After a battling series of performances against an ultra competitive line-up at Oulton Park, T3 Racing will be organising a full test day to set up their machines away from the pressures of an event weekend.
The T3 Racing supported trio of Freddy Pett, Sam Cox and Sam Thompson didn’t log the sort of results they were hoping for but with no DNF’s between them, they at least gained valuable experience and data for the series’ return to the Cheshire circuit later in the year.
The circuit is often compared to a high speed rollercoaster and indeed the race weekend did indeed supply some adrenalin fuelled thrills for the riders and their supporters.
Freddy Pett managed to take two tenth places in the well supported Supersport EVO class as he makes the transition from one make domination in TTC to this super competitive, world class league. Freddy famously turned his Dales Sports Surfaces Triumph into a fireball earlier in the year but the bike is now back to ‘mint condition’.
Fellow EVO rider Sam Cox (Royal Oak Contracts Triumph) showed how much he is progressing as he set race times that were faster than his qualifying pace, with times of 1:42.5 dropping down to a 1:41.8s, his personal best around the circuit. Sam logged a 14th in Sunday’s ‘sprint’ race but with overnight changes he was pleased to finish just behind Freddy in 11th during the ‘main event’ 15 lap race on Bank Holiday Monday. This was Sam’s best finish to date and the importance of using the electronics data to improve his riding style into slower corners will surely pay dividends in the future.
Sam said, “We made the bike more stable overnight and during morning ‘Warm up’ we could see from the 2D data that I was running much better in the slower corners. I had a really bad start and pushed up through with the help of the safety car to have a proper last corner lunge on Josh Day- sorry about that Josh!”
In the Pirelli National Superstock 600 Championship, Sam Thompson had high hopes of a top ten finish after a pair of points scoring rides in the first two rounds. Holding 10th on his Strategic Solutions Racing Triumph in qualifying with five minutes to go all looked good… but a bad set up decision left him a frustrated 21st on the grid with lots to do! Some last minute help from Freddy Pett helped the team prepare for the race itself and indeed Sam quickly made his way up to 16th before running on at the chicane, to drop back to 21st.
Sam commented, “We managed to go nearly a second quicker with the new settings from Freddy so a big thanks to him. No points and 21st is definitely not where we wanted to be.On to Donington Park for the World Superbikes and hopefully a better result!”
Team owner Tony Scott summed up the weekend saying, “I know the lads were hoping for better results, although Sam Cox particularly made big gains during the weekend. I think what the final results prove is two things; the Supersport and Superstock 600 classes are incredibly competitive and also you can’t give away time chasing settings during a race weekend. We have run riders at the very top end of Supersport so we need to give our current trio a good set-up day which we will be organising soon.”