NG round 2 Brands Hatch April 12-13 - Rowan Miller
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A race report from Gary Miller on the fortunes of young Rowan Miller at round 2 of NG
Easy one for us this, we burned up the M25 Friday evening, well actually crawled would be closer to the truth!! at Brands by 19:00 we had a garage reserved so life was cool.
Saturday
Blue sky, luvly we get suited booted and scrooted, Row goes out and does his first practice, no problem, he’s already turning the same lap times as he did when he practiced here in Feb, and he is running in a new Piston!
Race - qualifier
All the info in this report is based on the F125’s only, although there are actually 2 other groups out in the same race.
12 F125 take to the line, rev’s rise - GO - Row slots in 4th place into Paddock hill bend, 3rd lap and Row Squeezes past into 3rd and starts working on the 2nd place man, Row gradually closes down on 2nd place and finishes 0.5 sec off - good ride
“I could of had him dad, but its only a qualifier”
So quite pleased with our place we settle down, about an hour later the sky turns black, within five minutes its gone from sunshine to rain/thunder/hail…..cold and windy, I whip the wheels out so that we can can quickly decide what to run for the championship race, we make the decision as the race before Row’s goes out, there is a drying line, so its back to what was already in there!!
RACE 2 Championship race
They belt off of the line again, this time Row gets isolated pretty quickly, we just cant run the pace of the 125’s when its dry! Row brings it home in 4th place (still beat 8 of em!), he’s got no complaints and was turning 63 sec laps despite it being damp so we are cool with that.
SUNDAY
At 07:00 it lovely sunshine, by 12:00 its cold and raining, despite some sunny intervals it stayed wet most of the day which is good for us in one way, Row rides the wet really well, but really we want dry track time…
Qualifier
The track is wet but drying, The choice of rubber is a bit of a moot point, some are on dry’s some on wets, we are on full wets…
Row gets a good start and is battling for the lead (of the 125’s) into the first bend but once again the power deficit shows as he gets dropped on the run up to Druids for the first time, they drop back down to Graham hill corner, Row Pushes a little too hard and runs out of road, a quick bit of Motocross (over the rumble strip!) and back on he gets, Lost a bit more time, he end’s up in a bit of a gap but takes an easy 2nd place, we are quite chuffed with that and have a good laugh about his moment!
Championship race
So this is the one that its all to play for….Its raining cats n dogs!
They belt off of the line and Row gets a flier!! He’s straight into the lead of the 125’s and has a little gap - GOOD BOY! by the third lap the Aprillia’s are making their presence felt and Row is coming under increasing pressure, I cannot watch!!, Row gets taken on the run up to Druids, He’s hard on Scotts tail, next lap and Row is grimly hanging on, we can now see another Aprillia catching, No9 Sam Coventry (Row’s cousin!) is putting in some quick one’s to join the party!, they come back down Graham hill, along the cooper straight, Scott, Row then a little gap then Sam, Its still raining, They tip left at the end of the cooper straight, and Scott goes down!, Row hold’s his line and is leading the race again!, he comes around and takes the last lap flag, as he goes into Paddock Sam gets up this inside and takes the lead, Row tucks in behind and is stuck to Sam’s tail piece, they go into clearways Row gets alongside but just doesn’t have enough power and loses by 7 hundredths of a second!!
We just about collapse as the tension comes off, The boys are shaking hands and waving at the marshals!! They get back to the pits and we all have a good laugh, the boys re-live the race, we are really pleased for Sam (although Gnashing our teeth that we didn’t win) His first trophy and its for 1st place, the Pompey boys are on the top two steps of the podium!!
we have a feeling that Row now leads the F125 championship!! not what we expected at the start of the year…..
Row then went out and finished 6th (out of 12) in the Moto400 Newcomers race! Sam Nearly won this one as well!! He got 2nd on his GP125 Honda by 1 tenth of a second - good lad.
So we had a storming weekend, now we have a weekend off then its off to Cadwell Park For the next MRO round.
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