IDWe Racing and Sam Wilford were competing once again in the Bennetts British Superbike GP2 Championship this weekend in Round 4 at Brands Hatch. The team pulled out all the stops after a crash at the previous round at Donington, which saw the Kalex Moto2 virtually written off.
The timeline:-
9 am Monday 27th May: Bank Holiday Monday, when most of the other teams were resting after the race weekend. IDWe Racing’s owner Ian Wilford and Sam were in Kalex HQ in Bobingen, near Munich Germany to source the necessary parts to repair or replace the damaged bike from Donington. On close inspection, it was decided to replace the chassis of the Kalex Moto2.
That week calls are made to various CEV and Moto2 teams in the MotoGP paddock to locate a suitable replacement.
Tuesday 3rd June: Sam sets off to Barcelona to meet a team and take delivery on a new chassis and return to IDWe Racing HQ in Kent.
Monday 10th June: The race is on to rebuild the bike in time for Round 4 of the Bennetts British Superbikes GP Championship at Brands hatch the following weekend.
With the bike completed the team arrive at Brands Hatch to start Free Practice on Friday morning, only to find after just four laps a radiator hose had spilt. So after all the effort and expense to get the bike ready for Brands Hatch. The team were sidelined for the rest of the session due to a simple hose. Free Practice 2 saw the bike running for the first full session since Donington, and it also showed up some gremlins in the setup, leaving Sam down in 16th place by the end of Friday.
Some changes made to the bikes set up overnight allowed Sam to push on Saturday morning in qualifying and qualified on the 3rd row in 9th place.
Race 1
The race was stopped due to a red flag after just five laps and declared a wet race for the restart. As everyone lined up for the restart, the track was dry so the entire field chose to race on dry tyres ( a treaded sports tyre) Sam’s Moto2 bike must run slicks in the dry ( no tread on the tyres). Then three laps into the restarted race the rain started, so it was all Sam could do to tiptoe around and bring it home in one piece, finishing 17th overall.
Sunday morning warm up in the wet, running full wet tyres Sam is 4th overall and top GP2.
Race 2
Sunday afternoon saw a dry track for the start of the 18 Lap Feature Race. Sam finished 7th on the road and earned a well-deserved podium, finishing 3rd in the GP2 class.
All in all everyone in IDWe Racing did a fantastic job to even line up on the grid at Brands Hatch and we have learned a lot along the way, despite the lack of track time, there are valuable points in the bag and a setting for the bike to build on in the wet or dry conditions at Knockhill for Round 5 in two weeks time, on the 29th-30th June.