More than 80 riders have finished three days of testing at the Spanish Cartagena track with only of a couple of walking wounded and good work put in by all involved.
Day one ended with a mix fortunes for the riders and teams from Ireland. The weather was not kind with strong winds and rain interspersed with sunshine.
Keith Amor crashed and was briefly knocked unconscious. The Scotsman was taken to hospital as a precaution as was Nigel Percy who has a suspected scaphoid bone injury. Dave Paton had a suspected broken wrist and Peter Newell has damaged the tendons in his shoulder and expects to be out for about two months. Not a good day for the Celtic contingent.
Michael Dunlop went well on his street Sweep Yamahas both 600 and the new R1 which arrived at the 11th hour and is running in street form but with no fairings. BJ Toal was restricted to just 12 laps by the weather but was pleased with his progress on the Relentless-prepared Suzuki superstock machine.
Day two saw no major incidents and bright sunshine, intermixed with strong winds which slowed the pace down by around two seconds. Day one's walking wounded are around and coming to terms with their injuries.
Keith Amor is best recovered having been released from Hostpital this morning with a stiff neck, Nigel Percy has the most uncomfortable injuries having both hands in plaster one with a broken hand and thumb the other with a broken wrist. He is due into the Royal Victoria Hospital today for a reappraisal. Mrs Percy was seen celebrating her son's recovery by displaying the latest fashion in Spanish Traffic cones on her head on the way back to the Hotel.
Most riders are starting to get back into the swing of things after the winter break and I would expect lap records to be exceeded soon in all the classes as they are every year. The official lap records at Cartagena are set at national level. As early as 1996 Testing Superbikes were regularly lapping at 1.34-35.
BJ Toal is very pleased with his Relentless by TAS superstock bike, Ryan Rainey, here looking after it said: "BJ is well on the pace and settling into the Superstock like a duck to water"
The apres-bike atmosphere is warming up very nicely. Michael Dunlop has worked out a way to bolster his sponsorship. He has appointed himself agent to the local "Wok Buffet" ( Chinese all you can eat for €11) He talked about 25 into trying it out and was seen with his tame Triad member of staff now christened George for his commission, following which he demolished three ice creams before starting on dinner proper.
There were record laps in Supersport and the new superstock 600 record would have been established. Centurion Motorsport coming within .01 sec of the fastest ever supersport lap set last year.
Two awards from Dunlop were made at Cartagena on Saturday. The first a piece of Motorcycle Sculpture and a bottle of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey was drawn from all those who had their Tyre pressure gauges tested on Dunlop’s Motor GP service vehicle. It was won by Joe Burns whose gauge was found to be 3 psi out, but his was not the worst by any means which just goes to show how important such small pieces of equipment can be.
Day three was quiet after the Irish contingent left the previous evening. Niall Mckenzie turned up with Taz and Taylor in tow. It's Tayor's second time at the track but Taz was somewhat dwarfed bywhat looks to be to be a very big Aprilia 125.
Keith Amor was circulating at high speed getting to grips with the Wilson Craig 600 and reported no ill effects from his crash earlier in the week. He was very pleased he had begun to understand the electronics on the new bike he also was lapping around lap record pace on a hard Dunlop tyre to give longevity rather than ultimate lap times.
In the latter part of the day Taylor Mackenzie came of his Honda 125 and was taken to hospital with a suspected broken collar bone but we are awaiting reports from the hospital as I write this (6.00 pm local time) apart from this the most serious complaint is sun burn!
One additional item you may be interested in that's been going on here at the test. Dunlop Motorsport has brought Kelvin Reilly down with a KTM RC8 to test tyres for their BSB support series. The bike has done over 180 laps in race trim on various road tyres from which the final choice will be specified as control tyre for the series. The bike has not missed a beat and has performed extremely well also it looks fantastic. I would say the series will be very exciting to watch. He has managed to get down to around the high 1.40's compared to a 600 Supersport at 1.36-37.
