Dan’s diary
December 18, 2007
Hi guys, Dan here, went for my interview and managed to get in the academy. Big day was to go up to the Dirt Bike show, got on stage with the rest of the boys in my new ACU shirt and was presented with the others as part of the Academy. It went really well and everybody made me feel welcome.
Roy said a few words as did Mark - then they handed the microphone to Dave, I thought they were going to interview all of us in front of all those people, I thought to myself – oh no. A few photos were taken by Ray at MOTO Magazine who are one of our sponsors for 2008, I put on my chick pulling smile for the camera.
Mark took us training in Dunkirk and man that was a training session.
We turned up in pits at track at 4am after a night train; I woke at 7.30am by bikes on the track. We went to have a watch and boy was it cold, it must have been at least minus 4?
I couldn’t wait to get on the track with Mark, it looked mint and it was – real deep sand. I started off really well - I was flying working things really hard, we stopped for a break and then moved on to cornering with the rest of the lads.
All went well apart from inspecting the bike from the underside a few times ha-ha. We went on to do lap timing but only managed to get one descent time as the track got really rough, it was the only lap I stayed on for.
In the evening we all went down to Buffalo grill for a big fill up and then went off to bed to get some Z’s in our luxury hotel - ha ha.
At 7.30am on Sunday we up all up ready for training – it was freezing, even polar bears would not have gone out there. I peeked out of the van window and there was Mark all kitted up with a big hurry up sign written across his face.
We walked track and then did a 30min free practice session, the track was hard and frozen and so were my feet and fingers.
We practised starts which was cool which we practiced for a while, before moving on to timed sessions with my arms hanging off. The track was really rough and deep and I scraped by this time, leaving behind some plastics to prove it.
I feel pleased and excited and I can’t wait for the next training day.
Merry Christmas – Dan T
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