EmTek Racing News - 2005

12/09/2005 - Sheridan Race # 2 in BSB

Oulton Park Race Report - 11 September 2005

On the weekend of the 9-11th Spetember Team Nvidia invited Sheridan back for another round at the highly competitive British Superbike Championship. Within 5 hours they were packed with tickets in hand and boarding a plane bound for Heathrow and Manchester.

Sheridan and Rick  arrived into Manchester at 8.30am to be met by Ann Huxley and the wonderful British weather – they went back to the Huxley house and then off to Oulton Park.

As I know the Track I have some idea of how hard a task we set Sheridan for the week end,  but we have to put one thing straight now!  when we were called on Tuesday we knew that it was going to be very hard for Shez to pull-off a good result, but, in our minds with what we have been talking about for next year, it was a golden opportunity to get on one of the hardest Tracks in the UK. Firstly get track time on and also learn its lines and then learn to go fast.  Because of its rural Cheshire setting it has all sorts of noise regulations – like Sunday no race engines to be started until 12 noon.

Shez and Rick spent a lot of time looking around the track on Wednesday and even got a few laps in a car. That evening back to Huxley’s and bed very early evening for a good nights sleep and sleep they did 12 hours.

At the track to meet the team Thursday morning help set up and off round the track with everyone. – Friday first session WET  and Ricky was not happy when Shez went by  for the first time.

Into turn one on a flying lap – backing it in - Rick’s words were I knew I should have told him not to go out. Brent had told Shez to stay out for the full session and get as many laps as possible – he did 20 ish more than most of the other riders and showed well sitting around 14-18^th place, things looked good. Next session dryish slicks anyway. Shez,  with new found confidence and a dry line only managed a little track time before tipping off on the grass ( yes I know what you are thinking why when there is a dry line on the track would you spend your time looking for the slipperiest parts of the track ?). Shez made progress through out the next sessions but struggled with the part of the track that has many blind corners. His place on the grid does not reflect his good hard work but he struggled badly with the following

Slick tyres give him more grip than he has ever had which made it hard to get the bike to turn   -  Dennis is much bigger than Shez so can use his leverage to pull the bike around it will take longer than a few hours to find the setting which suits Shez.

Qualifying tyres have more grip so make the above problems worse and trying so sort out how Q’s work on just one or two laps is hard for any one.

If you look at the results of David Johnson rider number 10 and Mr Watts, these guy’s are a good example of how well Shez did

This link shows David Johnson's result from the first BSB round this year at Oulton

 http://www.msttiming.com/result.asp?table=51704rc1stk&round=round04.gif   3rd best lap 41.2

David has been here in UK from Australia for 2 seasons now so he knows the tracks and he finished on the podium at the last race there. In race 1 he finished 21^st best lap 39.7 - Shez was 24^th best lap 40.1   Race 2 Johnson was again 21^st best lap again 39.7 Shez was 22^nd best lap 39.9   Johnson only got the ride for one race and has no chance of Superbike next season and I think that these results show why – Shez has the chance for a full attack at Superbike next season – when he is much older like Jay Vincent he can go back to Supersport or Superstock.

Some other stats that is of interest is the times that Shez set during the race was equal to the race pace of Kiyunari (who incidently was lapped) at this exact same track. Shez's time was also exactly 1 sec off Nori Haga's time at this same track whilst on the Koji Ducati 999F04. When you take all these factors into consideration then Shez really did our country proud.

We believe that Sheridan has it in him to do a great job in the UK or Europe if everything falls into the correct place – He will work hard on his fitness and weight – he needs to have the strength and body of a Boxer of his size to be able to compete at the same level as Harris and Haslam - he needs to get overseas as soon as possible to start learning all the tracks, the bikes and tyres – This can all be done correctly if everything starts in time.

Shez would like to say a BIG thank you to the following people who again came to the party to assist him:-

• Menno Parsons for his major contributions - your support is most appreciated

• Brent Gladwin for the opportunity to ride the Team Nvidia Yamaha at Oulton Park

• The rest of the Team Nvidia hospitality team including putting us up at their house

• Gilbert and Andy Parsons at EmTek Racing for their contributions

• Denise Bredenkamp at iAdapt for arranging all the logistics in the short time frames

• Finally a big thanks to Ricky Morais - technician, engineer, racer but most of all  - confidant, mentor and father

Gilbert Parsons

 

 

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