First time club racing this year. Anglesey Circuit in North Wales is a cracking track, if a little remote and is one of my favourites. Bit of a foggy test day which resulted in a delayed start but finally got a good set up on the 959 ready for two days of racing.
The format has changed slightly with the club. All classes now have a 15 minute qualifying session on Saturday to gain a grid position for a further three races over the course of the weekend.
I was running in two classes. The Open which as the name suggests is open to any machine and the Sound of Thunder which is open to twin cylinder and three cylinder machines.
Due to cancellations of various early season meetings for climatic conditions the Anglesey paddock was busy. Many of the road racers were there getting signatures to qualify them for the road season. Top names like Dan Kneen, Ivan Lintin, Daley Mathison and Jamie Coward were all in attendance.
Having never ridden the Welsh circuit on the new 959 I was looking forward to seeing how it compared to the 899 around there. The circuit is grippy and quite technical but still has some very fast sections. The 959 coped well and wasn’t too hard on tyres. I use the club meetings to try and learn a little about the bike and make some progress with set up to help with the National meetings. Plus it’s good fun in a slightly more relaxed environment with a good mix of bikes and people.
I never really used the traction control on the 899 but the 959 has just that little bit more power so I am trying to learn to use it in all conditions to help me stay upright as well as go that little bit quicker. I used it a lot over the three days at Anglesey and feel like I’ve made a bit of a step forward in training my brain to use it to my advantage. Although my lap times weren’t as quick as I’d hoped I still had some very good results given the company I was keeping.
Qualifying aside I had three wins in the Sound of Thunder and 11th, 3rd (wet race) and 8th in the Open class.
My teammates also made progress with the sidecar and ended up 2nd on the Sunday with some very good lap times considering they had never been there before and are still learning to get around on the trike!
