Feisty Racing’s Susie Grayson grabbed a well-earned third in the European Women’s Superstock 1000 race at Misano yesterday, depsite a weekend of suspension woes and scrutineering attention.
It was Grayson’s first outing at the Circuito Santa Monica (home track of little-known riders as Valentino Rossi and Frankie Chili) and she admits she was nervous from the start: "I haven’t done anything like the amount of fitness training or testing that I should have done over the winter, and I am still getting used to the Yamaha R1, so I was a bit jittery come first practice."
Racing against the likes of factory-supported girls like Nina Prinz and Marketa Janacova is never a easy thing to do and Grayson soon found out they are fast out of the crate at any track. She ended first practice 15-seconds off the pace but upbeat, and especially happy with some tyres Dunlop had made available.
But it was suspension that caused Grayson the biggest problems. "We had a leaky fork seal, so sent the forks off to a local mechanic to get them re-built, which they needed anyway. We put them back in the bike and found they where so hard, the bike was chattering and tank-slapping everywhere.
"We made some adjustments after some phone calls to the UK (thanks BSD and Bruce) and it got better, but I still couldn’t go anything like as quickly as I knew I could."
After first qualifying, were Grayson managed to knock six seconds from her time, she enlisted the help of the at-track Ohlins specilaist who took one look at the forks, laughed, said she couldn’t possibly race with them in that condition, put his big hat on and went to work.
"They were absolutely solid internally," said Grayson. "He totally rebuilt them in about 20 minutes and it came back a different bike."
Second qualifying saw Grayson come down another few seconds in her lap time and managed to get a grid slot not too far behind the race’s big guns.
"We softened the suspension off again before the race and it worked better and better. I got pretty good start but lost a couple of places in the opening laps. I then got my head down and started a battle with Elisabet Zannini which I knew I could win.
"I eventually got the better of her but started to suffer badly with arm-pump so I thought I slowed down, but I did my quickest lap at the end. it was great to stand on the podium after a weekend of problems and too much attention from scrutineers who held my bike back at every opportunity."
For a full weekend report, click here