Winter Training

The weather at the end of 2023 and beginning of 2024 in the UK has been well just shocking. I’ve been training weekly on my pit bike at M4 Karting, getting laps in and generally just having a bit of unpressured fun. Doing the laps is like a full on work out at the gym only with a big grin on my face.

Obviously this year, I am riding the Wilson Racing Moto 3, but its tricky to get any decent track time in the UK over the winter period, its either too cold or just abysmal wet riding, which leads to unnecessary expense when you crash out. There have been some horrendous ones too, where brand new bikes of competitors in the New Superteens class for instance have actually written off their bikes, they were so new they still squeaked!

Fortunately I been lucky enough to go to the winter Pro Test held at Cartagena Circuit in Spain with my new team Wilson Racing. I flew from Bristol airport on the early 5.50am Wednesday flight, landing in Alicante at 8am. Driving the 80km to the circuit, we were there to access the track at lunchtime and watch a track day, ready for the following days of testing.

Day 1 – everything was new, the track and the bike. I haven’t been riding a lot of other bikes over the winter break as Ive said, just my pit bike so I needed to get used to the Moto 3 again but also learn the gnarly Cartagena track.

Initially I found it hard to work out the track layout, so many of the corners were late blind apexes.

The plan for the day was to get into the groove and set a PB to focus on and chip away at.

There was a slightly annoying issue where the newly repaired dash that collects a lot of the bike data (revs/speed plus much more) was put in for repair and just fixed in time for the test, but it still wasn’t working properly so we were running blind for the test days which was slightly frustrating.

But I got into the groove nonetheless and by the end of Day 1 put in a reasonable target time. A track walk at the end of the day with the team and coach, highlighted areas for improvement.

Day 2 – I had developed a swelling overnight on the inside of my thigh and it became increasingly apparent and unbearably painful when leaning off the right side of the bike in the first session. It was like something was pinching my skin inside my leathers which made the pain gradually worse and the bike hard to ride. The team put some padding around the base of the tank, and some ibuleave gel on my leg to ease the pain and I had to go full commando too to prevent my under crackers from making it worse. All this helped and in the coming sessions and knocked over 2 seconds off my PB.

Unfortunately in one of the latter sessions I made a stupid move around the fastest, longest right hand corner of the track. I chose to go around the outside of another slower bike as I felt I was on a hot lap, but the other bike got the corner wrong and forced me out wide with no where to go but the gravel trap.
I tried to save it by braking but low sided the front and barrelled into the gravel. Dad wasn’t happy – “OK in a race situation but this is practice!!!”, duly noted 🙁.

Unfortunately in one of the latter sessions I made a stupid move around the fastest,
longest right hand corner of the track. I chose to go around the outside of another
slower bike as I felt I was on a hot lap, but the other bike got the corner wrong and
forced me out wide with no where to go but the gravel trap.

I tried to save it by braking but low sided the front and barrelled into the gravel.
Dad wasn’t happy – “OK in a race situation but this is practice!!!”, duly noted 🙁

The little shake of my head in the video says it all!

A massive thank you to the team who managed to put the bike back together within a couple of hours over the siesta, which allowed me to get back out and ride the last session of the day.

Day 3 – where had the Spanish sun gone? Gusting winds and really overcast with rain due later on. The conditions weren’t great for the first 20 minute and 40 minute sessions, with ever increasing gusts of wind made it difficult to judge the braking and corners, plus I was going down the straights at a lean angle a track day addict would be proud of going round a corner!

Several riders crashed due to the wind, and everyone decided to sit the next few sessions out hoping for the weather to improve. But with rain due during the afternoon siesta we decided to call it and go and relax, making the steady journey back to the airport. Disappointing end but a sensible decision with nothing to gain by taking unnecessary risks. And boy did it rain too, was only meant to be a shower…good call 🙂.

Overall I enjoyed this experience and I’m thankful to everyone who has helped me so far this year, its put me in a good position for Round 1 in Navarra, Spain in April.