Mixed Day for Frost

Moto GP Phillip Island

maddix park mx

Sloan Reports

"I'm sort of over saying this is a great learning experience but that's about all I'm able to take from the last couple of months of racing because what have been shaping up to be some great results tend to end up in the wall, gravel traps or the workshop! 
I have substantially changed the set up on my bike with the help of Al Samuels. If I hadn't built up the trust in Al over the time that I have known him I wouldn't have even considered making these changes. Its great to have some logical explanation behind the changes. My suspension now moves instead of being a brick and I now seem to have grip and brakes! We have made another significant change for tomorrow mornings race with some more changes to be made for Sunday.
Today has been the busiest day of the schedule with practice qualifying and a race. I struggled in the initial warm up, placing 13th. This is when Al first started making some adjustments. We went out for Qualifying and my times were coming down and down until I started to run low on fuel... I ended the session 9th.
Race 1 was all going to plan, my clutch was a bit grabby off the start but it didn't seem to cost me, I went around a couple of guys in Honda corner and found myself in 7th. Next lap though coming into Honda, I heard a bike coming up the inside and the sound of a screeching tyre, I left room in case someone was about to hit me, Dustin ran it in a bit deep and pushed me wide and I lost several places. I got back into 10th place and there wasn't really anything between 7 - 11th, each rider seemed to have there strong and weak points. On the second to last lap I decided to make my charge and this is when everything turned a little pear shaped! 
There are just some guys that I always seem to have dust ups with, in New Zealand its Nick Cole and in Australia it seems to be Dustin Goldsmith. We came together the other weekend and both crashed and basically the same thing happened today with roles reversed! I shot up the inside going into Siberia. At the time I was sure I had enough space to make the clean pass obviously not... I was just in his blind spot and he wasn't expecting me to be there, again we touched and both hit the deck sending up tumbling into the gravel trap. I remounted and still finished in 17th position.
The bike looks like its all ready to go for race 2. We only have the one race tomorrow, no warm up, straight into the race early in the morning on a cold track! That will be a whole new challenge in itself!"
 
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