Matt at Nogaro

Nogaro – 6th to 9th May 2011

 It was a slow start to the weekend with a new track to learn and new bike settings to get right.

 The times slowly got faster throughout practice, and by first qualifying I qualified 27^th out of a grid of 39 on destroyed tyres.  Unfortunately the tyres got worse, and by qualifying 2 my times put me back to 30^th on the grid overall. With only one set of stickers left for my race tyres, and my other 2 sets of tyres destroyed we tried one last suspension set up to try and get it right for the race.

I tried the setting in our early morning warm-up session on shot tyres. My mechanic found the setting I was looking for, just in time for the race.  This left the rest down to me. 

 I had a pretty bad start in the race getting sat up in the first corner.  I managed to pull a couple of places back though going through Double Courbe de Caupenne and got a really good drive going down the back straight. Unfortunately I missed my breaking point going into Epingle de l’Ecole which lost me a few places.  For the rest of the race I battled it out with number 42 Perroux Maxime. He kept trying to force his way past going through the Double Courbe Claude Storez, but I managed to keep blocking him on the exit.  A few laps from the end Perroux forced his way through after I made a mistake going into Courbe Roger Dubos, which is where I stayed for the rest of the race. 

 Overall a good 15^th place finish out of the Juniors and 19^th overall.