Tom Weeden British 125GP Championship Knockhill Round 6
After a crash in the race after two laps at Knockhill, in Scotland, in the 2009 British Championship Tom Weeden was hoping for better when he arrived at Knockhill again for the Round 6 of the 2010 British GP125 Championship. On the back of an 11th place finish at Mallory Park, Tom had high hopes for the weekend. The rain luckily held off for practice and qualifying, however the race was called off on Sunday due to the track flooding. Despite there being no race, there was still a lot of action during the Friday and Saturday sessions on track.
Tom got off to a steady start in first practice, going 20th quickest as he familiarised himself with the Knockhill circuit. In the second session on Friday, Tom went 19th quickest. However the qualifying sessions on Saturday proved to be a disaster and left Dad with a lot of work to do on the bike throughout the day. After 12 laps in the first qualifying session Tom was running 7th quickest, and was getting faster and faster as he found himself within a pack of fast riders that dragged him along with them. But it all went wrong when Tom tipped into the fast turn 1 at 191kmh and the wind caused the front tyre to tuck and sent Tom skidding into the gravel trap. However the other riders went faster after the crash and he was finally down in 17th after the end of the session. The bike was pretty smashed up and Toms dad Steve managed to rebuild it 20minutes before the start of the second session. Tom was hoping to get into the top 12 but his session was cut short after his engine completely destroyed itself. It was not looking good for the race on Sunday…
Steve got the bike back at around 6pm and didn’t stop working on the bike until 1.30am getting it ready for the race that never happened. Steve managed to transfer the whole gearbox, clutch, and internals into a spare set of crankcases and fit and set up a not “run in” cylinder and reclaimed head. When the team woke up on Sunday, the rain was pouring down and the wind gale force and you could tell that there was a chance that the meeting would be abandoned. After a couple of hours delay, Tom went out for the warm up session with new wets on, and was 21st quickest even though he was taking it easy to bed in the new cylinder . However Tom had high hopes for the race as he was not pushing it out there. From the time he came in from his warm up session, the weather didn’t improve, and eventually the decision was made to abandon the race on safety issues.
Quote
“It was a long way to go for no race but it was certainly still an eventful meeting for us. I crashed in the first qualifying session, whilst I was running in 7th; going into turn 1 and the bike was pretty smashed up. And then the engine Failed in the second session. Dad was up until 1.30 getting the bike ready, but the race never happened so unfortunately all his efforts were in vain. But Thanks a lot Dad!”
Photos Credit to DDS photographic / Tim Keeton Impact Images
Recent Comments