EmTek Racing News - 2005

05/06/2005 - Sheridan's Ride in BSB

Sheridan Morais offered a one off ride in BSB

Young factory rider Sheridan Morais was offered a once off ride with the Team Nvidia Yamaha factory outfit. Shez received the call at lunch time Monday 30th May. By late afternoon flights were booked and he was ready to go.

However the management team at EmTek Racing felt that this was an opportunity that only knocks once and that his Dad and mentor should be there in the UK.

So by Tuesday morning the two tickets were issued and they were ready for action.

Well this turned out not to be good enough for some other supporters of his.

His ardent supporters and original sponsors decided that if this was so important they might as well be there to bear witness to this event.

So finally all the relevant tickets were issued by Wednesday and we all flew that night. The motly crew consisted of Gilbert Parsons, Andy Parsons and Clive de Vos.

THURSDAY

This was was spent basically setting up the pits and the hospitality centre. Shez and Ricky got to meet with the team and discuss a little bit of background of each other. Brent (Team Manager and Technical Chief) went through a little about the bike and the team and the role each person plays within the team. Strategy was discussed as well as expectations. It was early to bed for most of the team.

FRIDAY - FIRST FREE PRACTICE SESSION

This was Shez's first foray on British soil on a WSB spec Yamaha. Croft is a technical circuit and if a person has never ridden there even in a track school it can be quite daunting. It must be mentioned that the whole of the BSB circus had had an opportunity to test at Croft 10 days prior to the actual race so there was no nasty surprises for them. Shez did not have this opportunity.

In his first free practise session Shez tippy toed around at a 1:35 whilst the rest of the bunch were running at 1:25/7. After four laps Shez came in and a few adjustments were made with a new set of rubber and Shez started to get into a rythm. His times started coming down to a more respectable 1:28 and was also not so intimidated by the quality of the field. By the second session Shez had managed to get the times down to 1:27 comfortably. By this stage Shez had managed to keep pace with some of the backmarkers and local wild card riders who all knew the track like the back of their hand.

FRIDAY - SECOND FREE PRACTICE SESSION

Friday was a much better day for the team and Shez as the chief technician was now starting to analyse the data from the telemetry. The track was sometimes damp but at all times was quite cold. The aweness of BSB and the international riders had by now worn off and Shez had started tackling the job at hand and that was to put the bike on the highest grid slot as possible. The Friday sessions saw Shez start getting into a constant 1:27 and even got into the 1:26:8. This was his best effort so far and this were looking bright for the first qualifying session on Saturday morning.

SATURDAY - QUALIFYING SESSION

Saturday saw the pace really hot up and the lap record was broken within 10 minutes of the qualifying session. Michael Rutter put his official HRC factory Honda on pole with a scorching 1:20:3. Shez had been working on his race setup the whole weekend and when it came to qualifying he really struggled. The setup on the bike was fundamentally flawed when it was discovered that the shocks had been bottoming out on the front and the back. Ricky had suggested that the back get jacked up more and more. Eventually they had gone 6 complete turns on the rear ride height adjuster. It was just such a pity that this was discovered so late in the weekend. Shez also had a bout of deje vu as he did not have the right setup for qualifying and was not used to the ultra sticky tyres. This was the exact same problem he encountered in Australia and this is as direct result of the inexperience of not riding with good quality rubber in SA. This includes the sticky qualifyers. It is in these sessions that most of the riders pull the proverbial pin out and put in one lap wonders. Shez found himself 30th on the grid out of 34 riders. Shez was very disheartened even though he had no reason to be.

SUNDAY - HEAT ONE

The warm session turned out to be a bit of a problem as the weather was dry but the clouds were low and ominous. The ambient temperature as well as the track temperature had dropped dramatically which only adds to the problem of cold tear - and believe us we know about Pirelli's. Definitely not the tyre to be on.

Shez had an awesome start and had made up 4 places by the end of lap one. He gradually kept making up time and was eventually in 15th position when he hit a false neutral and ran off the track in turn 5. This is a very tricky and fast turn and landed up back in last position. He had to start all over again. Shez put his head down and managed to get a best time of 1:23:9 which was only 3 seconds off the leader Ryuichi Kiyonari. Shez's time was actually the lap record for 2003 prior to the first ever BSB round at Croft. Shez finally crossed the line in 22nd place again out of 34 riders. There were a few DNF's as well.

SUNDAY - HEAT TWO

Heat two was a lot more difficult than Shez had ever imagined. Light rain had started to fall on the sighting lap and Shez had never ridden on a 200hp slick shod BSB bike before. There was no time to change tyres as the front riders had stuck to slicks. The race was still started as a dry race. The start was its usual chaos into turn one and two bikes crashed right in front of Shez baulking him into 30th place. Shez had made a fantastic start again from the back row but the shunt pushed him back down. The rain had also started to fall harder and after lap 11 the leaders had decided that they had had enough and the race was red flagged. However the fantastic British weather had lived up to its reputation and changed again by the time the restart happened. Most of the riders had elected to stay on the slicks and there were a couple of riders that went for intermediates.

Shez came home in a respectable 18th and was not at all embarrased by his showing for the weekend.

CONCLUSION

As a final note it can be said that Shez really did do South Africa proud the weekend of the 3rd to 5th June 2005. He undertook a mammoth task in trying to learn a new track from scratch, a new bike, new tyres, new team and being the UK RAIN. Shez was also the only rider in the whole BSB to run Pirelli's which would put any rider at a disadvantage. Shez also did not have the teams Chief Race Technician for assistance as he fell very ill with some form of blood poisoning - and no it was not us that did it.

Team Nvidia is a "semi-factory" team that operates at a very high level of professionalism and our heartfelt THANKS must go to Tony Robertson and Joe Proctor for the wholehearted support for Shez. Even though Shez did not produce a podium or a top ten finish the team was extremely pleased with the progress made and contribution that Ricky and Shez made to the overall setup of the bike. If Team Nvidia ever decide to come to SA for testing we would be glad to reciprocate and host them whilst here in SA. We all wish young Dennis Hobbs all the best and we hope he returns to full fitness as soon as possible.

BIG THANK YOU MUST ALSO GO TO JAN AND HER TEAM FOR THE FANTASTIC HOSPITALITY AND FRIENDHSIP SHOW TOWARDS US.

WELL DONE TEAM NVIDIA AND GOOD LUCK FOR THE FUTURE. Go to www.grmotosport.co.uk for more information about the team.

On a further note a special word of thanks must go to Andrew Jamieson for organising the ride for Sheridan and to Menno Parsons for his unwavering financial support for Sheridan.

Gilbert Parsons

CHECK THE PHOTO'S FROM THE WEEKEND

 

 

This page was last updated on 06-06-2008.