Jan 2010
Hi everyone and a Happy New Year - just a quick update about things I've been up to. Before Christmas and during I was up at my mates house, Ben Padgett, for a day of trials riding, which was a good day with plenty of laughter as we found out that trials bikes aren’t very good for races around his field. The weather has been pretty bad after that, so I haven’t done any mountain biking but instead I've been training hard at the gym and working hard at work, apart from all the other stuff we do at Christmas. I also took the time to re-decorate my room as it needed doing. so plenty of hard hours with the paint brush and roller have been spent.
So cheers everyone for reading and I'll get another update on soon hopefully.
Jordan#99 - that is my new race number
Hi again - just a quick blog about when I went to the NEC for the motorcycle show in Birmingham. I met up with Bob Grant and Vicky - I will be riding for Bob Grant's Yamaha Team for 2010. I had some good meetings with various people and had one with my shark helmets people who are happy to still be my suppliers for helmets. Also for some fun we went on the minimotos which Iused to race - there was me, Matty Hoyle, James Hillier and Luke Stapleford and his dad and various other people. We set off reving off the start line - I was 1st in the 1st corner and then I tucked the front end, but pulled it up out of the tyre wall (laughing in my helmet) and was in 3rd and was following Luke and his dad for the 1st lap. Then James Hillier came under me and ended up in the tyre wall, so laughed again and slowly passed Luke and his dad and was in the lead pulling away. I got abit confident and started riding one handed around a particular corner, where some friends were watching and nearly lost it again - and I ended up winning the race. We all took our helmets off laughing about each other, it was really good fun. After I went and had some lunch with some friends and had a look around the stalls meeting more people and then it was time for me to get measured up for my new race leathers by Vicky, which was interesting as her hand was getting close to the old crown jewels lol ! After that we all said are good byes and headed home up the M6 toll. Iit was a good day, met some good people, had a good laugh, can't get much better.
Hi everyone, this weekend I went up to Batley for Fiona Padgett's birthday party. Fiona is the daughter of former grand prix racer Clive Padgett. I went up on Saturday as I was staying at Ben's house who is Fiona’s cousin, I went to the Autorama shop which is Ben's dads bike shop. Ben had to go and deliver some bikes to Mancheter Airport so I went with him in the van. The bikes were getting sent out to Cambodia as some guys were touring around the area for 6 weeks. So Saturday night came and it was time for Fiona’s 18th which was at the rugby club - everything was good we all had a good time and danced the night away. On Sunday me, Ben, Joel, and Sam went to the driving range at oulton hall. It was a really nice golf club and we struck about 150 balls each and were seeing who could hit the furthest. We then went back to Bens, Sam had to go back home down south . I stayed for a proper Sunday lunch with homemade Yorkshire puds and everything - it was spot on. I then had to say bye and drive home, so a different sort of weekend with lots of good fun.
Feb 2010
Hi again , last week I had another motocross training session, I do motocross just for learning how to slide a bike around and for the fitness side, which is pretty intense. We went to Leisure Lakes, near Southport, which is a sand track and on this day it was very deep. I have ridden there before so I knew my way around the track, but the sand depth was catching me out in places - all around it was a good day of fun and sweat. This week I went mountain biking for the first time in a while, as the weather has stopped me lately. It was just a local ride which I knew really well and have been doing it for years. Its about 18mile of proper up and down sections. It was really a good cycle. So thats it for now and I'll be back with another update soon.
March 2010
Fantastic news to announce continued support from de Poel Consulting and Doodson Insurance, also with a new sponsor: DeliveryQuoteCompare.com. I would like to express my personal thanks to Mathew Sanders CEO of de Poel and Neil Clayton, Managing Director of Doodson Insurance.
Also really excited to going testing very soon, I will be flying out to Spain on the 9th of March for 2 days testing at Almeria and 2 days testing at Cartagena, with my team Bob Grant Yamaha. I carn’t wait to get started and be back on a bike, which is an awesome feeling. I have tested at Cartagena on 3 occasions but I've never been to Almeria so I'm really looking forward to going there. I've been on YouTube watching different videos of the track and it looks really flowing and fast with a long back straight. This weekend I've been running and mountain biking last weekend was really good as well. We managed to get some good weather so I got my road push bike out and did 55km with my dad setting the pace on his Vespa scooter, which he got imported from Vietnam just after Christmas -its quite a unique little thing, its bright red and white with blue pinstripes. Anyway thats all for now so thanks for reading.
March 2010 - Testing in Spain
I just got back from Spanish testing on Sunday so here's how it went:
Me and my dad finally got to the circuit after driving from the airport, the team were already there with the truck and everything. We weren’t allowed into the circuit until 6pm so I got my new leathers on (which look really trick) and just pedalled around on a push bike to try and get them bedded in. Anyway after getting in and setting up for the first day on track, which was the next day - the first session felt really weird having not ridden for 5 months, but it still felt great to be back on a bike. Every session got better, getting more comfortable as the day went on. The next day I was more up to speed and getting my head down and got some good laps under my belt> We had to cut the day short so we could get the truck packed and set off for Cartagena, where we were testing the next day.
Cartagena: in the morning it was really wet so we decided not to go out for the morning sessions and wait until it was dry. It dried up later and we did some good laps. The next day it was completely dry so we got out for all the sessions and we started to run the new tyres that we would be using for this season - they are the same make of tyres but they've just been upgraded. They seemed really nice to ride on and I could definitely feel the difference from last years tyres, they just seemed to have more of a consistent grip and lasted longer. Saturday 13th March was also my birthday so Yaylor Mackenzie arranged some go karting for us all which was nearby. There were was about 13 of us and it was great fun - there was a lot of grass cutting and shoving but we all had a great time and it was lots of fun.
Being with my new team was great, we all really got on with each other and Bob and Davey were so hard working, also Vicky who was making me my tea. So now its not long until Brands so can't wait now - its on Easter weekend so I'll be putting up another update after that.
Brands Hatch Indy - 3rd-5th April
Here we are then the first round of the season at Brands Hatch Indy circuit, the organisers had to split our qualifying into two groups as they were 67 entries going for 38 places on the final grid for the race.
First practice went reasonably well, finishing 8th, the new bike felt easy and well balanced to ride but it just needed a few tweaks with the suspension, so the team got grafting to get everything together for the 1st qualifying session the next day, which happened to be wet so I had to come in the pits for a tyre change. I went back out and did a few steady laps just to get the heat in the tyres then put in a flying lap and popped into 4th position, but eventually finished 6th in this session. The next qualifying session was slightly damp but drying so we kept dry tyres on and stayed out for the whole session, staying between 2nd and 6th the whole session. I got held up on my last lap but eventually finished 6th, but as there were two groups they took the top 14 from each group and the rest went into a shoot-out race to decide their positions for the final race, so I was 12th for the main race.
The race was dry and sunny and I got a decent start but my start position was on the inside for the 1st corner, which was not the best place to be. On lap 5 I had to retire from the race due to my knee slider coming off, so when I put my knee down around a corner the leather just kept trying to grip and pull me off. I was disapointed at not being able to finish the 1st race of the season because of a little stupid plastic knee slider coming off. So Thruxton will be the next race and I will be making sure that they are on tightly. So cheers for reading.
Thruxton - 16th-18th April
Thruxton is definitely the fastest circuit on the calendar, with some really high speed corners. I was up there in every session but ended up qualifying 5th, which I was happy and so were the team.
The race - I didn't get a great start at all and about 5 people passed me by the 1st corner. I was in a group which was from 2nd place all the way to 14th and I was dicing and battling with everyone but ended up finishing 12th, which is not where I wanted to be after qualifying so well. We thought it would be a good idea to go to Knockhill where the team are based to try and improve my starts off the line, so I drove up there on the Tuesday after Thruxton and on the Wednesday morning we just did lots of practice starts - finally destroying 2 clutches !! Bob was there showing me how to improve my starts, so we have made some changes to it and hopefully I will get a flyer at Oulton Park the next round.
Oulton Park 1-3 May
In practice and qualifying me and the team were struggling to get the suspension set-up. I didn’t have full confidence to push the front as I just couldn’t fully feel what it was doing. I managed to qualify 13th which I wasn’t very pleased with. Before the race it was raining and then it stopped but we decided to go with wet tyres as it was still very damp. I got a very good start off the line making 2 places up towards the 1st corner, unfortunately by the 2nd corner the race was stopped as there was an accident at the 1st corner. Because of the delays during the day the time was getting to late to re-run our race so it was decided to cancel the race and re-run it somewhere else. The location is not confirmed but I will post it on my blog when I know. So cheers for reading.
Cadwell Park 21-23 May
This weekend we were at Cadwell Park - the track with everything, fast corners, slow corners, jumps and bumps. The weather was scorching all weekend and bike set up was very hard and never got sorted, also on race day I was struggling with my arm and it was painful to ride, which made it even more tiring. After getting back home and seeing the physio it turns out that my bicep muscle is torn. Anyway back to the race - we qualified not very well after struggling for grip in 18th position.
I got a great start in the race and after trying hard I finished 12th, not my best position but the pain in my arm was just weakening my grip on the handle bars. I now have 5weeks off until my next race, so time to get my arm fit again. Hopefully I will be taking part in some push bike road races so I will be posting those blogs on my website as well so come back and read them.
Oulton Park Thundersport GB
Since the last round at Cadwell Park a lot has happened. I am now riding for team Trickbits Racing on a Triumph675, in the national Superstock 600 class. Paul Jinx who runs the team was really keen to get me riding one of their bikes alongside their current rider John Simpson. I snapped up the opportunity and Paul got me on a testday the following week at Cadwell Park. The Triumph was such a beautiful bike to ride andit felt really calm and settled with lots of grunt - I just felt suited to the bike. This weekend we managed to get a Thundersport GB race meeting in, just to use as more testing at Oulton Park. I qualified 2nd and finished both races 2nd which we were all really pleased with. We have had a 5 week break since the last BSB round but we're back in action at Knockhill on the Triumph and I can’t wait for it!
Knockhill 2-4 July
So we are up in Scotland for the next round of the championship and its 2 races this weekend - loving the Triumph bike! In qualifying I ended up 9th overall, which the team seemed please with as it was my 1st time on the new bike. In the morning warm up session before the race it was really heavy rain and we only managed 4 mins out of 10 because it was so bad - they even delayed everything until the rain calmed down. So we finally got to race 1 and I got a great start holding my position on the 1st lap. I then got stuck into overtaking and was having a good battle with 4 other riders although the weather was still really bad. The water was spraying up off the back wheel of the rider in front so it was very hard to see. On lap 10 at the 1st corner the back end lost grip when entering the corner and that was the end of my race. During the next lap another rider did the eactly same thing and eventually 4 more riders went down at that same corner. The weather then started to get worse so they cancelled our 2nd race and it will be run at another meeting. Next weekend I'm testing at Rockingham so I will do another blog then.
Snetterton 16-18 July
Everything was going well in practice getting the bike set up and in the 1st qualifying session I was 12th with 1;10.8 lap time. I knew I could go quicker in the next one but due to the surface of the track breaking up they had to put a white line in place at one of the corners, which didn’t at all alter the track but the officials decided just to give us another free practice instead of a qualifier, I went out and went quicker but it didn’t count for anything and I would start the race from 12th. Due to one race being cancelled at Knockhill they ran it on Saturday night at Snetterton, where I would start 9th (where I qualified at Knockhill). I got a good start but unfortunately crashed at bomb hole corner on the 1st lap. So the team set about repairing the bike for Sunday, in the warm-up session on Sunday the front brake locked up down the straight - I was very frustrated. The team put a new master cyclinder on for the race but on the sighting lap of the race I k new it wasn’t right. I started the race but by the 2nd corner it was terrible. I pulled off the track and went back to the truck. So a terrible weekend, next round is Silverstone supporting the World Superbike Championship
Silverstone World Superbike Round
It was a write-off weekend - we had a new engine but from the 1st practice it was fluttering in the rev range between 8000 onwards. We had it on the dyno trying all different things, we put a new fuel pump on but it didn’t work. I was on the grid and said to my mechanic “if its not any better on the sighting lap I’m pulling in” I did just that as I wasn’t going to ride my bike when it wasn’t right.
The team took it back to the work shop during the week and found out it was a breather pipe which was not put on to the throttle bodies, which made one of the cyclinders run to lean. So Brands GP is next and I'm going to be maintaining the bike at the meetings from now on. But I've got to thank Paul Jinks for his fairness in lending me the bike and the effort he has put in up to now.
Signing Off
Due to the financial pressure racing was putting on my family, I have had to hang up my leathers - a very emotional and hard decision to make. I have had an unforgettable time racing and it been such a big part of my life. I would like to say a very big thanks to my mum and dad and big sister, who have supported me since I began racing 5 - I can’t thank them enough. Also to Mathew Sanders at de Poel Consulting for his great generosity in supporting me. In addition to my 2010 team Trickbits Racing for understanding the decision and to Paul Jinks for giving me the opportunity to ride the triumph 675, which is such a great bike. So another big thank you to everyone who has helped me along the way.
Signing off
Jordan Thompson
