SCARBOROUGH GOLD CUP

The Gold Cup at Oliver’s Mount, Scarborough certainly proved to be an eventful weekend. I was riding the MotoSP Kawasaki ZXR that we have been contesting the ThundersportGB rounds on this year and I was also riding Sean Kelly’s 2007 Honda RS250, a lovely bit of kit. I hadn’t even sat on the RS250 before so it was due to be a bit of a learning weekend. We arrived on Friday afternoon and fettled the bikes, making some adjustments to the suspension on the 250 (No.71 in between Lougher and Dunlop on the photo left) and generally getting things to fit. Saturday morning came and into free practice and qualifying. This went really well when I managed to qualify the ZXR in 2nd place on the grid, just behind Dan Frear and in front of Ryan Farquar. I qualified the 250 in 4th place in front of none other than John McGuiness on the Padgetts Honda. Sean appeared to be very happy at this.
I was out on the ZXR first and as usual my start was a little poor. Trying to make up ground as quick as possible unfortunately on the 2nd lap turning in to Quarry bend I clipped the rear wheel of Ivan Linton who was going much slower than me in the middle of the corner. This caused the bike to sit up and send me heading straight for the fence and hedge at about 80mph. I quickly laid the bike down and prepared for impact. I bounced back off the fence and to my surprise was not injured; I looked across at the bike to see it upside down in the hedge. Not a great start to the weekends races. If you know the Oliver’s Mount circuit at all you will know it is not the place you want to crash at, I have to thank my lucky stars on that one.
The 250 race later that day went a lot better and although I was taking it a bit steadier after the crash earlier that day I managed to come home in 5th place just behind McGuiness this time (although I do have him behind me in the photo left). The race was won by Ian Lougher from William Dunlop so at least I was in very good company.
We got the ZXR back after the final race of the day and Birdy set about repairing it. Leigh took the bodywork home to repair as there were a few cracks and we had to beg, steal and borrow a few other parts to make it track worthy again.
Sunday was a lot better and again I was out on the ZXR first, although it was looking a little second-hand being held together with duct tape. This time I managed to keep it upright and although I couldn’t match my qualifying times from the day before we still came home on the podium in 3rd place. I guess I was still a bit cautious from the previous day’s events.
Our last race of the weekend was again back on the 250 and my confidence in the bike had been growing all weekend. A great race saw me hanging on to the shirt tails of Vernon and McGuiness in 3rd and 4th place respectively but couldn’t quite mount a challenge. We therefore secured another 5th place but took comfort in the fact we had taken 2 seconds off our lap time from the previous day. If anyone wants they can ask about my rodeo riding on the warm up lap but for now I think we will leave that for another day.
All in all a pretty good weekend apart from a little mishap.

LEIGH'S ANGLESEY ANGUISH

What a beautiful track Anglesey is! Perched right on top of the coastline, the track overlooks the sea and has direct access to the beach. Having never been before, it was a nice surprise to see such a picturesque circuit.

That was probably the only highlight of the weekend!! Don’t get me wrong, the track itself is excellent being reminiscent of Laguna Seca with it’s own corkscrew. Again it was me that was the problem.

Friday practice went ok, learning the track and gradually getting quicker but Saturday came and things started to go downhill. For some reason I was sweating profusely……… standing still! Then I could not breathe through my nose. Oh no, it’s manflu.
Anyway I went out for qualifying and had to pull in after 10mins because I couldn’t see where I was going. Between the heat and sweat I was generating even a pinlock visor and fog city mouthguard wouldn’t prevent my visor completely steaming up. I was having to lift the visor at different intervals around the track to see where I was going! Long story short, I qualified 12th. Doesn’t sound too bad until you realize my team mate Chris had qualified 7th, Tim jones 6th and Clive White was on the front row in 4th. All my main championship contenders were going at least 2 seconds a lap faster. Great!
Things didn’t get any better all weekend. Every time I took my gloves off, water poured out of them. You’d think I had jumped in the bloody sea! On Sunday, I didn’t even go out for morning practice and stayed in bed until 30mins before the first race……………………….at 2pm. Spent 15 mins on the bike in the race , got off and went for another lie down before the next race.

Well although I felt like crap, over the weekend I managed 4th and 3 X 5th place. Should have been 2 X 4th but after nearly highsiding on shagged tyres in the last race another bike got past me, buggar!! Clive”the whinger” White and Chris had successful weekends though. Clive managed 2 wins and 2 seconds and Chris got a 2nd and 3 thirds, knocking me down to third in the championship. It all hangs in the balance at Rockingham, I need to secure podium positions in each race to secure 2nd in the championship. Does anyone know a diet where you can lose 3 stone in 3 weeks?

On The List

Have a quick look at the link below. I have just found out that I am on the list for the most wins in a meeting at the Olivers Mount circuit in Scarborough.

You will have to scroll down to the bottom, but at least I made the list.

As you will see there are some big names on there !!!!!

http://www.oliversmount.com/?f=Mostwins_meeting&id=41

Scarborough Gold Cup

I am competing at the Scarborough Gold Cup on the 19-20 September. It promises to be a top event so if you can get yourselves there and find us in the paddock I am sure we muster up a cup of tea. I am competing in the 250 and 400 races so two chances to catch us on both days. Plus the fish and chips are good !

Where's My Bike Gone

This was Leigh at Druids corner at Brands in the first race. He seems to have misplaced his bike.

He travels to Anglesey in Wales this weekend for the penultimate round of the ThundersportGB series.

Watch this space for the next installment.

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!