Typical Rowrah weather kept the teams guessing all weekend on final settings. During Friday testing, Mike proved he was one of the quickest drivers. Saturday testing on a new set of tyres showed Mike to be almost a second off the pace. A new set were purchased and Mike found the lost time.
Qualifying on the tyres supplied for the meeting showed Mike had another poor set, and struggled. Unfortunately those tyres had to be used on Sunday, so Mike had a real problem to over come. He won heat 4 and gained places in the other two heats, to make the main final, where he was 13th. The benefit of a good set of tyres was that some drivers were lapping in 49.6 seconds, while Mike was 50.1 nearly half a second slower. The advantage was getting less as the day passed so Mike still had high hopes of a podium As the chart shows, Mike quickly moved passed the others to be in 7th after just 4 laps, with 12 to go and the podium beckoning. Despite having a new chain and sprocket and with a chain guard and sprocket protectors, Rowrah is in an old quarry, and a sharp stone managed to find its way between the chain and the sprocket ripping the chain into two and ending Mikes challenge.
A positive to come out of the meeting was that Mike drove the Banshee version of the TEC-MEC for the first time, and it performed very well in the changing conditions and should be excellent for the next round in a months time at Buckmore Park in Kent. Having won his first Super 1 heat at Senior level. Mike now races at Whilton Mill this weekend, where he hopes to retain his championship lead.
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