| Dan Kneen: I've just got back from the NW 200 and its fair to say that it didn't go great. The weather wasn't the best but the first few practice's were in good conditions really compared to Race Day. It was good to get back out on Tuesday Evening but took a bit of getting used to after being sat around for a month due to my back injury. The first few laps were very weird as going from being sat around to doing 190mph I suppose you could say I was in at the deep end. Apart from that I was happy with the first night and how I went apart from being slightly unfit. That Evening I felt like an old man with my hip, knee's and back aching after the crash. After a day off on the Wednesday we had a full day of qualifying on Thursday. I ended up 22nd on the stock bike which was ok as we were still setting up that bike as it was new to me. On the 600 I went out on the 08 bike first did 6 laps came in and was happy with the way things were going as when I came in I was lying 6th. The plan was to go out on the 09 bike but we had some problems with that and never got out again so I dropped back to 11th but was happy, on race day we could make some more changes to the bike and get a good result. After spending the Wednesday getting the Evo bike ready for the superbike practice I got half a lap on that after having clutch problems so that was the end of my days riding. When race day came around I was looking forward to getting back out and getting some good races under my belt but as predicted the rain came down and it was looking grim. The first race went ok until the last lap where the bike cut out with electrical problems. The next race was the superbikes and I choose to take out the stock bike as I had no practice on the superbike and was only interested in going out in the dry on that. The 2 warm up laps were good. We only got 1 lap into the race and there was an oil spill from another bike and I could tell it was going to be near impossible for them to clean up enough to make it safe. I choose to pack up and sure enough a lot of the other riders waited for hours on the line but in the end the meeting was abandoned. So it wasn't the best meeting but at least I got a run out and it helped me get back into the swing of things and get the bikes setup better for the TT |
