When I won the World Supersport race at my home track Donington Park in May I was not quite sure how happy I was or should be.
When you have strived for something all your life and come so close in the past, when you actually achieve it there is a mesmerising mix of emotions that run through you.
All season I have had the pace and taken four out of six pole positions but it didn’t come together for me until Donington Park and even then it was against the odds.
Just before the event I did a Jet Ski event for the World Superbike organisers and got dunked in the water a few times. It was all good fun until Friday when I felt terrible and couldn’t keep my food down.
I went to bed early on Friday night and was woken up later on by my girlfriend Sidonie complaining that my guts had let go all over the bed…and her. Obviously shitting the bed is not nice and the way I was feeling, I couldn’t help but then vomit all over her as well. She’s still with me and the less said about it the better.
I had secured pole on Friday with a quick lap but did few laps on Saturday until final qualification. I wanted to keep pole so went out to do a couple of fast laps and was nearly half a second up coming into the final corner, hit a bump and crashed.
Given how I was feeling I could have done without the crash or the fact I mangled my little finger on the left hand. I lost pole position as well by a fraction to my teammate Jules Cluzel as well, so not great.
It got worse when the specialists at hospital looked at my finger and the prospect of losing it was brought up. I just told them to chop it off if it was going to be aggravation. Nothing was going to stop me racing the following day. Thankfully they didn’t give it the chop but dressed it and sent me on my way with painkillers.
It wasn’t a great night of sleep on Saturday either but at least I didn’t dirty the bed again! Sunday I wasn’t up to my usual energy but I was determined and rode the race of my life, setting a lap record with a lap to go to fend of double World Champion Kenan Sofuoglu.
I was delighted, happy, sore, in pain, feeling a bit ill and euphoric all at once. I had achieved my dream of winning a World Championship race. Brilliant!
Afterwards it sunk in and I feel a little less pressure to win now, I have done it and got the monkey off my back. Saying that I crashed out of the next race while third, so need to keep the pressure off.
I am third in the Championship now and need to get on the podium at every race from now on to be in with a chance of winning the title. The thing is my PTR Honda team and I believe we can do it, so it’s off to Aragon next weekend. I finished second last year and want to go one better this time and win. I like the taste of success and know I can do it!
Catch up again soon.
Sam Lowes
www.performancetechnicalracing.co.uk
