I wasn’t 100% for the Thursday test day. We'd been to Prague for Lizz’s “significant” birthday and managed to bring back Norovirus as a souvenir - it wiped both of us out for a few days. By race week we were mostly recovered, but definitely still feeling the effects. Jake and Esther arrived Wednesday night, and Jake and I got up early Thursday to set up our pit area for the weekend. The girls followed later with food and supplies for the weekend.

With everything set up, we chilled for a few hours and prepared the bike. Once the rest of the crew arrived we made a plan for starting the bike first thing in the morning, we all got some sleep ahead of Friday's action.

Friday morning, we ran into a bit of nitro mischief. Even though the bike had sounded great just two weeks earlier, it now didn’t want to idle properly. We took our time resetting the barrel valve and idle settings. We weren’t in a rush to make the first qualifier - this is about testing, not chasing points (yet). We also got some excellent advice from seasoned friends in the paddock, including multiple European champion Ian King. We're truly grateful for everyone's help and encouragement.

We suited up for Qualifier 2 - our first run of the year. The bike burned out nicely. Jake pushed me back, selected low gear, set the high idle, and I rolled into stage. It was a lazy launch followed by a pop and a flash a few seconds out, rolled through and crossed the line at a sedate 72 mph in 11.6 seconds.

Later investigations back at the pit revealed we’d pushed out a combustion ring. That meant the top end had to come apart, Lizz and Julie were given a shopping list of tools I wasn’t expecting to use so were dispatched home to retrieve them from the workshop.

With the day winding down and temperatures dropping, we decided not to rush. The supercharger and exhausts were pulled, and we began the strip-down to inspect and repair the damage. Work resumed on Saturday.

By late Saturday afternoon, we had everything reassembled, the bike fired up, idled well, and was ready for Sunday eliminations. Since we hadn't made a full pass yet, we weren’t on the official ladder. Thankfully, we were allowed to tag onto the back of the class to get a test run. The bike started strong, ran well on the burnout, and felt solid through staging. But as soon as I hit the throttle - boom. An explosion. Number 1 cylinder lifted the head, broke the studs, and pushed the gasket out again.

The team had worked incredibly hard all weekend, and while the results weren’t what we hoped for, we’re staying positive. We've learned a lot, got top-notch advice from great people, and the bike now idles better than ever. I'll repair the damage, make a few more changes to the fuel system, and we’ll go again.

Thank you to all of the team for their continued support keeping the bike going and crew fed and watered are not easy I couldn’t do this without you all, in no particular order Dean, Chris, Jake. Lizz, Julie, Abbi and Esther.

Thank You to Our Sponsors for Their Continued Support:

• Paul at Peter Dawson Tyres Ltd – Peel, Isle of Man
• Dorni at Divine Ink – Shrewsbury
• James at J.H Paintworx – Raunds
• Dave at Fast by Me Turbo Systems