A week ago the cheery metoffice website gave us some bad news. The second round of the MRO/BMCRC Championships were to be run under a foot of snow. Thankfully its now been proven that no one ever seems to get the weather right on race weekends!.

We knew that it would be cold with some snow and we also had been warned that the track doesnt offer much grip when wet. I arrived at Donington with very numb fingers as I kept them crossed that at least my Supersport races would be dry. Another wash out weekend was not something I was looking forward to.

For the first time in 4 seasons of racing only Steve and I were to be racing. With no Minitwins or Thunderbikes at this round it felt very quiet and calm in the team garage. Possibly though it could have been the calming influence of fellow Suzuki rider and all round "so chilled out he would fall over if i pushed him" Alan Lau, who had set up with us alongside his friend Martin Booker, both who were riding in the Supersport 600 Clubmans Cup.

I was looking forward to riding Donington Park as it is the circuit i grew up close to and got me into motorcycle racing. Even though I was once a local to the track I had in fact only ridden the track once previously about two years ago when I instructed on a Motorcycle Folly trackday. To be honest instructing isnt the best way to learn a circuit so I still had a very vague idea of where the apexs and braking points were.

Friday had no Bemsee run test day so we booked onto a trackday run by Nolimits. The only problem was that the day was a 98db day. This meant that we both had to run noise reducing baffles. With both bikes running tuned engines this is never the best way to ease more performance from the bike. In fact both bikes ran like they were missing a spark plug. Not ideal when you have a circuit to learn and gearing to set up. It also didnt help that the circuit was hit by gale force winds. Exiting Coppice onto the back straight was very "interesting" requiring some strange body positions just to prevent me from being blown off the track. At least we managed five dry sessions and in the sun it wasnt all that cold. Really!!.

Saturday dawned overcast. The track was wet and was proving to catch more than a few riders out even on full wets. Steve was out first for qualifying. On full wets the session was just spent trying to work out where the best grip was. A good safe session gave Steve a 9th from 30 qualifiers. Not bad considering the conditions.

I was one of the last sessions out for qualifying. I went out to the collecting area on wets along with the majority even though the track was only very slightly damp. Due to the cold temperatures and wind chill the drying circuit wasnt even touching the wets and with black clouds looming we knew that the 15min session wouldnt be long enough to allow a wheel change. Mind you it wasnt a bad decision, just as the circuit opened a heavy snow shower drifted across the circuit leaving the track now 70% wet and white in places!. The wind soon blew this away and after a five minute delay we were allowed out.

It was very hard to judge the conditions every lap due to the wind blowing across snow showers very quickly. The track is very spread out also meaning within a 1.30 second wet lap the conditions in the corner that your approaching could well have changed considerably from the last lap. Great!. I took the first laps very easy working out w