine is a Honda and the chassis is a Dutch one, called a Bakker.
We managed to get to
Mallory Park on the Wednesday afternoon but it was a bit of a write off. After meeting the team at Donington we loaded up the van they had, in a bit of a rush, and just took the essentials as I wasn’t planning to go crashing any bikes that afternoon. The aim was to just try and get a general feel for the bike and get the pegs, bars etc set in the right position for me.
For my first impressions of the bike I was quite surprised because it was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. I asked them to put all the extended parts on, that Smrz used to use, and with all them on it turns out it’s actually bigger in length than an Aprilia so I could tuck in quite OK on it.
Just as I was getting wound up and gaining feeling for the bike, at the end of my fifth lap, as I came down the Devil’s Elbow on to the Start/Finish straight, my foot came off the left peg and when I tried to put it back on I couldn't and I realised that it was because I had no peg there! The bolt had given way through fatigue and I cruised it back to the pits.
