1.  Leon MORRIS
2.  Mike EDWARDS
3.  Robbie BROWN
4. Kenny GILBERTSON
5. Darren FRY

Hi to everyone and I’ll start by apologising to anyone I’ve not been in contact with much over the off season.
 
It’s been a very busy winter with the arrival on my new son Jack coupled with work, training and getting organised for the 2012 season.
 
I’ll try not to bore you too much but hopefully you guys are still keen on hearing what I am up to on the racing front. After a very tough 2011 with injuries and a dreadfully uncompetitive bike I  was faced with some tough decision for this season. I didn’t want to retire from racing just yet, I still believe 100% in my ability and still have a huge passion for the sport.
 
My dilemma was with the balance of my family life and business commitments and the best way I can still commit 100% to a championship. The 12 round BSB series is a huge commitment and I am not the sort of guy to mess around dipping in and out of a series for the fun of it. I am driven by the goal to compete at the highest achievable level and chase a title so to that end the obvious decision was to step back to a one make series in which I have enjoyed much success in the past.
 
So of the two championships available to me I decided on the Ducati 848 challenge run as support to 6 of the BSB rounds plus two European rounds at Assen in Holland and Misano in Italy. It is a championship that has enjoyed fantastic support for 2012 not just with a very healthy grid of 33 riders but also with outside media interest and the Ducati UK ambassador signing of former World Superbike Champion Neil Hodgson.
 
With no time for a winter test in Spain I relied on 3 track days in the UK for my pre-season testing. Luck was on my side this time round and I was spoilt with pretty good weather on those 3 days for the time of year. I settled in to the Ducati well, my confidence was growing with every session on her and what a great little race bike she is.

So I went to the first round on Easter weekend at Brands Hatch confident but nervous of how I would fair. Those nerves soon disappeared on track in the Saturday free practice session more than holding my own in the field of riders.
 
On to qualifying which was red flagged a couple of times due to incidents. Being only 20 mins long with 5 mins to go I was beginning to panic as I was only in 13th place but was unable to get a clear flying lap with so much traffic on the short circuit. My frustration showed as I put my head down do get a good lap in and jump to 2nd on the grid despite having to make a couple of hard passes on that lap. I held 2nd until the last 30 second when a group of 3 front running riders used me a tow and just piped my time leaving me 5th on the grid for the Sunday race.
 
Confidence building with my front running pace I was disappointed to find I had missed the formation laps for the Sunday race which started a few minutes earlier than scheduled. We hadn’t been informed and were caught out along with 8 other riders. So forced to start from the back row as a penalty for missing the formation lap in tricky damp conditions I made a good start and rode strongly for the first couple of laps passing a huge amount of riders before an incident ahead of me meant the pace car was deployed. 3 laps behind the pace car followed but I was insight of the leaders already inside the top 10 and confident I could make further ground. As the pace car exited in front of us I immediately got to work on the next group of riders. I moved in to 5th place gaining ground on the leaders before another incident brought the red flags out and thus the end of the race. Disappointingly but common in these situations the final result gets taken back a lap to the last full lap everybody completed leaving me 7th on the result sheet.
 
Frustrated by the 1st Sunday race result but encouraged with my pace I was feeling very strong in the wet conditions which I backed up by topping the morning warm up time sheets on Monday. Confident for race 2 with a genuine challenge for the win and starting from the front row calculated from our 1st race lap times I made a reasonable start in 5th passing someone for 4th on Cooper straight. Disaster struck and as we went into Clearways the leader crashed and all 3 of us lead riders behind him had to grab for the front break to avoid the sliding bike which resulted in all for 3 of us doing the same as the leader and tucking the front in the wet conditions. All 4 leaders crashing out I was distraught, so so disappointed that I had lost a golden opportunity.
 
There are lots of positive to bring away from the weekend though, I have proved that on an even playing field I am right back at the front no matter what the conditions and fortunately 5 of my strongest competition in the championship also crashed out of the race so we will all be playing catch up from here on in.
 
Sorry if I’ve waffled a bit and let me know if you want me to take you off the list, I won’t be offended. Thanks to everyone for your continued support, fingers crossed I’ll be reporting great results from our 2nd round held in Holland on 11th to 13th May.
 
Catch up with you all soon, fingers crossed I might have some images I can send over next time but in the meantime there is a official website for the series which you can keep up to date on:

www.ducati848challenge.co.uk