White Dalton Blog

My last race report failed to point out that Pete Carr, who knocked himself out and spread his GSX-R’s bodywork across the track in the last race yesterday, is ok and not seriously hurt. Hopefully he’ll be tip top soon and racing again at Oulton.
And the consolation is for my fuel mistake in race one. In Sunday’s World Superbike race one at Monza in Italy, works Yamaha rider Ben Spies ran out of fuel entering the last corner of the last lap and went from first to 15th. At the same time a few hundred miles away, the Ferrari F1 team under-fuelled Massa in Barcelona meaning he had to slow and give away several places in order to reach the flag.
I guess that makes me feel slightly better. Definitely won’t do it again though.

Race two was the same story as earlier pretty much, except this time I got an awesome start and led the whole race for the first lap before the first of the Supertwins got by.
After four laps the same two headcases got in front of me on their Supertwins with block passes and proceeded to beat each other up, repeatedly nearly crash, and hold me up like before. I kept checking over my shoulder to see where main rival Denyer was, ready to attack if necessary.
When the last lap flag came out the Supertwins went for desperate braking into the turn one hairpin, only to outbrake themselves and go wide. Laughing in my helmet, I ducked under them both to grab third overall. Unfortunately, there had been a bad crash halfway round the lap down the field and the red flags came out. The result was declared from the last whole lap when I was still in fifth. Never mind, I won my class again, the bike was great, I had a ball, and I’m 9 points ahead again.
Thanks to everyone.

I’m not often accused of being mature and level-headed on a bike, but in today’s first race I was sensible enough to stay out of the desperate battle for third in the Supertwins class that was going on in front of me and calmly took the Streetfighter class win by seven seconds.
I got a great start and slotted into third behind the front two Supertwins. They pulled me along and I set a best lap, and new class record, of 1m01.1s.
As you’d expect, commentator Steve Day took the mick mercilessly for yesterday’s petrol draught. My spotty White Dalton Motorcycle Solicitors helmet seems to amuse him greatly too!
First thing this morning I bought a siphon and fuel jug so that I can precisely monitor and measure the fuel I use and need. Six and a half litres covers it, with the mandatory two litres remaining at the end. Lesson learned.
Race two is in just over an hour. The tyres are cooking on the warmers, the fuel is done, and I’m ready for another good race.

With the tank practically brimmed, race two went much better. I won by a healthy 13s, and was fourth over the line ahead of plenty of Supertwin bikes too. Overnight, I’m 1 point behind in the championship, but I’ve still never been beaten on track. I’ll sleep well and be on it again tomorrow. Just off to the garage now…

I can barely bring myself to write this – I ran out of fuel halfway round the last lap, 20 seconds from the flag while leading my class by ten seconds and third on track including the Supertwins. I pushed the bike most of the way, but that’s against the rules so I was forced to stop.
After some early scraps it was a good ride and should have been a strong class win. Instead, I’m gutted and can only apologise to everyone that supports me. Congratulations to Andy Denyer on his first Streetfighter win, and to Chris Matthews who pushed him hard.
The one consolation is a best lap of 1m01.8s. I’ll be looking for plenty more of those in the second race as I try to make up for this waste. Keeps the points battle interesting though, eh?