I would like to dedicate this race report to our biggest sponsor this year, Elle Skin Perfection. Without the help of this fabulous woman that owns her company, Soraya Dickenson, this kind of smile would not have been possible. She supported the team financially but also gave her time to help and shared opinion on all of Blysk Racing’s communications!

Let’s talk about that race weekend! As you have seen in the video, the race on Saturday was very tight for the lead. Here’s a shot of Herve boarding me while I was following Derrick Whyte (here right behind the board!). My plan was to pass him on the last lap, but things doesn’t always work the way you want at that speed 😛 !

Thursday was a very important day for us as it was the first time on the Mosport track. No need to say that hitting 280 km/h (180 mph) and then break to curve at 140 km/h was quite intense! Although, in the afternoon I got really dizzy and I had some weird problem with my vision :-/ I decided to stay in for my own security. That means we had a total of only 5 sessions that day.

Friday was an on and off shower day… We went out to practice the circuit and get ready for qualifying, but then as it was raining all day, the officials decided to postpone the qualifying session to Saturday morning. That meant for us a very little practice time overall on the track with dry condition and so barely no time to test suspensions and chassis settings.

And here comes the Q session! Even if we didn’t had time to well setup the bike, I managed to qualify in second position, right behind Derrick Whyte with 1 hundred of a second difference! Knowing that Mosport is his local track, my team and I were very happy 🙂 !

Although, the bike handling wasn’t perfect at all and I wasn’t very confident as the front head was very light entering corners… But one thing is sure, it’s not a great idea to make changes without testing it, and the next session was the race, so we’d to keep the settings as they were unfortunately.

From an outside point of view, it’s unbelievable how racing seems to be such an easy sport! Everything looks sharp, clean and impressive, but believe me there’s a huge amount of work behind it.

I made myself a new friend that day, Ben is a real superbike fan and actually a mountain bike competitor! Best of luck to him!

After all this preparation, it’s time to hit the race!

My start wasn’t very good unfortunately, and I have to say Derrick is very good at it!

As you saw in the video, Derrick and I were battling for the lead passing each other many times until I decided to wait behind him to make the move at the end of the race.

I wasn’t far behind, studying Derrick’s lines as we were both going at an incredible pass making our way up front by ourself.

You’re probably telling yourself “why didn’t you pass him there”? Well, simply because I wasn’t in a perfect position to make a clean and safe pass. My plan was to do it on the last section of the race, but somehow my lack of experience caught me! Believe me, I learn out of it 😉 !

Finally Derrick took the first position and I was fine with it during the race. Although I didn’t know at that moment he was then in good position to grab the championship…! A big mistake of mine as I should tried harder to pass him if I had known it. But anyway, having the fastest lap time of the session was a great achievement indeed as this track is Derrick’s local track!

Not 100% satisfied as I mentioned, but it was better second than crashing. The bike was very hard to handle and the rear and front traction was poor due to a wrong chassis setting.

My mom drove back and forth 10 hours that day to watch the race! Happy to see me back in the pit as she was watching the bike wabbling and wheeling on the last stretch… 😛 She told me she was crying non stop during the race, hahaha 😛

Post podium as some great fans were asking for t-shirt, I was sharing with the next generation while Herve was doing mechanics on the bike.

We then reviewed together the chassis angles and made some little changes in it to make the bike more stable as I was having a really hard time out there during the race that day.

Sunday morning, practice time 😀 ! The goal was to find out if the bike handling was better now, and it was definitely a LOT better! I was very confident on the bike as it was a lot more stable. That session we throw again the fastest lap time with an excellent 1:25.9, putting a gap of .7 second faster than the second one who was Derrick Whyte.

As I explained to my new friend, Ben, I had 2 ways to stay at the pole position of the championship. That race on Sunday was the last one of the season, and so important it was for my team and I. First plan, leading the most laps to keep the pole with 2 points, second plan win the race.

After all the energy involved in this project, setting up everything and investing all the money needed to create Blysk Racing, that last race meant a lot for me; I was going to win it and take the championship.

All aligned, we were ready to rock and roll this!

Same kind of start as Saturday, Derrick took the lead and I was second, but not for long!

I didn’t mess around too long. On corner 3 I knew I was stronger than him on the break so I did a strong pass in the inside taking up the lead firmly. The bike was doing incredibly well and I was not going to let it go as I knew I was then faster with these new settings!

And it’s on corner #7 that the engine started to sounds louder and louder and louder…

That’s exactly where I thought the crack shaft was about to come out the casing! What a strange feeling as I was leading the race. When you know there’s a big crowd of hungry riders behind you waiting to beat you, believe me my heart when up when I realise the bike had something wrong…

What a shame, I had no choice but to stop… Having to watch Derrick take the championship without me being out there to prove out loud who’s the fastest… I would have loved to battle with him if needed and if he had won over me, then right, the winner deserves the #1 plate, but unfortunately I had no such chance this time…

Herve was kind of disappointed to see me stop, but there was no chance I could have lead the race and even finish it, the engine was losing power and it would have blown up before the end of the race…

Post race, I was explaining that the engine was talking to us before the race as the exhaust had already started to disconnect slightly. The color on the outside of the pipe was turning from chocolate (normal color) to a kind of white color.

On top of this, we put the bike on dyno Saturday and we had a maximum of 183HP on the wheel, and Sunday before the race Herve took the bike again on the dyno to do a short video clip and we were already losing some power as we had a maximum of 179HP… I guess that’s experience coming on…!

Finally, let’s say that second place is an awesome achievement for a first racing year, knowing all riders out there have a couple years more experiences and many track days behind them. Blysk Racing had a successful first season and we are looking forward for next year!

Thanks a lot to all of you for reading my race reports, it has been a pleasure to share this adventure with you 😀 ! Stay tuned as it continues!