27 year old Marcus Wade is in his second full season on a Triumph Daytona 675. In 2008 he is challenging not just for the New Era F600 and Sound of Thunder Championships, but also as four wildcard entries at British Supersport. Here is his race report from Oulton Park at the weekend.
Friday Practice The first practice session was wet and Wade set to the track looking forward to riding in these conditions. For the first 10 mins of the session Wade topped the time sheets, becoming consistently quicker. Half way though the session he pitted to fit a intermediate front and dry rear as the track had dried too much. Again, he kept in the top 20 with the drying conditions, then pitting for fuel with eight mins to go only to find a technical issue that needed to be resolved. As the track was drying he dropped down in the final mins the order ending 32nd. The next session presented difficult conditions due to the mix of dry and damp sections of track.
Qualifying Session 1 - 27th This was a fully wet session and Wade was enjoying the conditions again. Throughout the session he maintained a top 20 position only to lose out in the final seconds as the track dried;
"The session was going well, but as the track conditions got better in the final minutes I got blocked on a couple of flying laps, on my final lap I pushed too hard and made an error so decided to pit". Position 27th from 42.
Session 2 - 34th The was the first fully dry session of the weekend for the Supersport class. Wade gradually built his pace setting a 1.44.5 giving him 34th on the grid 4s off pole. Wade was satisfied with a small improvement with his best lap time from Superclub at Oulton but felt there was more to come.
Race Day - Result 28th Wade entered the Supersports race confident that he could make an improvement on his grid position and he did exactly that. After maintaining his grid position from the first lap he worked his way though several riders then catching Tempest after a couple of laps he made a move and gained this position only to loose it a lap later. Wade then came under attack from a hard charging Honda but fought the challenge off. Tempest and Wade then closed on the Team Buff 675 and passed him with a couple of laps to go. As the group entered the final lap the Team buff bike made a desperate move into the first corner forcing him and another rider wide, Wade took this opportunity to pass both but unfortunately his track position in attempting this allowed a chasing rider to pass him into Cascades forcing him to close the throttle mid corner or take both of them out.
Wade charged hard towards Shell oils looking to gain a position back, as he dived underneath one rider they closed the door and again he was forced to take avoiding action and loose time. He closed the gap again before the finish but had lost out on a couple of positions finishing 28th with a best lap of 1.44.1s.
Wade quoted at the end of the weekend;"The race was fantastic, I had the pace on the runners I was with, the proof is my best theoretical lap by splitting the sectors was a 1.43.6 proving I was being held up, a lack of race craft held me back. I could of got 25th if I could of found my way though, I was also unlucky to be mugged on the final lap but that's racing. We just don't get this kind of competitiveness at Club racing and BSS is a fantastic opportunity to improve and push yourself, I'm really looking forward to BSS at Cadwell on the August Bank Holiday."
Wade's next outing is at Donnington with SuperClub on the 9/10th of August.
If you want to Follow Wades progress please see
www.waderacing.co.uk
