The Sidecar Smiths

Leigh and I have seen the future and its not looking good. This could be us racing circa 2030! Only joking gents, it could be 2029! Mick and Gary Smith got to go for a ride in the F1 Sidecars around Brands Hatch in a charity event and therefore needed some leathers to do it in so we loaned them ours. The good news is that we obviously have time to grow into them. Both of them thoroughly enjoyed the experience which was a little better than the three guys that actually fell out! It was funny to see these two get off the sidecar after only three laps and both were completely knackered, bloody hilarious. It was a great event organised by ThundersportGB to raise money for 'Help the Heroes'.

The Happy Crew

Thanks to Sean and Andrea for sending me through this photo of the happy crew at Scarborough last year. They are enjoying it really you know.

Dyno Time at Cadwell

After the race at Cadwell we had to have our bike dyno'd to check that we were within the class limit of 80hp. As you can see from the photo, John is keeping a close eye on his little baby! Thanks to Clive and Debs for the photo. PS This is John's best side!

And the Winner of the Macau GP is .......?

Only joking folks, but while I was away in the Far East I took the opportunity to nip across to Macau to have a look around the street circuit that is used for the Grand Prix that is held there. This circuit sorts the men from the boys as it is lined with armco barriers and has no run off whatsoever. I would love to get the chance to race there at some point but we will have to see. This year will be the 57th Macau Grand Prix and runs from the 18th-21st November, if you get the chance to go and watch this one off race it is certainly worth doing. Whilst we were there we went and had a look at the Grand Prix Museum which is located close to where the circuit runs and as you can see from the photos of the bikes it has certainly had some top class winners and competitors over the years.

Top Weekend Out at Cadwell

Firstly I will apologise for the short write up, although some of you may be thankful of this, as I am due to fly off to Honk Kong on Tuesday so time is a little limited.
We had an absolutely top weekend, the new 440cc motor Roger Middleton had built for us, it was absolutely flying and it made the bike probably the quickest on the grid. This provides both good and bad points though, firstly it gives us a better chance of winning but secondly it means I don't have any excuses anymore!
I qualified 3rd on the grid which we were all happy with as it means a front row start which is ideally where you want to be. The two races on the Saturday were absolutely corkers. They both came down to a duel between myself and Alex Heaton (the miserable looking one) on the Knight Racing 800cc Ducati. In both races we were passing each other a couple of times each lap and in the process we both went 1.2 seconds under the existing lap record. The lap times we were doing would have put us in the top 7 of the 600 race and the top 4 of the GP1 race. The outcome of the races was that I won the first race and Heaton took the second.
Sunday was expected to be much of a repeat of the day before but on the 3rd lap of the first race Heaton crashed out at Mansfield corner. This meant I had a relatively comfortable victory, with Danny Murphy posting the best times of the Aprilia 450's and coming home in 2nd place. Danny is another young lad that is going places and will probably be at the sharp end of British Championships in the not too distant future. The 2nd race saw the battle recommence between Heaton and myself, I led for the first few laps until he came past on the brakes into Park Corner. There was quite an amusing tale about Park Corner, on this corner they have 300, 200 and 100 yard braking markers. Now we normally brake around the 200 yard marker, well imagine our surprise when on the first lap charging up to Park past the 300 yard marker, looking for the 200 yard marker only to realise that it was not there as you approached the 100 yard marker. For some reason the marker had disappeared. I am not sure how we managed to stop for the corner but it just goes to show how late you can brake ! Although not one I want to repeat. Anyway, back to the story, I followed Heaton around for the last few laps and was contemplating having a go but then I remembered Pippa had come to watch by now and if it all went wrong and I missed the flight to Hong Kong she would probably kill me, or just have gone on her own. Due to this I decided 'discretion was the better part of valour' and came home in 2nd place.
This now means we have extended our lead in the championship from 5 points to 25 points. This sounds good but there are still 400 points up for the taking from the last 4 rounds so it is still up for grabs.
One of the funniest parts of the weekend was seeing Ian Popplewell throwing a big girly sissy fit in Parc Ferme after the race when he had been black flagged from the race due to a smoking bike. He only needed to start jumping up and down on the spot and we would have had the full shebang!

I get back from Hong Kong on Thursday 27th August and drive down to Brands Hatch on the 28th, I hope the jet lag is not too bad?

Ready for a ride out at Cadwell

We will be heading down to Cadwell this coming weekend ready for the next round of the ThundersportGB GP2 Championship. We will be racing on both Sat 7th and Sun 8th, so if you are at a loose end get yoursleves down to watch.

I will try and see if I can get bigger air over the mountain this time !

I may not get a chance to update the blog for a few weeks as straight after the meeting I will be heading to Hong Kong with Pippa. You can always look on the Thundersport website for the results.