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!