Glenn was extremely pleased to be returning to racing after being off the bike for two months due to a break in the Spanish Championship. This gave Glenn time for his injured arm to heel. During the past few months Glenn worked tirelessly on his fitness in Australia. The Catalan Championship at Albacete was to be taken as a test weekend for Honda Stop & Go Castrol team before the 4th round of the CEV championship. Weather conditions were poor after a week of inclement weather.

The first session started at 10am. It was going to be difficult to achieve in this session, as the track was wet due to storms the previous evening. Glenn used the session to run in the bike and examine the circuit.

During the second and third sessions, the windy cold conditions kicked in to make it more difficult to achieve fast times. As the track dried it was a great opportunity to acquire quality time on the track and become refreshed with the circuit. Although the weather was poor, Glenn sizzled by achieving one of the top five times of the day.

Today was Glenn’s 18th birthday! However, celebrations were placed on hold to enable him to stay focused on the qualifying sessions ahead. During the first session, the track was wet. Glenn finished in 8th position with a time of 1.39.6. The second session saw the circuit dry out and the sun start to shine. Glenn felt he now had extra confidence with the bike and circuit and was able to drop to a time of 1.38.3. This moved Glenn to 5th on the grid for Sunday’s race. Glenn felt the second session gave him and the team comfort with the Honda Stop & Go Castrol bike. The team had ironed out a few little problems with the bike and so the lad from Down Under was ready to show his class.

Sunday’s forecast was for a dry track. The warm up time was only very short, (10 minutes in total). This was enough to check the bike, examine the circuit and practise a start before the commencement of the 14 lap race. Glenn did not start well. He had lost three places by the first turn. After his nerves subsided Glenn started to lower his time. He overtook several riders. Glenn continually lowered his qualifying lap time. With two laps remaining Glenn was in 4th position. He hunted down 3rd position. Each lap Glenn reduced his time by 4 hundreds of a second. However, Glenn ran out of time in the 14 lap race and finished in a respectable 4th place with a best time of 1.37.0.

The fastest lap was set by the race winner, Ricardo Moretti with a 1.36.2. Whilst Glenn was disappointed that he missed out on a podium finish, he was happy with the weekend of testing/racing before the next round of the CEV competition.

By Steven Bennett