Olly Stone - It’s a tough life at the top...

It was nice to have another gp close to the workshop which gave me maximum work time to get everything ready. 

 

So it was just a quick trip down to the south of Belgium for the next gp.  And with paddock entry delayed due to water-logged pits and a bad weather forecast we knew it would be tough. 

 

Youthstream changed the schedule for Saturday to save the track for Sunday's racing so gate-pick was decided the old-fashioned way, with timed qualification.  

 

Jake's riding that session was better than the position we ended with, but with a fair first turn we were not so worried as I knew the track would suit him. 

 

By Sunday morning the track was in prime condition. Fair play to the track guys for working most of the night.  

 

In heat one we had a good start and finished fifth and the second outing started the same.

 

But about fifteen minutes in Jake tore his seat cover and struggled for grip, resulting in him dropping back.  

 

I don't want that problem again, so I have started glueing the seat covers to the foam! 

 

After the race Jake's gp bike became his new practice bike so on Monday I cleaned it up and got it ready for him to take back to England.  

 

With him gone it was blissful. An easy week of 9-5 building him a new GP bike and not having to go practising. I even got the entire weekend off – my first one in 18 weeks. 

 

Next was the Swedish gp – and if you guys watched it on tv you were the lucky ones. 

 

I could have sent Jake out on his jet-ski, there was so much water on the track. 

 

But unfortunately I couldn't, so I had to prep the bike to prevent any water from getting through the air filter.  

 

Luckily for us my prevention worked out and the bike finished the heat with no problems, which is more than I could say for some bikes. 

 

For heat two the track dried out a lot and we ended just off the podium in fourth. 

 

Every week we get a little closer to the box so hopefully it should be coming soon. 

 

The Tuesday morning after I was lucky enough to get out of cleaning the race truck as ktm sent us a 2013 bike to test. 

 

It seems they are happy with what Jake is doing and sent us the bike to try out with plans of us racing it in the not-so-distant future. 

 

The new bike is awesome. I put in suspension and a pipe and it ripped. The new engine in standard form is almost as strong as our 2011 factory engine and the chassis works so well. 

 

Ktm have definitely made big improvements on their production bike and for any amateur it is closer to a factory bike than any other bike you can buy. 

 

Now we are just waiting for KTM to send through the factory parts so we can hopefully be on it at the British GP if everything works out.  

 

That's been about it in my life up to now. I'm just sat in the van starting my road trip to Latvia and Russia. I'm sure the next time I write to you guys I will have so many stories to tell – although I probably can't write about everything. 

 

This is a family paper after all...