My half arsed F400 nc30

[28hodge]

Donington Park

I was keen to get to donnington, the track is fun and I enjoyed it last year, I was going to take the Friday off but as we couldn't get into the garages till 7pm on Friday night there seemed little point so I managed to blag working from home till 1ish then went to my dads to collect the pre loaded van and set off to dono.

It's a 2.5hr trip to dono for me, but I was traveling at the wrong time of day on a Friday so was always going to hit traffic at thewall viaduct which I did and crawled along for 40 mins, so it was near 5 by the time I got to donington, but the sun was blazing and I was just happy to be off racing again so it made no odds.

As it was hot I was drinking loads on the way down which nearly backfired as I was busting for a piss about 5 mins away from donington and had no option but to park/crash the van into a open gateway to a field that had just be cut and baled and have a crafty piss.

There was a car track day on at donington on the Friday and they over ran so it was gone 8 by the time we were allowed into the pits, the bun fight to get to the garages and get some good parking outside our allotted garage for the weekend was probably more hectic then most peoples races. All sorted out and unloaded into garage 5 I had some tea and had a chat with Adam Green who was in my garage and also in the 400's.

I've not met Adam before but seen him last year and he's a real nice lad so it was good talking to him his wife and lil lad over the weekend as I was once again there on my Todd, my brother couldn't make it due to an emergency in his wife's family and the girlfriend was competing on her horse so I was flying solo.

Saturday morning dawned to perfect weather which was forecast to continue all weekend, we were the second group on the schedule all weekend. Which suited me fine as I'd be able to get away in good time on Sunday and first into the showers Saturday night with any luck!!

Donington is a odd one for Bemsee, as there is no ability to run a test day on the Friday bemsee run a free practice session followed by a 15min quali and then a single race on the Saturday, Sunday is a normal race day with a warm up and the two 8lap races.

This annoys me a bit as last year I saw tracks for the first time and just had to get on and qualify for them I can't really afford the test days both in terms of ££ and also time and holiday off work, the one at silverstone I did I thought was really bad return for the money and I'm in no rush to do one again really, but anyway first up for us was free practice.

I went out and banged 7 laps in just easing myself into it, and felt quite good but really I was just taking it steady and was more interested in how my camera was working than my times from the session.

I'd spoken to Dan Hardy on Friday night and he was saying that this would be his last round for the year as he wanted to get his engine refreshed as it'd done 27,000 road miles and then 2 seasons of racing, this made me think, I hadn't a clue what my engine had done, all I knew was it sat in a barn for 10years full of water not being used till I bought it, and I'd just used it the engine had regular oil changes but essentially I have no clue as to the condition of the crank bores etc.

Anyway thanks to Dan I spent all weekend listening very intently to my engine and every tiny noise it made, it sent me mad to the point that on Saturday at one point I was convinced it was on its last legs. Basically my mind ran away with itself!

Qualifying was next and again I took 2 steady laps and then did another two pushing and trying to up the pace, these felt good then I ran into traffic midway round lap 5, so I scrapped that lap slowed down and got some clear air and went for it on lap 6 and posted a 1.54.788 lap 7 my final lap I think was going to be better but I got a bit of a front end slide at mcleans which unsettled me a bit so it ended up a fraction slower. I qualified 25th out of 38 f400's. I was already 2.5 seconds quicker than my best time from last year and under the target I'd set myself to get into the 1.54's

Race one was next up just after lunch, the sun was blazing and as I bought a cheap Chinese gopro copy rather than reading my waffle of the race you can watch it right here

[youtube]S7TZC0XUaGg[youtube]

[VFRkieran]

The bit where you said about listening to every little noise the engine makes thinkings its buggered made me laugh, i do exactly the same thing every time i fire the bike up. It gets worse if you do any of your own engine work

Looking good in the video, its a shame i didnt have the cash to make it up to donnington, me and my misses where saying it would have been brilliant to come and watch again but were proper broke this month.

Are you doing the Cadwell park TD again this year?

[28hodge]

The bit where you said about listening to every little noise the engine makes thinkings its buggered made me laugh, i do exactly the same thing every time i fire the bike up. It gets worse if you do any of your own engine work

Looking good in the video, its a shame i didnt have the cash to make it up to donnington, me and my misses where saying it would have been brilliant to come and watch again but were proper broke this month.

Are you doing the Cadwell park TD again this year?

Honestly I could have killed Dan for putting that thought in my head, I do want to get a refresh done on it this winter but I need to find someone that has spent time taking nc30 engines apart and knows them, I know any good engine mechanic will be able to do it but I want someone that has a history of NC30 engine rebuilds.

I have a mate who is a couple years younger than me and I went to school with, he has his own engine shop and builds a lot of supertwins and engines for people who ride on the roads. He builds his own engines for the manx and TT, but I doubt he will ever have had a NC30 in bits. I’m tempted to do it myself but part of me thinks it’s a better and safer to let somebody else who does it as their day job refresh it.

No not at Cadwell PS Trackday this year unfortunately. I Have Brands GP with Bemsee the weekend after and I didn’t want to risk damaging the bike/myself the weekend before. Also Brands GP will be an expensive round for me so couldn’t really afford the extra cash on the trackday.

I nearly always have spare tickets for the race meets Kieran and even if I have used my 3 I can always round up a couple spare tickets so if you ever wanna come along on the cheap gimme a shout and I’ll get some tickets for you, the money charged on the gate does not go to the club it goes to the circuit who the club have paid to rent the circuit and put an event on that the people paying have come to see, but the club get non of the gate money, which baffles me, as far as I know it all goes to the circuit!!

[VFRkieran]

Haha yea I like the idea of doing it myself and I'm a tight arse so if I can try and do it on my own I will lol, rebuilding the heads on mine was fairly easy to be honest, I'm not sure what the bottom end will be like but I've got 2 spare engine in the lock up that I will do one day.

That's a shame about Cadwell was hoping to try and follow you round lol. I will hit you up next time we want to come and watch a round, won't be doing any in august as we are over watching the classic TT and Manx. We will try and make it to the last round which should be a good laugh.

Now I have actually got the bike ready to race I will be out there on track with you next year.

[28hodge]

Yeah I'm the same tight so if I can do it I will even if it'll take me twice as long, top end I'm happy enough to do bottom end measuring tolerances with plastigauge etc I'm less comfortable with, still Dans not at the next rounds to fill my head with bad thoughts so I'll probably just bash on!

Final round for the f400's is snetterton, we are not at the final bemsee round at brands this year but there will be some out with the thunderbikes I'd think!

I think I'll only be doing cadwell in July and brands gp in August then that'll be it for me this year with bemsee as I can't do the final f400 round at snett as I'm on holiday.

May try to sneak out with hottrax at croft but will have to see what's left in the kitty

[28hodge]

Just nicked him on the line, was Happy with the first race it was fun and I passed on the brakes in an area of the track I was crap last year and spent the weekend losing time, I also felt that from craner thought to the foggy eases I was good especially mcleans where I seemed able to carry loadsa corner speed, coppice is so much fun still. It's close to. Eing one of my favourite corners. You are tucked In flat out still leant over and going up through gears as your exiting onto the Dunlop straight it feels very cool.

However although I felt quick looking at the times I was no quicker than I had been in quali, which is unusual for me, i tend to get quicker as the weekend goes on and also in each race as it progresses I seem to get quicker, but here I didn't, my fastes lap was on lap 2 and was only just faster than my quali time, this worried me had I kinda found and hit a natural limit?

Adam lent me some footage from his races last year to help with some lines etc and see if that would help so I sat and watched them and the footage of my own from quali and the first race to try and figure out if there was anywhere that could give me significant gains, then I had a shower some tea and went to bed. We would be out early if I wanted to do morning warm up, I'd normally not bother but as we were the second race out then it might make sense as we'd be on track within an hour of warm up finishing.

[28hodge]

Race 2 Sunday morning (race 1 on Sunday)



This was a lot of fun, really really enjoyable, I got up in good time and had a brew and some breakfast, it was another glorious sunny day I'd move the camera onto the very front of the fairing to get some clearer footage and and then went and got a practice pass, tho in the end decided against going out, it's not worth lobbing it whilst not fully awake as I'd have zero time to kick it straight and get out for the first Rae of the day!

Apart from having a little panic when the bike was reluctant to start to warm it through which was due to me not turning the ignition to run!! Everything went like clockwork and the morning was stress free and after the fun battle I had the previous day I was keen for more of the same in the 8 lap Sunday races.

[28hodge]

Donington Race 2 Sunday Morning

Race 2 was good, I enjoyed it, A lot, the initial battle of 4 got thinned down to the 3 of us, Jerry Frost who I nicked over the line in race 1. On a full power f400 zxr and Graham Haw on a sub64 F400 NC30.

I let myself down at the start big time and let quite a few who I have been easily faster than all weekend up the inside of me, but I managed to duck under them as I pulled a tight line out of Redgate and stuck over to the right heading into Hollywood and Craner curves. Still it was poor and I need to work on my first corner entry speed, I just lack a bit of confidence in the tyres on the first lap it’s getting better but the first corner is still a major weakness.

The crash down Craner took my eyes but Andrew Gill would have been past anyway so it wasn’t really a problem, I ran through McLean’s a gear too high otherwise I think I could have nabbed Nr75 Jerry Frost on his zxr.

My big weakness seemed to be exiting the final turn, but I seemed able to catch this time back in the fast run from Redgate to coppice. I was most pleased with my braking ability into Foggy’s Melbourne loop and Redgate, although I think I can go into and through Redgate with more speed. Every lap I feel like I could have carried more speed into and round.

Graham Haw’s pass into Foggy's was impressive going past two and making the corner. I was pleased I dived under Andrew Pitt exiting Redgate after Jerry Frost made a move on him into and round Redgate allowing me up the inside at Hollywood as I think last year this is a pass I would have maybe hesitated with, the same with when Graham made a mess of the old hairpin and Schwantz. This could have seen us come together and I had to roll and tighten my line to allow me to get up the inside of him.

I thought I’d be able to get Jerry on the last lap again but fair play to him he put a good quick last lap together and his fastest of the race at a 1.52.2 and I made a mess of the Melbourne loop, but Jerry was already to far away for me to have a sniff of him.

Entering Melbourne I went down into first which really hurt my exit speed. So much so that Graham had a look at me on the inside into Goddard’s, you can’t see him on camera but he was in my peripheral vision.

The times were good as well, we were down in consistent high 1.52’s low 1.53’s which I was happy with. My best lap was a 1.52.542 which is 5.5secs quicker than I was last year. This was a bit of a pick me up after the times didn’t improve between quali and R1 on the Saturday.

I think a big improvement was my line from the old hairpin through Schwantz and into Mcleans, a wider line through Schwantz allows me to cut further back to the left opening up Mcleans and opening the corner entry up allowing me to carry more speed round here and subsequently onto the short straight between Mcleans exit and Coppice entry.

I’ve got Adam to thank for this, as I spotted this was how he rode this section of track from the onboards he gave me.

I finished 20th in the full F400 class and 4th in the sub64 class, after R1 on the Saturday a few sub64 bikes got spot checked on the Dyno myself included and a few came back as 65’s Adam being one, he has been dyno’d 3 times once at 59ish then at 62ish and now at 65, and has changed nothing on the bike, so I can understand a few frustrations of some who are normally fine and suddenly are now over.

My 4th in class is a result of a few being removed from the sub64 class for the Sunday following Saturdays dyno spot checks. Annoyingly 3rd in class is 12seconds up the road so I’m unlikely to get 3rd unless someone makes a mistake, although battling and beating Graham is actually a battle for position as he too is a sub64, Jerry Frost isn’t.

[28hodge]

Race 3 Sunday afternoon

[28hodge]

Race 3

It was still early in the day when we were called for race 3, it wasn’t even 3pm! I love being early in the schedule.

I was a lot better in the first corner but just had Graham Haw get up the inside of me into turn 1 meaning I was wide of the apex and couldn’t get on the gas as I wanted to leaving Redgate, this let Graham nip underneath me heading into Hollywood. I had wanted to get away with the next group that were in front of us, this was because Mark Stephenson was with that group and he was the next sub64 competitor.

We did OK and were not completely dropped by them but I could see them starting to get away, I wasn’t really sure if I could run with them if I had gotten away with them but I was pretty sure there was no way I could catch them if they got a gap on us, so on lap 2 I made sure I got a really good run through Mcleans, carried good speed into Coppice and out onto the Dunlop straight allowing me to get alongside Graham whilst still powering down the straight and then made myself brake later than Graham and got down inside of him into Foggy Essess. Job done, I set my eye s on the next group to try and gauge where they were.

Exiting Melbourne loop I could see that the next group were already braking for Goddards but were still visible, I decided I would give it one really committed lap and then see where I was on the next lap in comparison in the same spot.

That went to shit when I tipped into Redgate to early and ran wide on the exit, I had to wait for ages to get on the gas and ended up letting Jerry Frost get underneath me. There was a Kawasaki riding through the gravel as we entered Redgate which may have taken my eye and a little of my concentration as we went into Redgate but it was still a daft mistake that cost me time to the group in front and a place to Jerry.

The race then looks quite dull but it was great, I was trying hard to stick with Jerry and he kept looking back to see if he was managing to drop me, and at times he was then I seemed to get back to him, it was real cat and mouse tight racing, not great to watch but was good to ride.

On the last lap Jerry seemed to have a pretty decent gap but I gave it my best shot and made a hash of Redgate, again! Just what I needed to do.

This probably helped me out as I knew that from then on the rest of the lap had to be good, and it was, got a great run from Redgate all the way to Coppice, little wide going into Coppice but had to get on the gas to keep with Jerry and try and get a run on him down the Dunlop straight, as I wound on the bike just started to move and squirm ever so slightly, I can’t back off, I want to and my brain is telling me to but if I do I’ll lose any chance of getting a run on Jerry so I keep it pinned and hope it stays together which it thankfully does.

I get a good run on Jerry down the Dunlop Straight which put me in position to have a look going into Foggy Essess. Watching the onboard back I’m amazed I got him on the brakes as I was still quite a long way back.

I then panicked, last year I got nicked by Bean going into Melbourne on the last lap of the final race. Keen to avoid this happening again, I take a more defensive line into Melbourne, and make an utter arse of it, I accidently go down into 1st gear, which makes me slow mid corner and slow coming out and needing to change up an additional gear, costing me even more time. Into Goddards I just go in as quick as I can on my standard line I don’t see Jerry anywhere in my peripheral, round Goddards and over the line, Happy with that!!

The times from the race aren’t great but then looking through the rest of the grid, nobody was especially quick in race 3 compared to race 2 earlier in the day. Most seem to be about .5 of a second down on their best in this morning’s race, it had warmed up a lot since that race so maybe the air temp has effected horsepower of the bikes, not sure really. I had a best lap of 1.54.039 which is 1.500 secs slower than my best from race 2 from the morning in fact I had 5 laps quicker than this in the morning race!

But the consistency is really good, I have 5 laps all in the 1.54’s and all within a second of each other. And even better is the fact that every single race lap this year is faster than my best race lap of last year, the only laps all weekend slower than last year’s best time are a couple of the free practice laps and quali laps and then the opening lap of each race, I have done 27 race laps faster than my previous best. My best lap this year is 5.433 seconds quicker than my best lap last year. Happy with that progress!

I once again finish 4th in sub64 class and 18th overall in the main f400 class. But frustratingly I am just outside of the 110% cut off to get a signature for upgrading my licence from its newly upgraded clubman status to national. The race winners time was 842.493 seconds 110% of that is 926.742 seconds, my total race time is 927.416 seconds, so I miss out on a signature by less than a second, that’s not annoying at all!!

To upgrade from clubman to national you again need 10 signatures but this time you only get a signature if you complete the race within 110% of the winners race time. In some clubs that is quite easy, in Bemsee with such a fast grid it is hard work.

I will get a signature from my Oulton park wet race result and also from the race on Sunday morning at Donington as I was within 100% of the race winners time in those two races.