S.A.D (Snetterton Absenteeism Depression) !

Well, unfortunately I had to give the Bemsee Snetterton round a miss. After spending a lot on items needed to improve the performance of the bike, it meant I had to reduce expenditure elsewhere and 1 round of race entry fees seemed the best way. I was ok with this decision until the results and lap times came out for this weekend. Top 5 was attainable doing the same lap times I did last year with warped brake discs i.e no braking power!! Gutted, could have had a win or two if I had been there. Oh well, roll on Cadwell.
Big shout out to my team mate Chris Boland and his wife Jacqui, who will be missing the next couple of rounds. Both are in the RAF and are on tour in Afghanistan for 8 weeks. Apparently ticket sales are going really well!! Joking apart, stay safe mate and see you soon.

I'll Make You Famous !

In the papers again ! Bikesport News Issue 232 that was out on Tuesday 24th March. You can see me in second place on No. 77, I think this is from the first race on Sunday at Mallory Park which I won.

If you double click on the paper clipping below you can read the report from the paper, Leigh gets a mention too.

And don't forget to watch MotorsTV next Monday at 7pm.

MY HORSES HAVE BOLTED!!

Well, it seems the crash at Brands Hatch has done more damage to my bike than we first thought! Even though the results from Mallory weren't too bad, they should have been a lot better. Injuries aside, every man and his dog could and did pass me on the straight. Apparently the loss of power was bloody obvious even from the pit wall as bikes of lesser power ploughed past me with ease. So, the question is, where have I lost the power? Unfortunately, it's back to the process of elimination with no obvious answer prevailing. Having said that, I have decided to fit a power commander, which enables more precise tuning from our friend John King ( J K Tuning ). Fingers crossed, we'll have the bike sorted for Cadwell and climb a bit further up the championship.

Tigcraft KTM Update

Had a quick chat, that turned in to a long chat, with Dave Pearce today to see where we are at with the Tigcraft KTM. We are currently waiting for the swingarm to be completed and the engine to be built up. All the new parts have now arrived for the motor and it should be built up in the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately it does mean we may miss the ThundersportGB round at Cadwell with this bike (I will still be riding the ZXR) that we were due to enter and use as a shakedown test in preparation for the first Supermono round in May. We will have to look at somewhere to test the bike prior to this meeting, possibly a race as this is when you get a true understanding of a bike, but we will see.

Big Bore

Speaking to Birdy today and it looks like we might be going to a 440cc big bore kit (the picture is what happened the last time Birdy was talking to me, only joking mate) on the ZXR. As the Junior Powerbike rules allow a four cylinder bike to be up to 450cc we are looking to take advantage of this. This will hopefully get us up to the class limit of 80 horsepower and make my job a bit easier !

Another Good Day At The Mallory Office

As you can see from the photo and the number of trophies in front of our bikes we have had a pretty successful weekend ! The weather was nice and sunny for Sunday and the wind from the previous day had dropped so conditions were ideal for racing. I had a cracker of a first race with Steve Tomes and Rob Ellesmere, we were passing each other every lap but I took the chequered flag first by 1/100th of a second, that is something like half a bikes length, pretty close, I think you'll agree. Even John Bird who owns the bike got a little over excited when he ran up to give me a hug after the race, and I thought it was only footballers that did that. I also had to do my interview for MotorsTV as the races are to be shown in two weeks time. Leigh was happy to finish 5th in his class as he was struggling with the bike mysteriously losing power. He wasn't sure whether to take part in the final race after checking the bike over revealed nothing obviously wrong, but as he is 4th in the standings it made sense to try and salvage some points and this he did with another 5th place. I had another good battle at the front for the last race but lost a couple of seconds through the bus-stop when I caught a backmarker at the wrong point so I had to settle for 3rd place this time round. I am currently joint leader in the Junior Powerbike Championship. Overall a bloody good weekend and lets hope for more of the same to come. You can catch the races on MotorsTV (on sky and Virgin) on Monday 30th March at 7pm. A quick thanks to Roger of RMKD for giving us a top notch engine for the bike.

Triple Success at Mallory

After the first race was stopped twice I managed to come home the winner, but this was not without incident as I had to avoid two fallen riders. Leigh also got on the podium in the Minitwin class bringing the bike home in third place. The second race was also stopped due to a crash at Gerrards corner, in the restart I once again had to avoid a fallen rider losing me several places, but I managed to come home in second place, setting a new class lap record in the process. This time Leigh just missed out on the podium coming home in fourth position. All in all a good day at the office. Lets hope for more of the same tomorrow when the TV cameras are out ! Leigh’s team mate Chris (pictured in the centre on the picture) also had a good day with a win and a seond place in the Minitwin class.

Qualifying from Mallory Park

Well as you can see both myself and Leigh have made it to Mallory Park for the first round of the Thundersport GB series. Today has been qualifying and we had 20mins this morning followed by 25mins this afternoon. Things went pretty well for me on the Kawasaki ZXR400 as I was on provisional pole after the first session but dropped to second after the afternoon session. I am pretty happy with this as we are only one second off the lap record and the weather conditions were far from ideal. As you can see Leigh was trying out the ZXR for size. The picture on the left shows Leigh is still suffering from the injuries he sustained at Brands last week. He managed to qualify in 20th position but is hoping to go a lot quicker tomorrow, its just that he is struggling to move on the bike a bit at the moment.

In The Press

Leigh gets in the papers, Bikesport News, March 10, 2009.

Leigh's Brands Hatch Hell

After missing the test day on Friday, I knew I would have my work cut out in qualifying on Saturday morning. Had to scrub in some new tyres, so that cost me two laps, then the session was red flagged due to a rider off at clearways! This meant I had only completed 7 laps with a best time of 55.2seconds which put me 21st on the grid. Not deterred, I was confident of getting into the top ten by the end of the weekend. This was not to be, our bad luck hadn't diminished in any way. The sidecars had left a trail of oil all the way around paddock hill bend. I hate cement dust and oil and was just glad to bring the bike home in 26th, still thinking that top ten was achievable once the oil had gone.
This was not to be because I ended up in bloody Dartford A&E even before the second race had started. The start of the sighting lap was sheer carnage!! An absolute mess which could have been avoided in my opinion. The officials point at each row in turn and flag them off to start their sighting lap, however, a rider on row 2 or 3 had stalled his bike on the grid. Usually all bikes would be halted on the grid until the stalled bike has been restarted or cleared from the track. On this occasion though, all bikes were continually flagged on, directly towards the stationary bike. 2 riders and myself hit the stationary bike at approx 70mph!! The impact launched me through the air whilst my bike continued on up the track. I was lucky, after examination, the medics decided I hadn't broken anything but had torn some ligaments in my knee, bruised my hand and sternum and cut my foot, were a footpeg had pierced my motorcycle boots. The rider who was stationary was not so lucky and had to be airlifted to hospital unconscious.(hope you're ok and back riding soon). The race had then been red flagged obviously to stop the race but the riders at the front hadn't seen the flag and ended up in 3/4 man crash at Graham Hill bend. One rider eventually saw the red flag and anchored on making 2/3 riders behind him pile into his rear wheel!!
Woke up Sunday morning feeling terrible and aching all over, so decided not to ride. I couldn't anyway because the bike wouldn't start after frantically trying to repair it the night before. Thanks to everyone who had a hand in that, shame I had to let you down.
On a brighter note Chris Boland, my team mate, managed 12th Saturday, then 9th place Sunday first race. He would have had 6th place but he thought it would be a good idea to try and high side the bike coming out of druids! Still a good result and one to be proud of, however make the most of the glory Chris, you won't be stealing any more from me! Thanks to Jacqui (Chris'wife) as well, for the ever fantastic lasagne again!!

24 Hours To Tulsa Is Nothing !

Question - How long does it take to get from Beverley to Brands Hatch ?
Answer - 28 bloody long hours !
Unfortunately Leigh had to miss his Friday practice due to the bitch called Lady Luck.
Here starts our tale of woe and epic adventure. We set off for Brands Hatch on Thursday at approx 4pm, at 5pm we thought it would be a good idea to sit on the hard shoulder of the A1 for 5 hours. We called the RAC, after an hour the man turned up and in all honesty did not have a bloody clue. We managed to organise an Iveco garage in Doncaster that was open til 9pm. The RAC recovery truck then turned up at 8pm and we were still hopeful of getting to the garage. BUT the truck they sent was not big enough to take the van. The RAC then sub-contacted the job out to a contractor who osaid they would be with us in 40mins, BUT they were then too busy and another contractor was called in from Lincoln. We finally made it to Fishlake Commercial's at 11.20pm. The guys at the garage set to work on the van at 8am the Friday morning and assessing the problem being the fuel pump. The part had to be brought from Sheffield and fitted. To our dismay this did not cure the problem and the fault was then traced to the sender unit in the fuel tank. Guess what ? The part had to be brought from Sheffield. We finally got back on the road at 4pm on Friday. After being held up in a traffic jam at Dartford Tunnel we finally made it to Brands Hatch at 8pm, 28 hours after we had set off !!!!!!!!!!!!! One song spurred us on, The Impossible Dream by Andy Williams i.e. 'this is our quest'. Hopefully things can only get better.

Thanks to the very friendly and understanding staff at Fishlake Commercials, Thorne.