Tel-Emmett-ry: Thorpe, Rocky Horror, Donington.

In the latest of her columns for Crash.net, Sean Emmett's girlfriend Lauren Carter reviews round two of the 2006 Bennetts British Superbike championship, at Donington Park - plus two very different visits beforehand...

Before I go in to the details about the Donington race weekend I thought I'd let you know what we got up to before it all began.

It's been the Easter holidays (if you're a parent I'm sure you'll want to get your kids back to school by now!) so we've had Sean's kids a couple of the days in the week, instead of the usual weekends, which was nice.

On Tuesday Sean's youngest, Freddie, had been booked to go to goal keeping club for the day so we took his two girls, Brittany and Tiffany, to Thorpe Park for the day. Thorpe Park is a huge theme park in Staines, Surrey about 15 mins away from us. It is mostly known for its World Record 10 loop rollercoaster called Colossus, which is an amazing ride! However Britt is too small for that so here's a picture of the four of us on their log flume 'Loggers Leap'. We all agreed to pull scared faces for the photo, we don't usually look that bad, especially me and Tiff, (she's the one underneath me).

Then on Wednesday night I went to see the 'Rocky Horror Show' with my mum and sister and a group of colleagues from my mum's work. If you haven't seen the Rocky Horror Show it is the most random and hilarious show ever! This was my second time as I studied performing arts, however my mum and sister were 'Rocky Horror Virgins' as they call them and were both in serious shock with some of the outfits and the fact that the audience are allowed to yell at the performers throughout the show.

Suzanne Shaw (the blonde one from pop group Hearsay) was the female lead. The actor who played 'Frank N. Furter' was absolutely brilliant and the best I've seen so far; he looked amazing in suspenders! It's a tradition for the audience to dress up when they go to see the show, but you still can't help but feel a little embarrassed so we toned our outfits down a little. I wore a black dress with fish net hold ups and a bright red feather boa. My sister wore a corset, shorts and fish nets and my mum wore a black dress, fishnets and the traditional lab coat as worn in the movie and the play. Here is a picture of us at the show - I'm the one on the right.

On Thursday night Sean had agreed to appear at a charity event his friend Twiggy had organised. It was a pretty big turn out with guests such as Gary Mason, Glen Richards, Frosty and Craig Jones. James Toseland performed with his band 'Crash' they were great and the crowd loved them.

We stayed at 'Donington Farmhouse' for the race weekend which is so easy for us to nip back to our room between sessions to get back in the warmth, it was so cold again! Friday practice went badly and the day seemed wasted due to the bike having electrical problems.

When I opened up the curtains on Saturday morning it looked nice and sunny outside so I didn't bother to wear too many layers under my coat. But as we were walking through the campsite to the track the wind was bitterly cold and I was freezing! The conditions again were beginning to look quite dodgy and I felt sorry for Sean in those conditions. It's so difficult having one bike and a few wheels so he hasn't got the chance to have various settings and he doesn't yet have a variety of compound tyres available to him for these difficult conditions.

In the first race Tommy Hill suffered a massive highside in the middle of the track causing four other riders to crash. On the TV in the garage we could see Sean had stopped just in time or he would have ridden straight over Tommy. Apparently Tommy had a massive crack in his helmet where someone had run him over.

Eventually Sean had to pull in as he was under observation with smoke coming out of the exhaust plus clutch and gearbox problems, so he was left to watch the rest of the race on TV.

The mechanics changed the engine in between sessions, it was a bit of a rush to get the bike ready in time with only 1 3/4 hours till the next race. Race 2 was declared wet, the riders were given a 10 minute wet practice before the race as they had no wet practice over the weekend. Unfortunately nobody told us! Luckily Sean was flicking through the channels on the garage TV and saw that there was going to be a wet practice in 5 minutes so the team had to work even quicker and managed to get Sean out on the bike just in time for the last 4 minutes of the session.

I remember watching the MotoGP round at Donington last year from our hotel room whilst on holiday in Fuerteventura. There was torrential rain and the track became really slippery so I knew that race two would have loads of crashes! Harris and Thomas crashed in the wet practice and Shakey went down in the warm-up lap, leaving him with no bikes to ride because of his crash in race one.

Sean's bike had a broken injector so the bike was being really rich causing low revs, this resulted in the bike continuously misfiring throughout the race. He managed to get from 23rd on the grid to 16th in the first lap - and eventually got up to 7th place - but his bike was having serious problems. On the last lap the bike was running really rough and misfired again, this time on the last corner. Michael Laverty was behind travelling about 60mph faster than Sean, he clipped the back of the bike and Sean crashed. Sean doesn't blame Laverty at all as he wouldn't have known Sean's bike was going that much slower and suffering problems.

I heard Fred Clarke on the speakers saying that Sean had crashed on the last bend, and I remember him saying "When will Sean Emmett get any luck!" I was devastated but not nearly as much as Sean was, walking down pit lane still in his crash helmet. He came in the garage and the first thing he said was "In the last few laps I couldn't even feel my fingers I was so cold", Lavilla said much the same in his interview before he went on the podium.

Although Sean received no points at the weekend we are both trying to remain positive. He has got more track time and experience on the bike, some strong, consistent lap times, and is riding well again. It was also the first time I had seen Sean really nervous for ages. He said that he knew he could do really well because the rain really levels the playing field with the bikes and his years of experience in the wet would stand him in good stead.

People forget that Sean hasn't ridden a Kawasaki since 1992 where he deputised for John Reynolds when he suffered a broken leg (Sean managed to break Scott Russell's lap record!). So Sean may not be the luckiest rider in the world, but you just can't beat pure talent!

So, for the rest of this week, Sean will be preparing for Thruxton after which he's off to France to ride for Kawasaki in the European 24 hour endurance race at Le Mans. He flies to Paris on Tuesday (day after race day). Sean is the fourth rider with fellow team-mates, Steve Plater, Peri Riba and French rider Patrick Piot. So if you're not busy the weekend after Thruxton and you fancy a lovely weekend in France watching the racing then go along and cheer Sean on!

The weekend after that is Oulton, on May bank holiday, so Sean will have ridden for four consecutive weekends. Go Sean!!!

Lauren

www.seanemmett.co.uk