Snetterton, March 22

Contributor: David Batchelor

Bike:Kawasaki ZXR400, Class: Rookie 400, Club: Bemsee

A truly dreadful day. No prior preparation meant a pitiful performance from bike and rider. We missed practice after the bike stalled and failed to restart on the button or the bump. This wouldn’t normally have been an issue except I’d never even turned a wheel on this machine. A combination of inertia and missing mechanicals meant that the bike had only been ‘ready’ on the Thursday night, leaving no time to de-bug.

Re-charged the battery in time for race one, but it didn’t help. The bike was stuttering so badly I had to pull in – a hole in the airbox meant that the bike was running seriously lean.

Race two was when I discovered the bike handled like a shopping trolley. Too hard suspension and a low back end meant that cornering was a very ginger affair. Never mind I was put out of everyone’s misery when the race was red-flagged and my bike failed to re-start. Like Chachi I was seriously pissed off, my times here last year would have been good enough for second in race one and third in race two.

Never mind, Oulton Park is three weeks away – plenty of time to sort the problems…ahem.