Nicole Lynch
More than halfway through her racing season in Thundersport GB this year we catch up with Nicole Lynch
I’m well over halfway through my racing season in Thundersport GB this year and I’m very happy with how it’s been going. Any year that you’re going into a new Championship on a new bike is always going to be a learning one. So far, I’ve been on five new (to me) and very different circuits and there has been a lot to learn and take in at each one.
Brands Hatch was my first Thundersport GB meeting and I’d never raced there before so I didn’t know my way around at first. The track looked scary and fast, my bike was new and I hadn’t adjusted to it fully yet, which is par for the course at this early stage. I needn’t have worried because the organisers at Thundersport couldn’t have been nicer and most of the weekend went according to plan. I spent a while setting the bike up and got three solid finishes with two 10th and one 9th place before crashing out at a corner called Clearways in the last race of the weekend. I have now joined the ‘Clearways Club’ as a result!
Donington
Donington was up next and it was a track I was looking forward to as I had raced on it last year during the European Junior Cup. I struggled a little bit at this round due to a malfunction in the forks of the bike which was something I only discovered after I got the bike back to the workshop. I finished the weekend with two 12th places and two 10th places.
Snetterton
Snetterton was next and it is a fast track with few actual corners. I worked extra hard and was pleased with my improvements over the weekend. My suspension was now fixed and I had changed from Michelin to Pirelli tyres. I finished the weekend with a 10th, two 9ths and a 7th place finish.
Cadwell Park
Cadwell Park is famous (notorious?) for a big jump on the track aptly called the Mountain. After a couple of laps, I almost didn’t want to go back out on the track; it was technical, the corners were blind and the barriers were close. However, once I got used to it, I didn’t want to come back in. I even managed to wheelie my bike for the first time over the Mountain, but I wasn’t quite brave enough to jump it this time. Around. The weekend finished with three 10th place finishes due to tricky conditions overall.
Rockingham
Rockingham International at the end of July was the my most recent race and its track is definitely a bit different from the rest. It’s an old NASCAR track so it has a big embankment which the bikes go onto but it’s very intimidating getting pulled up to the wall at such high speeds. However, we somehow managed to avoid all the rainfall and I scooped four 6th place finishes over the weekend.
There are three more rounds remaining in Thundersport GB; Anglesey Trac Mon in north-west Wales at end August, Oulton Park Cheshire in September and back to Donington Park in Leicestershire at end October for the final race of the season. I’m looking forward to them all!
I’ll be updating blog next month with race reports, and general snippets of how everything is going. In the meantime can also follow me on Twitter , Instagram or facebook
Nicole Lynch
10th August, 2017
