Who’d have thought that when we set off for Assen last Thursday morning at 0615 that at the same time the following day that the truck would be at home with 2 of the team and the rest of the team in Assen !!!!! Well, thats what happened ! Unfortunately the truck broke down in Belgium and had to be returned to the uk. While we were travelling back friends and family back here were making arrangements for us to get back out to Assen and get James on the grid.

James, Dave, Julie, Rachel and Sophie finally got to a hotel in Assen at midnight on Thursday night. Karen and myself finally got home at 0600 on Friday morning. So we got to work swapping the bike and gear into a motorhome that Martin Leer ( The Bomb Print Shop) had been able to borrow for us. Thanks to Katie and Josh for picking it up and dropping it at home ready for our return. Once the packing was done it was a quick cuppa, book the ferry and back on the road. We eventually arrived at Assen welcome centre at 2315 , a better sight I have never seen. After 42 hours on the road, with about 3 hours sleep if we were lucky we had actually got the team back together.

Saturday arrived and we moved into the circuit and set up in garage 29 with some of the 848 boys who had kindly saved us a spot. After setting up and getting scrutineered it gave us a bit of time to get the tyre warmers on ready for James only practise of the weekend.

Free practise went well but James was taken back a bit by how fast and physical the circuit was but as usual he took it in his stride and started to get his head into what he needed to do in qualifying and the team set about getting the bike ready.

Qualifying came around quickly and James went out on circuit. Once he found his rhythm he started to push on and after starting at position 38 he ended up  29th on the grid. It gets a bit tricky here, as it was a mixed grid with the Swedish Battle of the twins ( up to 1200 cc twins) so alot of them were in front of James on the grid ( it was one of these bikes that was to scupper James in the first race).

We all sat down and discussed what we should do with the gearing on the bike and we decided the best option was to get the bike off the line as qiuick as we could, hopefully allowing James to jump a couple of rows on the way down to the first corner but also it had to cope with the fast straights.

Race 1 came at 1725. They all formed up on the grid and waited for the lights to go out. As the lights went out James got a fl-yer and true enough the gearing had worked and he managed to gain about 8 places going into the first bend. They left our sight and we waited for them to come back into sight on the start finish straight. James had had a great first lap and had got to 14th on track. The plan had worked and he was in the mix!! Lap 2 was when a KTM from the Bott series decided to sit James up and run him off the track in the hairpin, this lost him lots of time and places so at the end of lap 2 he was back in about 24th. Yet again James got his head down and pushed making his way back up to 18th on track and 15th in the 848 standings. the amazing thing was in his last lap he had managed to post his fastest time which was 4 seconds quicker than his qualifying time and that was in traffic!!!

Great result, finally James had got his first finish and his first point of the season. All he needed was to knock another 4 seconds off and he’d be up the front!!!

We gave the bike a check over and now it was time to relax, so we went for a meal in Assen with family and friends that had made the trip over to support us. In total 15 family and friends travelled from the uk, 3 from Germany came along to to be with us and it was a real pleasure to have them with us. The only problem we weren’t able to give them hospitality they normally would have because it was all back here in the uk.

Sunday morning came and race 2 was looming, we discussed the gearing again and decided we would stick with the plan from Saturday and left it where it was.

Race 2 again came around really quickly and out they went to the grid. The lights went out for the last time for us in Assen and they set off for the first corner. Once again James got a scorcher but in the first turn melay he was pushed off track and fell back several places. James was now up against it but once again he got his head down, on the first lap he was about 26th on track  and now the push was on. The problem was that the field was splitting and when he got up to P21 there was probably a 3 second gap to the next group with about 6 laps to go and it was looking a tall order but he did it, James reeled them in and then started working his way through the group . He managed to hit the front of the group and into 14th in the 848 class but by this time he was having trouble with the rear tyre and by the end of the race dropped back to 17th in class. Disappointing for James after fighting his way through the pack but he had knocked another second off his lap times.

It was a great weekends racing and all we really needed was the extra track time on the Friday but old smokey 2 put paid to that!!! I am sure that with those extra laps on the Friday we would have been in a lot better position going into qualifying on Saturday morning.

We would like to thank all of our sponsors for their help, you know how much we appreciate your help.

The down side of the weekend was the expense of the breakdown with the truck and that has taken a big chunk of our savings that James and myself have put aside for the race fund. If you feel you would like to make a donation to help us out it would be very much appreciated.

Now the focus switches to Snetterton in just over a weeks time. We’ll keep you informed of the progress.