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Mallory Park - Right On Suspension.................................................................................................Back To Reports and News
1st July 2010
 Alex attended the second round of the Harley Davidson XR1200 championship at Mallory park on the weekend of the 25th – 27th June.
We knew this would be a hard one as Alex doesn't like the short bumpy circuit. Alex had tested the new Stratstone XR1200 at Mallory Park a couple of weeks earlier, although the bike was brand new and had to be run in so Alex wasn’t able to stretch the bikes potential.
The temperature on both days was very warm, reaching 30 degrees and as Alex came in from free practice he wasn't happy with the handling, however he was 5th fastest with a 1.04.414. Alex made a few big changes to the suspension which I wasn't sure of at the time, but he seems to know what he is talking about.
The new leathers that he had were very tight giving him what he described as a “Mangina” (you will need to look this one up folks) causing him some discomfort, so for qualifying he switched back to his previously used ones from Oulton Park. This caused problems as he lost both knee sliders after a couple of laps.
This gave me a run back to the garage for more. Not good in the 30 degree heat!! He did go quicker with a best lap of 1.03.966 however so did most of the others.
Alex would be starting in 6th for Sundays race.
 Again he wasn’t happy making more big changes to the suspension. Causing more frowning and head shaking from myself and a few others!!
In the morning warm up on Sunday Alex again went slightly quicker with a 1.03.933 but he was still not happy, cue more suspension changes and again more head shaking from myself.
On to the race and Alex got a bad start coming round in 7th place and after a few laps he passed Djion Compton to take 6th place and set about catching the hard charging Darren Fry.
Out front there was a race long battle between the front four of Lea Gourley, Jeremy Mcwilliams, Mike Edwards and Torquil Paterson. On the last Lap Fry highsided handing 5th place to Alex with the win going to Lea.
Again Alex had went a full second quicker with a fastest lap of 1.02.991.
What I have learned since is a few of the others riders have followed Alex with suspension settings as he was right all along. I will keep my head shaking to myself from now on as Alex works his black magic on suspension settings.
Wull
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