Matt Goodfield Racing 116

5th April 2015 - Tonfanau, a friendly, happy place to race. The morning started with 2x practise and the sun was breaking through surrounded by nothing but blue sky. Practise went well for Matt and the subtle changes made since Darley Moor 2 weeks ago proved beneficial. Approximately 12 noon racing began at Tonfanau circuit and race 7 saw Matt out in the steel frame class. There are 3 races for each class through the day and this was race 1 for Matt G Racing. To start the first race Matt picked a grid number on a peg from a bucket at random... he could see number 9 staring back at him from the red bucket and shoved his glove covered left hand in to pull out.... number 24!! Bloody 24!!!! So off the Steel Framed 600's and 250 Fogotten era bikes went to the grid and if you squinted and tried really hard you could just see Matt near enough all alone at the back. Fortunately for Matt G Racing this made him even more eager to push towards the front... a good race it would be. The lights went out and Matt pushed hard dicing with many through the field including Michael Day on his beautifully finished white and lime green CBR 600 with number 77. 5 laps in he had caught James Leatham on a red and green CBR 600 riding number 21. Last lap saw Matt try to out brake Leatham into Hestletons Hairpin but unfortuntaley could not stop the CBR in time giving Leatham the advantage. Matt happily finished in 8th place overall (if you dis-regard the 2 SV suzuki's as they are unclassified alloy frames, Matt gets 6th and Leatham 5th). The front runner Martin McGrath on number 5 finishing a big 24secs in front of Matt. Luckily due to this good finish in race 1, the next 2 steel frame races saw him start in 8th on the grid and although he has not perfected his starts with the new clutch he brought home a 7th and a 5th with a quickest personal lap time of 41.60secs @ 83.85MPH average. All in all a great days racing and good round 1 at Tonfanau.