Held Racer Report: Kurt & Matt Wigley, Thruxton

Thruxton Race Report

Last weekend British Superbikes were down at Thruxton for the seventh round of the championship. Due to the lack of time following our discovery of the reduced bhp of the Supersport R6, we were to attend the fastest circuit on the calendar knowing that top speed would be a struggle.

Nicely showing off the Held Gloves!

FP1 began looking positive, however as the session progressed, Kurt struggled to improve his lap time due problems with the bikes handling. Exiting the fast sweeping corners, the bike was sliding and bouncing around in the attempt to high side. The team put their heads together to establish a solution following the 13th place finish which is not where we aimed to be. This lead to a series of suspension changes to compensate for the bumpy flat out circuit.

The second free practice session began to look positive as by lap 4 Kurt had knocked 0.6 of a second off his best lap from the previous session, however, this came to an abrupt stop as it became apparent that we were facing similar problems to the mornings FP1. The session came to an end with a 15th place finish and confusion as to where we had gone wrong.

Saturdays qualifying session was later in the day leaving us some more time to understand what we were up against. Under further inspections we identified that there was a mechanical fault with the rear shock meaning there was nothing we could do to the settings to resolve the handling issue. The shock was removed and serviced in preparation for Q1. Kurt took another 0.6 off his best lap time but because of the series of events leading up to this we were playing catch up and had to start from scratch back at the original base setting for the suspension as any alterations previously made were obsolete. The session came to a close with another 15th place finish.

Saturday afternoon brought the 10-lap sprint race for the Supersport class. Further changes were made leading up to the race which always hold a risk that it wasn’t for the better, however, this was not the case and Kurt’s personal best lap time was improved again. Kurt was in a heated battle with another 5 riders making his way up to 11th position at one stage. On the final but last lap, Kurt over ran the chicane leading onto the home straight and in the attempt to revert the advantage gained he fell back to P14 for the chequered flag.

Sunday brought an 18 lap feature race meaning tyre wear was a problem that everyone faced due to the abrasive circuit of Thruxton. The second race proved the difficulty faced with competing when down on power as every lap Kurt was overtaken on the back straight reaching speeds in excess of 150mph. This meant that he had to try and outbreak someone leading to him failing to stop and missing the chicane on several occasions each time knocking him out of a rhythm. The race came to a close with another 14th position finish picking up points in the championship but frustrated with the circumstances of the weekend.

Cadwell Park is right around the corner and we aim for a better performance with plans in place to replace the engine.

Held UK are proud to support Kurt and Matt Wigley with Race Gloves! www.held-uk.co.uk

Held Racer Report: Kurt & Matt Wigley, National Superstock 600, Rd 6

Round 6, Snetterton 300 Race Report

The weekend of the 9th & 10 July was the 6 round of British Pirelli National 600 Superstock where we had a rollercoaster of race meeting. The sixth round kicked off to a bad start with Kurt being taken out mid-way through Fridays practice session when someone crashed into the back of him entering the hairpin of turn 2. After spending the past two weeks building Kurt a new bike the whole team was disheartened. Matt had a better session with getting to grips with the circuit and the tricky wet conditions.

Later that day was the first Qualifying session of the event and looking at the forecast it was to be the only dry session meaning this one had to count. Matt was sent out on circuit with no pit board or crew in pit late as the team were working franticly to get Kurt’s bike fixed from the mornings incident and passed through technical control. Kurt eventually made it out on circuit with 6 laps remaining of the session where he began late 20’s and every lap jumped up another handful of positions until the final lap which put him in 13th. Matt had ‘a bad day at the office’ as he struggled to settle down and piece together a lap time which put him on the backwards foot for the race in 24th.

Qualifying two was a wet session as predicted by the forecast therefore nobody could improve their times which wasn’t our best interest as we felt there was more to give with additional time, however the morning warm up session on Sunday was a step in the right direction. Matt lead for most of the short session as he was determined to get up to pace ready for the race later on. Kurt spent the session in the 30’s testing out some changes the team had made to the suspension in order to allow the bike to turn in easier when carrying speed, on the final lap Kurt got his head down and set a time that was 0.4 of a second faster than his qualifying session leaving him 4th and Matt 9th out of the 40 competitors.

This weekend was an early race at 11:30, just in time before the rain returned. As the lights went out both lads began to barge their way through those in front, unfortunately for Matt, he only made it to turn two before a repeat of Kurt’s Friday incident was duplicated and he hit the ground following another racer crashing into the back of him smashing his back wheel. Once it was established that Matt was okay the attention of the team was turned to Kurt. After the first lap he made it up to an impressive 8th place and continued to better his lap times picking people off throughout the sprint. The end of the race came and Kurt crossed the line in 5th place as by the time he got to the front of the group the leading 4 had already broken away. This was a solid finish putting Kurt up to 8th in the championship.

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