THERE has been a lot of talk about tyres in the first few weeks of the season and quite a few riders have been upset that they are ripping up and bits of the tread are coming off.

Personally, I thought the old tyres did the same anyway – I don’t notice the difference.

The times at meetings are still the same, we’re not going any faster or slower with these tyres.

At the end of the night, you don’t have much tyre left but it’s the same for everyone – the riders on the other team are using the same tyres.

I am not one to complain, it is what it is. I can’t be the one to make them change it so I just work with what I have got.

I know a few of the boys are quite upset about them and our skipper, Jason Doyle, is the one who has been really unhappy with them.

If he wants to set about trying to get them changed to the tyres we were using last season, fair play to him – I say go for it.

For me, I just try to do my own thing and not worry about what colour strips are on my tyres.

People might not know but we don’t get the tyres until just before the meeting.

An hour before the start, the officials bring out seven tyres for each rider and you fit them at the track because they don’t want people fitting new ones at home.

These tyres are quite hard, so people could soak them to soften them. It makes for a level playing field and you know everyone is using the same equipment.

We had our first victory of the season away at Rye House in the Knockout Cup last Saturday. We are eight points up going into Thursday’s second leg and everyone is pretty confident we can finish the job.

Personally, it was good to get a couple of race wins under my belt and put some points on the board.

I struggled a little bit in my first couple of meetings so it was good to finally show what I can do. I won a race against Davey Watt and Chris Harris and I know I can be beating those sorts of riders.

It does settle you down a bit when you finally get those wins. It shows I can do it and I feel a little bit better a bit better about things.

It’s good to shut everyone up who was saying bad things and it’s good for my own confidence as well.