The only consolation comes when I get the results sheets, on the final lap I have banged in my best lap of the weekend with a 1.52.272 a second quicker than anything I have managed all weekend, this consolation comes with some more bad news though, if I had gotten Gary I would have been 20th, this would have been my first top 20 ride, as it is I have to make do with 21st

I follow Gary round the warm up lap, and give James (James66) a wave as I go up park straight, he’s stood on the right of the track next to the marshall’s hut, turns out he was one of the fallers on the opening lap at the top of the Gooseneck (see video link further up). I get back to the awning and have a chat to Gary who’s pitted next to me. Then when James returns we set to bending his bike back straight and searching through our spares boxes for odds and sods that he needs.

With that sorted I have a quick once over my bike battery on charge top up the fuel, then go grab some lunch and have a lie down in the back of my van and have an hours snooze, when I wake up the weather is looking a bit dodgy, it’s still dry but the winds up and there looks to be a chance of rain. With this I take my awning down and pack up most of my stuff whilst it’s still dry, grab a bit more to eat then head back to the F400 awning.

Where there are wheels everywhere. There is still some time till our races, but we are all guessing by the time it starts it’s going to be wet, I swap my wheels when it starts raining, then swap them back when it stops, then swap them again when it chucks a shower, then give up changing wheels and leave all 3 sets out and the bike up on stands.

Our race is probably 30mins away so I wonder down to the top of the mountain for a watch, its damp but not wet, I watch 4 or 5 laps then make my mind up, walk back up and slot my KR364’s in, get the warms on them, they will only get 20mins in them or so but it’ll put a bit of heat into them.

When we get down to the collecting area there is a mixture of wets and dry’s on various bikes, we are held for ages and as my bike starts to get a bit warm I stop it, when I come to restart its suddenly a bit sluggish to turn over, I decide not to start it on the starter and bump it to save the battery, I’m puzzled though the battery has been on charge it should be good to go??!!?

Warm up lap and things look good for me, there are some damp patches but it’s pretty dry, so my KR364’s are probably perfect, with a dry supercorsa being the 2nd best choice. But that’s only if the rain holds off. If it showers or starts to rain I’ll be ok but the ones on supercorsa’s are going to struggle, likewise if it doesn’t rain the ones on wets are going to start killing tyres in a couple of laps.

I get a good start and pop a really small wheelie the entire length of the start but then get a bit boxed in. I was gridded up on the left hand side of the grid this time and so I’m on the inside into turn 1. I do ok though and for a change I’m making progress on lap 1, which is a novelty!!

I go underneath 3 riders round Chris curve and I am following another vfr through, this is the lad that broke away from the group I caught up to in the previous race. First lap is a 2.14 which given the conditions is pretty good, in terms of progress it’s certainly a lot better than any other opening lap I have done.

Onto lap 2 I get past Gary Jarman again round Chris curve and try to stick to the VFR, who is nr 138 Daniel Lawlor, he’s a little quicker than me and gets past Matt Barber before Hall bends, I follow Matt through these and pass him exiting the final corner Barn, and my 400 has the legs on his TZR250 (Matt’ main class is the Yamaha Past Masters) down the start finish straight and again set off trying to keep up with Daniel, he is a little quicker than me but he is dragging me along, he is on full wets so has a little more trust in the patchy damp conditions, where as I am still feeling out the KR364’s, having only ever used them on cold tracks and having no experience of them in the wet.

We seem to be moving forward as a pair. I get round the first corner and into Charlies, there is a group of 4 in front that we are gaining on, I’m about a second behind Daniel and head out up Park Straight, then just as you come through the bottom of the dip along Park straight rain drops start hitting my visor, BIG rain drops, we have gone to no rain into the beginings of a heavy rain shower in the space of 50 yards! I have hit the rain pretty much beyond the point of no return in regards to my braking marker into Park!!

I’m heading into Park corner as though it’s a lot dryer than it is, the previous lap it was pretty dry round Park, now it’s not!

I get on the brakes and get round OK but log it in my head that next lap it could be real wet heading in there. I get round Chris curve and the rain kinda stops as I move away from Park corner, the Gooseneck is no different to the previos lap and pretty much dry still, again this could be different next time around!

Heading into Mansfield I’m not losing anytime to Daniel and we are still both gaining on the group in front, out of Mansfield into the chicane, hard on the gas in second gear out of the Chicane, hold the gear into the left right before the mountain, on the brakes for the left and the bike completely cuts out with no warning!!

Briefly I’ve got mega engine braking thanks to the cut out and I’m also hard on the brakes, the bike gives a decent shimmy from the rear before I get the clutch in.

I go straight on and off track rather than even attempting to turn in for the left hander, I scoot off the track onto the wet grass, aim straight towards the Armco and coast to the barrier in a straight line bolt upright, there is a bit of an incline so I don’t need to brake thankfully to scrub off any speed.

Thumb the starter nothing, its completely dead, I lean it up against the Armco get off and jump over the barrier, then swear, as I realise potentially my best result has just evaporated!!!

One thing that is not evaporating is the rain which is getting steadily worse

I watch the rest of the race from the inside of the mountain, I keep an eye on the two leaders who are scrapping away and also keep track of where Daniel Lawlor ends up, as I seemed to be ok sticking with him so can gauge my potential finishing position against his. He ends up 9th!!!

3 who were in front of us DNF like I do which helps but it’s still annoying, I could have ended up top 10, but I didn’t, so it’s pointless thinking about it.

Anyway if I had stayed out there I could have ended up crashing, the rain got worse but it never got really bad so I do think I would have been ok on the KR364’s as it never got really wet, but there was always the chance that I’d have gone gravel inspecting, so spinning a negative into a positive I think no more of it. Once the race is over I push the bike up the track exit at the bottom of the mountain and lean it against a tree by the grandstand.

I’m assuming the battery has died or something has gone wrong with it, as it was fully charged but didn’t want to turn over in the collecting area before the race, I walk back to the pits grab the spare battery and some tools and make my way back to the bike, swap batteries, thumb the starter and, get nothing, miffed and with the rain starting properly now I start to push up into the paddock, thankfully I get a couple of helpers on the way.

I get the bike back in the awning and then go and fetch the van, to start loading up before getting off home. Once loaded all that’s left to do is take down James’s 15m gazebo in the wind and rain, which is properly pouring down now, which was a bit interesting at times, thankfully a lot of bodies make light work, kinda!

Once I had gotten home from Cadwell I unloaded everything and left the bike for a week, when I got to look at it the following weekend it took me about 30 seconds to find the fault with the bike, I use Anderson 75amp powerpole connectors on the battery terminal leads, the 10mm2 cable that goes into the connector from the earth side of the battery has come out 2 minutes with the blow torch and solder and its back in and the bike fires straight back into life on the battery that was in it when it stopped, I’m guessing the connection was loose in the collecting area and that’s why it turned over slow rather than a duff battery, it’s an annoying simple fault that has cost me a race.

Cadwell was my last outing for the year, I was wanting to have a run out with Wirral100 at the Anglesey Grand meeting but a friend’s wedding got in the way of that. So that was it for the year as far as racing or riding was concerned but I had a lot of stuff I wanted to get done ready for the following year.

The elec problem that stopped the bike at Cadwell turned out to be an easy 5min fix, but it could have been so much worse and hard work to solve, mainly because my loom was a total mess, it had been bodged and altered more than once and I didn’t fully understand, in part due to the bodging and splicing that had gone on previously and partly due to my level of electrical muppetry.

People kept telling me that making my own race loom was easy, despite my best efforts to explain what an electrical retard I am, they kept telling me I’d be fine to sort it.

So one afternoon I stripped all the electrics off the bike and took loads of photos of it. Ordered all sorts of connectors and wire and bits and over a couple of weekends got it sorted to the extent that it fired straight up, and apart from the clocks not initially working due to a bad connection in one of the connector blocks it was spot on, which I was pretty pleased about. This means that should something go wrong electrically again I at least have an understanding as to what it may be and how to trace the fault.

That done I turned my attention to servicing the suspension.

I sent the shock back to Firefox racing to be serviced, despite their customer service being utter crap when they modded the rs250 shock for me the shock had been good and tyre wear was really good, plus they knew the shock and its mods due to originally undertaking the works, so it went back to them. And to be fair they were very good they charged what was agreed upon and turned it around quickly, they also sent some stickers for the bike so I was happy with that.

I took the forks off, which was made 1000x easier thanks to a new headstock paddock stand, drained them and filled them with fresh oil, removed the rear hub and packed it full of grease making sure there was no play in it. Checked all the front wheel bearings, re painted the front number board as I got told off at scruitineering for it being off to one side, and then fibre glassed up some vents on the belly pan that again the scruits had mentioned as they were lower than the dam at the rear of the catch tray.

This done I put the wets on the bike for the winter filled it full of anti-freeze and then snuck all the tyres past the girlfriend and into the house to live in the spare bedroom for the winter.

It was then basically a long wet winter until the 8th March when I was booked on to go to Oulton with Nolimits!

I went to Oulton simply to ride the bike again as it seemed a very long time ago that I was at Cadwell, and looking back it was, basically 6months!!

I was in inters and told myself to take my time and just cruise around until after lunch then see how we were getting on, I had my race chrono with me but purposefully left it off to avoid any temptation to start trying to push. First session this went to plan, but I seemed to get back in the groove way to quickly, I felt really good pretty much instantly. The session was quite short though, I think I’d only managed about 5 laps by the time we were called in.

I went to noise testing (The inters Noise test after their first session) and then spent about 30mins sat in the queue, once sorted and passed I went back to the garage and got the bike on the warmers, my next session was due out pretty soon, and once called I got myself out near the front of the group. Feeling good I had a steady ish first lap and then a progressively quicker 2nd lap, again I felt good and didn’t feel as though I was pushing myself really.

Lap 3 I got passed by a minitwin heading into lakeside, I stuck with him going round lakeside and shell oils through hizzy’s but then he gapped me a little over hilltop so I tried to make some time back on him heading into knickerbrook, I came off the brakes as I tipped into the first right of knickerbrook shifted over to the left of the bike and got it into the left, mid corner my knee hit the deck then just past mid corner my arse and shoulder followed.

Both wheels just washed away from me and dumped me on the deck. I spun round 180 degrees so that my feet where facing the corner entry and my head was facing down the track and then as I hit the kerbs on the side of the track I did my first backwards roly poly for what must be 15 years at least smacking my helmet on the kerbs as I went.

As I got up the bike had just slid on its side the engine had stalled thankfully as they don’t like being run on their side. I jogged over had it picked up a pushed to the side against the tyre wall before the next bike came past then I vaulted over the tyre wall myself, quite an athletic day already what with the roly poly as well!

The session carried on until someone else binned it coming out of lodge, I couldn’t ride the bike back as the rear set/peg was pretty badly bent and the gear shift was bent round and facing backwards.

Once the crash wagon had dropped us back I had to go to the med centre to be declared fit to continue, Which I was. Once back in the garage I went to fetch my lump hammer to try and beat the rearset hanger straight, then sorted the peg that just needed the bent bolt removing, the problem was the gearshift.

But luckily I had bought about 4 sets of bent rearsets off eBay and the forum, so used a gearshift off one of them and made it work with the tyga hanger.

I missed a session sorting it out but got out for the rest of the day, and after a steady session got back into it and by the days end was going as well as I ever had done.

Initially I blamed the tyres for the crash, thinking they were old and past it , It was cool being march so I’d put the KR364’s on, they are a 2012 tyre but not done too much, but they are a race tyre so will go off with time whether used or not. They were also really cold in that second session, and being a race tyre, they need a good 45mins in the tyre warmer to get the carcass up to temp according to the data sheet, I’d let them have 15mins max, I then did two laps on them and again being a race tyre they take time to build warmth and they never got this. I think looking back I have to blame myself really for being impatient.

Add to this the fact I had my knee on the deck and was just picking the throttle up on tyres that were cold. It’s no wonder the bike decided to let me know I was starting to take the piss.

I took the KR364’s off and used my supercorsa’s for the rest of the day.

The crash had done more damage than I first thought really, I’d assumed a gearshift and a fresh crash bung from R&G would see it right again. Wrong

The crash had bent the rearset peg’s bolt and ground the end away a bit and knackered the gearshift so I needed to get these from Tyga.
It had bent one of the crash bungs so I would need a full half kit from R&G
I now had a small hole in the left forearm of my leathers so these would need to go away to be patched.
My helmet was scuffed and scrapped, although fine it would no longer pass scruitineering so I would need a new one for racing.

It also did a bit a cosmetic damage to the fairings, nothing serious but I did have to do a little strengthening to the inside of the upper fairing. This then made me question my spare fairings. I got them in a job lot of stuff I bought, but I had never fitted them, I take them to meetings with me in case I need them but I have never even seen if they worked.

So I tried them and realised they didn’t work, not without making up new brackets and some dremmeling, so half a day later I had them at a point where they could be used if needed.

But they looked shit, like really shit, I am never going to have an immaculate race bike, I don’t see the point, it’s going to spend its life getting bumped and scraped, it’s just gotta look mechanically sound and presentable. But even these fairings were a bit too shit for me, so I spent a weekend rubbing them down then another weekend rubbing down the primer from the seat unit as it reacted badly in areas. I then painted it all up and added the number boards so I know have sorted a clean looking spare set of fairings if I need them. As I have a spare red tank I decided to do the fairings red and will eventually get the Honda Britain kit off Brooky, I used to work with him until about a month ago when I changed jobs so I should be able to get them sorted with him.

With all these bits sorted my attention turned to race prep.

This coming weekend (9th – 11th May) Silverstone is next up in the Bemsee Calendar, and is my first meeting of the year.

Silverstone marks round 3 of the year for the Bemsee competitors, with them having previously visited Brands Indy and Snetterton neither of which I could make, Brands Indy does not generate a lot of interest in me, its early in the year and an awful lot of hassle for me as it is at the other end of the country, so it’d be a 6-7 hour drive for 4 races of 10 x 1 minute laps. The reward does not match the outlay in time and costs for me, Brands GP later in the year on the other hand I will be attending.

Snetterton I was keen to do but my other halves family were over for the week from Norway so it wasn’t possible I did ask if I could go to the Wirral1100 meeting that was on the Saturday of the same weekend, but the look I got told me that even if she said yes it was fine, she meant NO!,

Snetterton again is a long way but It’d be good to do. Bemsee return to Snet later in the year but I am unfortunately on holiday so unable to attend.

So Silverstone through to Brands GP will be my only rounds with Bemsee this year. This will see me at the following rounds

Silverstone
Oulton Park
Donnington
Cadwell
Brands GP.

After my little off on the trackday at Oulton I have been hard at the prep to try and be a bit more organised this year to try and make the Friday before a race a little less stressful, even more critical this year as I am once again working away from home 2-3 days a week this at the minute.

I had sorted the spare fairings so that they would simply bolt on, sorted a fresh helmet complete with pinlock system thanks to the crash damage inflicted at Oulton and due to the misting experienced at Cadwell, ordered some fresh brake pads from Bendix, had my leathers repaired, sorted out a half kit from R&G for the crash bung trashed in the low side and ordered the replacement bits for the tyga rearset both damaged at Oulton.

That done I took everything off the bike and went through it, cleaning it as I went then replacing bits that I had ordered as they turned up.

I spent a half day cleaning all the pistons in the calipers and scotch briting the discs the try and remove any glaze that had built up, I often struggled to brake and get stopped into hard braking areas last year and I am conscious that I need to improve in this area a lot this year. Half the reason for getting fresh pads was as I wasn’t entirely happy with the Brembo red pads I had in there. They seemed to have little bite and despite braking earlier than those around me going into corners such as Park at Cadwell and Foggy Esses/Melbourne loop at Dono, I always seemed to be struggling to slow down as much as they did in a shorter space!

I replaced the crash bung and sorted out the rod that runs between the crash bungs as this had gotten tweaked and was ever so slightly twisted.

This done I decided to check the valve clearances, I do this a lot, for peace of mind really, I had done them prior to the trackday at Oulton in March and they were fine, and despite it only having done 5 sessions since checking them last, I thought I’d check them again as I had time and it would be one less thing that would pray on my mind over the weekend.

6hrs later I was done!!

The entire time I have had this bike, 3 years or so, it has only ever needed one shim to be changed. Not this time though, I had several tight shims, all on the edge of tolerance that I needed to swap out, it should have been no big deal, but it was. I have a complete engine in bits that I have robbed all the shims from and travel around in the top of my toolbox, problem was out of these 16 shims, none of them were correct, which meant I had to grab the shims out of 2 other complete engines that I have sat in storage, I didn’t want to do this as I am only creating work for myself as I am going to have to re shim these now and get them all back in tolerance prior to either using them or selling them to help with the entry fees.

I’d managed to sort all but one of the tight clearances, bar the inlet on cly2, I had one more head from my spare engines to strip of shims but was short on time so left it as it was. It was Sunday of the bank holiday weekend and we were meeting friends for tea. A tea I would be wearing if I didn’t get sorted quickly!

Clearance tolerance is 0.12 and I couldn’t get my 0.129 feeler gauge between the rocker and shim. But it was very close to going so I decided it was either just on tolerance or ever so slightly out, so decided it would take no harm. I put the bike together minus its fairings and then ran it up to make sure everything was ok. It was so I left it at that.

But it played on my mind during dinner and the rest of the night so I got up early the next morn and stripped the shims out of the final spare head, I knew what shim I needed and low and behold in the final head I had a shim that would be perfect.

So I once again stripped the bike and changed the shim. Then checked all the others again for peace of mind put everything back in order and fitted everything so that the only thing left to do was load it up and drive it to Silverstone for the fri test day.

Then to add the final touches I put some more stickers on as, stickers are the answer in life!

Happy that all was in order I swept the van out put all the tyres for both van and bike as they should be then loaded everything before locking it all away securely ready for me to pick up Thursday night on my way home from work.

I say its ready for the test day, I am still waiting for the replacement tyga bits for the rearset from Jap4 to turn up, so it is still wearing the repaired version that’s made up from tyga bits and a miscellaneous gear shift rod. I hope they are here by Thursday as I am setting off at 6.30ish on Friday morning to get to Silverstone in time to get on the Friday afternoon test day.

The only thing bothering me is the weather, its giving showers and rain, and my wets are old and basically not the best!!

Should be fun!!

I should be at silverstone on Saturday as it's only about 30 miles away from my house, will see if I can find you to say hello.

Nice one Kieran, all the ediasia F400 are in garages 33 34 35 & 36 so I'll be in one of them somewhere.

Silverstone!

Basically I rode shit as I have been off the bike for ages, whereas the rest of the Bemsee grid has already done 2 race weekends. This showed big time, I got better as the weekend wore on but I still wasn’t were I wanted to be at come the end of Sunday.

I also travelled to Silverstone feeling as if I was cursed. This started on Thursday and got worse till Friday night.

On Thursday the house me and the GF were looking to buy had an offer accepted on it, mine is looking likely to get an offer put on it very soon so I’m going to end up selling mine and having nowhere to buy as there isn’t much else out there that interests us. So this dampened my mood a little as the house was perfect, and the garage was awesome!!

Friday I set off in good time, I was booked on the afternoon test day and wanted to get to Silverstone for 11ish so set off bang on 9am.

Bang on 9.20 I found myself sat on the M6 Southbound, stationary. I moved about a mile in the next 1hr 25mins, Perfect, my 3hr journey just turned into a 4.5hr journey!!

Then, whilst sat waiting to resume the first session of the testday after a red flag a scruit decided that my exhaust wasn’t legal so told me I’d have to sort it before I went to scritineering, he didn’t tell me what was wrong with it though so I had to go and get him to come back and explain what I needed to change to keep him happy.

And to boot the weather had turned and was looking real wet all weekend, this became a bigger problem when I checked my wets, I knew my wets were shit but I did realise how shit they were till I checked them, they are really old, I thought they were manufactured 2010, turns out I mis-read them, they were manufactured on 2001!! They are still soft and supple but god knows what they would actually be like!!

The Silverstone pit complex within the new “wing” structure is simply massive, and was easily capable of accommodating the entire Bemsee grid. As such incl in the entry was the garage hire fee and all competitors had been allocated a garage spot. The F400’s where all in garages 33 to 36.

As I landed I spotted Francesco Cavalli who was my instructor for the afternoon testday sessions and have a quick word before unloading and setting up next to Bean from off here, who gave me a hand unloading whilst I went to race control to sign on as I was a little pushed for time due to the traffic delay.

Our first PM session was around 2pm ish, I’d sorted a plan with Fran which quickly got shot to shit when after 2 laps we got red flagged and then sat in pitlane and the tyres went stone cold. So the new plan was go slow (easy enough for me then) and follow Fran who was going to cruise to get temp in the tyres but on the correct line and I was to follow and just learn the lines.

After a couple of laps I wasn’t a massive fan of the track, its very wide so its kinda easy to get lost on a low BHP bike, it’s also deceptive, you think you are coming into a corner that you need to slow for, but in reality the track is so wide you didn’t need to slow anywhere near as much as you thought.

Session done Fran stayed out and did another test in another group he was instructing in, then came and had a chat before the second and final Pm test session.

Between sessions James66 landed and had a spare can that was shorter than mine so we swapped that over. To keep the scruits happy. Apparently my can had grown over winter and now stuck out past the tyre, funny that as it didn’t at Oulton, Donington or Cadwell!! Anyway scruits words are final so I sorted it.

Second session and Fran again went in front but went a bit quicker, though for him still very slow, then dropped behind to let me have a run and see how I was getting on. Problem was I last raced at Cadwell in September 2013, then hadn’t ridden till the March trackday at Oulton where I fell off so I’d spent a long time off the bike. I just felt really rusty and really wooden on the bike. It was like I was starting from scratch again!

Session over and at least I knew the track, Fran came and had a word to let me know the lines were good and I was nice and consistent and basically just go faster through the lines, if the lines are good the speed will come and will be safe, if the lines are bad then the speed may or may not come and if it does, it will be less safe. He also picked up that I have a bad habit of going in too tight too early and to try to aim for a late apex, I am consciously aware that this is a problem of mine. He also picked up that I need to weight the inside peg more mid turn. Which I wasn’t aware off.

One big benefit of the weekend was my brother coming up from London to give me a hand, he was going to shoot up on the Sunday but as it turned out he drove up on Friday night in his van fully equipped with a sofa. I can’t explain how much easier having a helper makes things, I’ve done all the previous rounds on my own which can be a bit stressful. It also meant I could ring him to get him to fetch an angle grinder and some other metal working tools so we could shorten the sleeve on my can and use that in case James66 needed his can back at any point.

So off I went up to scruitineering, spotted and avoided the scruit who had commented on the exhaust and went to another who never even looked at it anyway. And the bike went straight through as it has done every other time.
With little else to do for the rest of the evening I gave the bike a quick once over, charged the battery, organised my pit a bit better and shifted the bike around so that it was easier to get out, had a shower and then waited for my bro to land, thinking I’d need to go meet him up at the main gates, which were about a 10min drive away to get him in with some tickets. Turns out I didn’t and he just drove straight through and round to the international pits.

Not much else happened on Friday I went to bed, it rained, I woke up to the sound of water dripping, so my van has once again started leaking, but all in all not a bad nights kip.