Round 6: CEV 125GP Spanish Championship

Track: Jerez Circuit

Round 6 of the Spanish championship was held last weekend in the southern part of Spain in a town called Jerez. With a 2 week break from the last round Glenn took this time to prepare for the second last round.

Glenn also attended the last round of the World GP in Valencia the week previous to watch and learn from the experienced world championship riders.

Friday consisted of two, forty minute practice sessions. The sun was out making the day warm with perfect conditions for riding. Glenn used both sessions to suit the bike to his needs, completing 20 laps over the day with a fastest lap of 1.53.4. Although Glenn was not happy with this time, he thought he had set the bike up well for Saturdays qualifying.

Glenn was off to a good start Saturday morning improving his time from the previous day by 1 second. Glenn was sitting 12th by the end of the first session.

Although Glenn’s position and time were good, 64 riders had turned up for the Jerez round meaning they where split in to two groups for qualifying. Because of this, Glenn was placed 24th on the grid.

For the second session Glenn felt confident he could improve his lap time and his position. With some changes to bike throughout the session and a tag from some faster riders Glenn improved his time to a 1.51.8. Many other riders also improved their time and this now pushed Glenn back to 27th on the grid.

This showed that the weekend’s race held a high level of competition with only 1 second between 27th and 10th and 2 seconds to the front row. Glenn was a little disappointed with his position on the grid for Sunday’s race but this did not stop his focus on a good start and clean first corner.

Warm temperatures followed on from Friday and Saturday to make Sunday’s 16 lap race enjoyable. Glenn was happy with the bike in morning warm up, checking that all was perfect for the race ahead.

The lights went out and Glenn was off to what he said was a “terrible first lap”. Glenn did not get a good start, being swallowed by the 46 riders in the first turn, with people hitting each other and a rider crashing which Glenn had to dodge, this made the first lap a massive loss. Glenn losing almost 10 seconds in that first lap and had a lot of ground to make up.

5 minutes prior the race starting, the wind picked up. Glenn did not know that this would play a big disadvantage with the settings he had chosen for the bike, as it had now made it very difficult to control in the strong winds. Glenn did not race his best race, only making up a few positions, he rode home to finish 23rd.

Glenn said, “I am very disappointed with myself even though the winds caused me many problems with the bike, it was the same conditions for everyone. I pushed but could not produce the lap times like I did in qualifying. My start and first lap was very nerve recking making me lose a lot time which I could not make up. This weekend we had our work cut out for us because many fast riders turned up including one world championship rider who won the race. I can only learn from this weekend and go into next weeks race at Valencia a little more experienced and determined. I would like to thank my mechanic Mark for working well all weekend”.