Get It Over

Another fantastic photo from Racing Lines Photography, check out their website. This just goes to show how far you can get the little ZXR banked over. If I had tried just a little harder I reckon my elbow would have been down as well.

Lucky Boy

Here I am lapping No.10 in one of the races at Brands Hatch last weekend. As you can see I was rather lucky not to get taken out. I just merrily went on my way, totally oblivious !

Brands the Beautiful

Hello people, Alex here, well it was down to Brands Hatch in Kent for the next round of the Thundersport GB championship on the 1.2 mile Indy Circuit. Leigh had decided to do the practice day to get his eye in but I was giving it a miss a) to save money b) we didn’t have the new bike quite finished to test and c) I know my way around Brands Hatch pretty well already. Leigh managed to do the lap times he was after on the test day and so missed the last session in readiness for qualifying the next day.

Birdy turned up later on that evening with our usual race bike and also the new ZXR440 as you can see in the picture. This bike has the new 440cc motor that has been built by Roger of RMKD. We put in a few more hours to make the bike track worthy the next day. The plan of attack was I would go out in qualifying on the old bike, put in a good lap time then come in and change over to the new bike to take it out for a test. This is quite a lot to do in a 20 minute qualifying session.

The morning came and out I went into qualifying on our old bike, after 7 or 8 laps I was holding pole position and so decided to pit to take the new bike out, unfortunately as the bike had only just been finished and not yet been set up it wasn’t quite how we wanted. The fuelling was some way out as was the suspension; therefore after a couple of laps I realised we would not be able to improve on the old bike so returned to the pits. Unfortunately we lost pole position and dropped to 2nd place in the last two minutes of the session whilst we were stood in the pit garage.

We opted to use the old bike for the races as we new this was tried and tested. This proved to be the right decision as we managed to win the first race of the weekend by a clear 5 seconds from Rob Elsmere on his Aprilia in 2nd place. In the second race of the day I had just managed to take the lead on lap 9 out of 10 when the red flags came out. This worked against us as the race was declared and the results taken from the previous lap leaving us in 3rd place. Bugger. I knew this was probably going to be the case on my ride back into the pits and had a few choice words in my helmet.

On Monday the weather was baking and in morning warm up we again tried the new bike after a few suspension changes but were still not confident enough to use it in the races. This again wasn’t too much of a disadvantage as we managed to secure 2nd and 3rd place respectively in the days two races.

All in all not a bad weekend.

The next time I will be out will be at Oliver Mount, Scarborough on the 19th/20th September, Leigh will be out at Anglesey on the 12th/13th September.

All the excitement was not confined to just the track though, as on our journey home one of the tyres on the van decided to shed its tread with an almighty bang. After pulling over to the hard shoulder we change the wheel but the tread had wrapped itself around the axle, damaging the brake pipe and the handbrake cable along with it. After a few steady miles up the A1 I realised the brake pedal was going straight to the floor and not actually slowing the van down. Not wanting to let a small thing like having no brakes get in the way we carried on and travelled the remaining 100 miles back home. The van seats now have a distinct shape due to the 2 hours of buttock clenching it took to get home.

Now Leigh’s bit.
Unfortunately, my weekend was not as fruitful as Alex’s. In the first race I managed to make it to Druids ( the 2nd corner ) on the first lap before leaving company with my bike. After a poor start, I thought I would pull my favourite trick and shoot the bike up the inside of all the other riders late on the brakes. All was going to plan until I reached the turning point and found another bike crossing my path. A quick trip to the gravel trap followed rather quickly! After landing, I managed to pick myself up and watched as Alex came round another 9 bloody times in 1st place.

Upon getting the bike back from scrutineering, the damage wasn’t as bad as expected. A new gear lever, straighten the handlebars and loads of gaffa tape (see pictures left for before and after) meant the bike was good to go. I was slightly worse for wear though. As well as bruised swelling to my legs and elbow plus generally sore , the heat was killing me! Rather than try any heroics, I decided to race knowing I would struggle and grab a few points. By this time I had already dropped to 2nd place in the championship and really needed some damage limitation. Unable to sling the bike around properly, I came home in 6th and 7th place.

No pressure now, just need to win every race at Anglesey!! Oh! And Alex forgot to mention that after we changed the tyre on the van after the blow out, we thought it a good idea to make sure it was correctly inflated at the next services....18 mile away. We made it and put the compressor lead onto the wheel. It was a little bit down but not a lot so put a bit of air in. That’s what we thought anyway, the air lead didn’t work properly and was letting the tyre down. So could we make it to the next services 15 miles down the road? Obviously we did, but it makes you wonder if the excitement on the track actually matches that off track!! Don’t you just love it!

Two-Stroke of Luck

Our friend Sean Kelly has come up trumps for the Gold Cup at Olivers Mount, Scarborough on the 19th & 20th September by offering us the use of his 2007 Honda RS 250. He is currently fine tuning the bike ready for its outing. As you can see from the picture, the bike is on the dyno being checked out. Having previously raced 250 GP bikes from 1997 to 2001 in the British Championship I relish any chance I get of jumping on one these days, you can’t beat that two-stroke rush. As well as the 250 we will have Birdy’s ZXR so this will give us 4 races per day over the weekend. Happy times.

And the MotoGP Winner is…. Rossi? Stoner? …. No, its bloody Leigh !!!!!

What can you say, Leigh has not won a race before and was beginning to think it would never happen but what a place to do it, at the MotoGP at Donington Park. Now before you all get carried away he didn’t actually win the MotoGP race beating the likes of Rossi, Stoner, Pedrosa et al but the Minitwin support race with an equally impressive line up of Boland, White and Jones etc.
Leigh managed to qualify 4th quickest Minitwin just half a second down on Boland and White with Jones on Pole. Qualifying was held in dry conditions but come the race it was lashing down. This seemed to suit Leigh down to the ground and after a flying start pulled out a gap of 10 seconds over the next Minitwin rider which he held onto the finish.
He appeared to be in a state of shock when he returned to the paddock and was informed of the good news.

The funny thing for me was I nearly won the Junior Powerbike race only losing out by 0.005s after coming from 3-4 seconds back, but the first thing Birdy had to say to me when I returned back to the paddock was ‘your kid had a blinder of a race’. Thanks John ?

Still the day was Leigh’s and he proved the saying to be true ‘That Winners are Grinners’.

Podiums A Plenty At Snetterton

Well after what seems like an absolute age it was great to be back racing a bike again at Snetterton. We were back on Birdy’s Kawasaki racing in the Junior Powerbike class with the ThundersportGB club. We did some testing on the Friday to ensure things were all tic-a-tee-boo and after a few suspensions modifications to help the bike hold a line better, as it was running wide on the power exiting corners, we were confident we had a good set up for the weekend.

This proved to be the case straight away when we managed to secure pole position in qualifying by 0.009s from young Sam Coventry on the 800cc Ducati with Rob Elsmere on his Aprilia SXV550 in third on the grid only another 0.1s further back. This looked like ensuring some close races were to follow.

The first race was exactly like this, after a good start for our bike, which meant I only dropped to 5th or 6th place I was soon up behind Sam and Rob. Once passed Sam, Rob and I passed each other 2 or 3 times every lap which made for a fun exciting race. Rob’s Aprilia was a little quicker than our bike and he could pull around 5 bike lengths on us out of the slower corners. Unfortunately this was to be our downfall as I led out of the last corner but Rob with the extra drive of his bike and my slipstream meant he crossed the line in front of me by 0.043s, bugger, but a bloody close race.

In the remaining three races of the weekend we were hampered by very poor starts, we knew this would be a problem with our bike as it has a close ratio gearbox which means it has a very high first gear, this coupled with the peaky power delivery of a 400 makes it very difficult to get off the line when compared to the bigger V-twins. This meant that I dropped to around 6th or 7th place off the start and by the time I had made my way through the traffic into second the gap that Rob had opened up was too big to close down. In each race I managed to get the gap down to a little over 2s, but I just ran out of time in each race. So four 2nd places was not too bad a weekend and I did however manage to set the fastest lap of the weekend for our class, so some consolation. I have moved up to joint second place overall in the championship but quite a lot of points behind first.

Leigh had an average weekend (his words not mine), managing 5th in the Mini-Twin class in all four races. Again the heat and his fitness levels were a large contributory factor i.e. it was too bloody hot and it’s time to stop smoking! Unfortunately Tim Jones now leads the championship but only by 4 points. One highlight of the weekend however was being the leading Hutchinson for half a lap. Managing to jump from 11th to 5th from a blinding start, overtaking whoever was in pole position. Oh, that’s right. It was me. The picture left was taken during Sunday morning warm up when I followed Leigh for a few laps then showed him the way around to try and give him some tips.
We enjoyed a few beers in the clubhouse on Saturday evening and the one thing we found strange was that my dad had managed to get his photo up above the bar as you can see in the photo on the left. Actually it is some Formula 3 racing driving but the resemblance had us in hysterics.

This was closely followed when one of our friends, Clive White (a MiniTwin racer that can be seen in the picture with me to the left) raised his glass during a charity auction and unknowingly managed to put a bid in for a set of leathers for £420 !! The panic on his face when he realised what he had done was a picture.

A quick well done to ThundersportGB for another extremely well run meeting, if you get the chance to get to one of these it will be well worth it.

Our next outing is on Thursday 23rd July at Donington Park MotoGP. The day is organised for the charity ‘Riders for Health’ and therefore a great cause. Hopefully we will see you there.

OULTON OVERHEAT.

Well, Oulton park last weekend was a disaster! After finally getting the bike fixed, it's bloody me that breaks down!

Went out for practice on Friday morning and was quite happy with my lap times coming down after each session but by dinner the severe heat was getting to me. This was not good as qualifying was in the afternoon. Drinking loads of isotonic lucozade wasn't helping either, as soon as it went in, it had to come out almost immediately! Feeling a little faint, I went out for qualifying and managed to go 2 seconds slower than I had in the morning. Still 17th on the grid out of 36, just have to do better on Sunday.

Sunday came and I felt worse, kept having to have a lie down rather than fall down. Got up to 15th from the start in the first race but got slower after each lap, finishing 19th. I was shaking like a sh*tting dog, could hardly breath and about to fall over at any given point.

I really wasn't looking forward to the second race and unfortunately only managed 22nd after going increasingly slower again. Actually thought I was going to fill my helmet with sick at one point.... before I had taken it off. Chris, the young and fit chap he is, managed to do better, taking 10th in the 1st race and 12th in the second. Smiled and congratulated him as is only proper, then covered his bike with sarcastic notes and giggled like a kid when he said his gearbox is fooked! Mind you, I know how that poor old gearbox felt after being thrown around the garage by Alex trying to peel my leathers off me. Cheers Al. As you can see from the picture, Alex was very impressed with my lack of performance and that's him in a good mood!