848 Challenge, Donnington Sept 8-9th – Team Afterdark News

All from Tim’s blog on the Teamafterdark site:
https://www.teamafterdark.co.uk/blog/

Sept 8th – Here we go !!

We had a long day yesterday as we weren’t out on track until 5 -10 but it was worth the wait. We were a bit aprehensive for the simple reason that James had never ridden the Donnington circuit before and although it looks fairly straight forward when you walk it things change at speed. The good news is James got settled in quickly and started to drop his times significantly throughout the free practise session. He made a few mistakes along the way  whilst getting used to the circuit  and had his normal visit onto the grass but all in all a good start to the weekend.

The upshot is that James finished 15th quickest and is getting quicker lap by lap and washappy with the feel of the bike.

We head out to qualifying at 9 this morning so I’ll update after that

Early Bird Qualifying !!!

The 848 paddock were the early birds this morning as we were first out on circuit at 9.00 .

James had a good qualifying session, he started off  airing on the side of caution for a couple of laps just to check out the grip levels as the tarmac got quite cold over night. Then he started upping his pace and the good news is he managed to go 2 seconds faster today from yesterday. He ended up 16th which we are all happy with.

He’s now getting to grips with the circuit and is starting to find his rythm. The smoothness is back in his style which is telling us that the chassis is now working good.

More updates after the race at 5.05

Race 1 Drama !!

Yet again lady luck deserted us for the start of race 1 !! All was looking good as james set off on the warm up lap but as he came onto the back straight the bike lost power and he came into the pits as the rest of the grid formed. It seemed like the bike had gone into “safe” made, so after shutting the bike down thankfully the fault reset. By this time the lights had already gone out and the last man was going round the first turn as James left pit lane.

So yet again he was on the backfoot and just like the last race a Cadwell he got his head down and started to push. He got up to 21st and then the luck swung in our favour as the safety car came out as there was oil and gravel on the track. Thankfully nobody was hurt in the incident but it allowed the field to close up.

When the safety car came in it left  James With a 4 lap dash left to do. He worked his way up to 14th with one lap to go. In a last lap push he managed to get into 10th place ( 9th in class) as they crossed the line.

Another fantastic ride!!!

Tomorrow we are out at 3 ish, we’ll keep you posted!!