Chris Vermeulen's weekend

The seventh round of the British Road Racing Championship is now history, instead of making steady progress at a track he had seen before Chris spent the weekend in a holding pattern. "We chased handling dramas on the 600 and had the race cut short in the superstock race, not the best weekend but more points and valuable time on both bikes." Said Chris.

Qualifying on the 600 was once again a frustrating affair. "We had a front end chatter problem for most of the weekend, I think we qualified in about the same position last time out here at Oulton so no improvement, third row was not where I wanted to be but there was not much I could do about it. Oulton Park is a very unforgiving circuit and the fences are really close to the track, you just don't throw caution to the wind here." Said Chris.

A change of set up for race day saw a marked improvement in lap times and a steady march forward through the grid. "The changes we made overnight helped heaps, I lapped over a second faster and thought I was making steady progress when the bike started to loose a little bit of straight line speed, 6th was the best I could muster this weekend, I'm disappointed but it just makes me more determined to take a win in the supersport championship before the end of the season."

Qualifying for the Superstock race was more successful, another strong 4th and another front row start. "The 900 Honda Fireblade seems to steer better with each outing, I like the big bikes, the extra grunt makes it more exciting to ride and things seem to happen just that bit faster, the lap times aren't that much different, their just more physical."

A two part race helped the outcome, the first stoppage was only four laps in, with Chris in a watchful 4th place, and the end result would be determined on aggregate times. "I was really comfortable in 4th when the first red flag came out and led the restart for a few laps, but a rear suspension change over night was a mistake, the bike wouldn't hook up out of the slower turns as well, and I was loosing drive because of wheel spin, as we got to the half way point of the race I started to make in roads on the two leaders I was third on the road and fourth on aggregate. I thought there was a really good chance of a podium finish, a win was probably out of the question but we were getting closer with each lap. Unfortunately the red flag came out again, and the race was declared the lap before. I finished 3/10's of a second off third spot and 3 seconds off the lead, if the race had run the full distance who knows what may have happened." Said Chris.

The next outing should be a re match with the boys and girl in the European Superstock Championship at the Brands Hatch round of the World Super Bike meeting.
"Hopefully I will get another ride in the European Championship in a few weeks time, I'm really looking forward to that." Said the Sunshine Coast ace.