Weather was good, track was dry, and I managed to learn a few things. Nige was there and one of my goals was to pass him, which I did at Gerards round the outside, but he claims he can't remember me doing it, lying fucker. My borrowed bike was a 2003 ZX-6R B1H with a Nitron shock and forks re-cartridged and set up by Colin at 100% Suspension and it felt fine, if a little too tipped up at the rear for my liking. I'd previously fitted a different gear change pawl with a stronger detent spring to help the gear changes, but the gearchange rod on the rearsets kept catching my boot on downchanges meaning I did some corners a gear too high because it wouldn't downshift. The gear lever could have done with being a touch higher too. You have to rev the fuck out of those things to make them move, so I did and the result was a 'guessed approximate' best lap of 1:04.8, unofficially of course, because timing laps at trackdays isn't allowed, oh no. I'm happy with that for two reasons - it's not my bike so was treating it with a bit more respect than I would my own, and my shoulder, which I dislocated last Sunday, felt like it was on fire for most of the time I was on the bike. Danny taught me to take a much tighter - stop it, turn it, gas it out - line through the hairpin, and also got me staying really hard on the gas out of Gerards and all the way to Edwinas. Apparently my lines through the rest of the circuit are fine, especially my entry speed and line into Gerards and the drive down and out of Devil's Elbow. Danny can't understand how I can go into a corner like Gerards so fast, yet don't like doing low speed corners such as the hairpin - who knows, cos I don't. All in all, a good afternoon, and I got to call Nige a cunt again.
