| Title: | Jed Metcher/RT Motorsport first race meeting. |
| Date Added: | 06/04/2010 |
| After a successful test week in Spain Jed Metcher racing and RT
Motor Sports were looking forward to the continuation of testing at
Round 1 of the Dutch Superbike series. Due to the tight schedule that the ONK run practice and qualifying were only 25 minute sessions. This proved costly for myself due to the lack of track knowledge and a slight mechanical issue in the early sessions, we didn’t manage a competitive lap time. Being around 4 seconds off a top IDM German superbike rider was a wakeup call that would help the whole team become inspired to perform better. Qualifying for Dutch ONK superbike championship. Session 1. A dry session of only 25 minutes with dark clouds looming called for early mayhem in the early minutes of the session. Track temperatures around 12 to 15 degree's Celsius reflected on slightly off pace lap times and for myself it proved difficult to learn the track in these conditions. A 1:45.4 would start me in 19th position, a lap time that I did not expect and made me hungry to improve in the next session. Session 2. Unfortunately rain would freeze and finalise the starting positions for the race that would be held on the Monday after Easter. I decided for testing purposes I would take part in the wet session. My lap times were fast enough to put the RT motorsports bike on 4th position in the wet. Sunday would put a break in our race weekend for a charity run that I took place in. A relaxing day with rain for most parts of the day except when I was scheduled to run. Race day at Assen TT tends to be a fairly slow day, with warm up at 12pm and the race of a short 14 laps for the superbikes at 4pm. The lead up consisted of a fairly busy media filled pit walk just after warm up. Then 125 GP and SuperSport races followed by the much awaited superbike event. Confusion with track entrance time limit between marshals left four of the top riders and me stranded in pit lane before the start. Luckily light rain delayed the start and everyone was able to rejoin. I knew that getting off the line would be critical due to having to start from 19th position. My start was great and turn one also went well, I crossed the line in 12th position on the first lap. My head was down and it showed in the lap times that were around 2 seconds faster than my previous fastest, even with the light rain on my visor. I found myself in 8th position before a slight mistake would see me rejoin in 12th position. Clawing my way back in slippery conditions was not ideal, I only managed to get back to 10th. Next week is RT Motorsports/PIRELLI’s official test at Lausitz Eurospeedway. The RT motorsports team along with sponsors have done a fantastic job getting the bikes out on the grid. I would like to thank Race Ready Industries, Premier Helmets, Daytona Boots, Jabe Reclaim for the logo's and stickers and Evolution leathers for their fantastic work on this year’s race suits. I look forward to posting better results in the events to come.  |