Fantastic

It looks like the ACU have bodged my licence upgrade when they did it. I sent it off before Donington, but only got it back on Friday last week. They have sent all the paperwork back and written on my record card that my licence is to be upgraded to clubman, and then when they have upgraded the card they have stated National on my actual licence. I will have to get it sorted as it’s not right.

But it is worrying, if I so wanted I could now apply for a mountain course licence and put an entry in for the Manx!! Without actually having gained the necessary experience to be eligible to do that!!

It’s all a little bit incompetent really!!

In other News Cadwell will not be happening for me, I have sold my house and bought another with the GF which means all my race cash for Cadwell is going to be spent on valuations and mortgage fee's. Added to the fact that my van seems to have gone sick, I have had to withdraw the entry

This as you can imagine is really making me very cheerful.

I have spent the last 3 days designing my new garage/shed that i will be building in the rear garden of the new house. Which is easing my bad mood over the Cadwell entry a little.

Hope you had fun this weekend at brands GP mate, i crossed the line .6 of a second behind you the first race on sat, just couldn't quite get close enough to attempt a pass, though i think i showed you my nose a few laps earlier on when we were caught up with a few others :). Couldn't get close to you the rest of the weekend though, well done for the 2x 3rds.

Gavin Schofield #84

Cheers Gavin,

Yeah had a mega weekend was worth the 12hr round trip got home bought 12.15 this morning. Had some mega battles in all the races, and made up with the pots first ones I've got.

Never been to brands before and never did the test day so got quicker all weekend had a big moment on a damp patch through paddck hill in race 1 yesterday which scared the crap outta me. I'll get the videos uploaded on here this week.

I knew there was someone there in race one on Saturday and just tried to keep my head down. Hope you had a good weekend too.

Brands GP

I nearly didn’t go, we are buying a new house and I could have done without spending the cash on this but on the other hand if I didn’t go then I would be unable to do anymore Bemsee rounds as I would be on holiday for the last remaining F400 round as the EDIAsia F400 class does not go to the final brands indy round this year.

So I packed the Van up on Sunday parked it away and spent the week day evenings away with work watching F400 videos from the previous years. I have never been to Brands Hatch to watch or ride, Bemsee do 3 rounds there the opening round of the year and closing round of the year on the Indy circuit and then this summer round on the full blown GP circuit, the only club that are allowed to run on the full circuit. As such I was pretty sure that most of the others would have at least ridden the Indy circuit as even the rookies would have ridden it at the opening round.

I couldn’t afford the test day both in terms of cash and holidays as it would have been another day off work so Friday morning I set off aiming to get to brands around 3.30pm ish. Traffic was shit, the M25 was really shit and the Dartford crossing in particular was shitter than it all put together I spent an hour getting from one side of the bridge to the other. I had to nip to Swanely to pick up my pit crew (Brother) he lives in London so grabbed the tube out to Swanely just up the road from Brands.

All said and done it was a good 6.5hrs journey, but I got there in time for the track walk which is what I wanted to go on, and it stopped raining for it too which was nice. The track walk was really helpful at Oulton so as I had never seen Brands I was keen to get an idea of the lines and reference points, Unfortunately the track walk started on the cooper straight and only covered the GP section of the track, meaning the first time I would see Paddock Hill bend would be on lap one of Quali. Not ideal!

It also wasn’t ideal that we had to bail on the track walk just after Sheene Curve as we needed to go and get my 16 man tent up before the light went and the rain returned.

Tent up, Garage sorted, Tea sorted, we then did a little bit of work on the bike, we put the wets in so we had the dry wheels out to allow us to put a fresh pair of scrubs on them in the morning and a 15 tooth front sprocket was put on rather than the 14 as the run into Hawthornes is fast and 14 would have been on the limiter.

All done it was bed time. It bounced with rain overnight but the Saturday forecast was good. Especially later in the day which suited me as we were late in the schedule as race 9 of a 10 race programme.

I got up early Saturday and got the bike through tech as soon as it opened at 7.30, then went for a shower, back to the garages to put my gear on and then as most of the paddock are outside the circuit on the outside of paddock hill all the paddock stores were also down there, so the pits were miles away from all the tyre suppliers race office tech etc, this meant we had to hump the wheels and fresh scrubs down to the outer paddock to be swapped and then get my gear through tech and get signed on.

All done by 9am, I then sat around for 3 hours waiting for our Quali session.

Quali was dry for us and I went out with the intention of 2 slow laps and then build it up from there I wasn’t expecting much from Quali its only 15mins long so probably 6-7 laps at best. Which is not a lot of mileage to learn the brands GP circuit. I took my 2 steady laps then began to pick up the pace lap 3 felt OK but I was rubbish into Hawthornes, it’s probably flat in 5th for the fast lads, it’s a ballsy corner and I was struggling to figure out any kind of reference point to turn in on and then aim at mind corner. I made an arse of it every lap!! Especially the last lap of quali, where I managed to exit the turn on the white line over on the inside of the turn rather than the outside of the turn!!

Lap 4 and 5 I wanted to keep increasing the pace but got caught up with some slower riders, then when I did get a clear run on my last lap I made and utter arse of the two corners where you need to carry the speed, Surtees is the corner where the Brands Indy circuit turns onto the Brands GP circuit it’s a really late apex and you need to carry the speed and get good drive out as it leads onto a long straight, I ballsed it up and went in way too early and had to wait for ages before being able to get on the gas, meaning my run down pilgrims drop into Hawthornes was for want of a better word, Shit.

After the long straight is Hawthornes a fast right hander, I went in braked too much (I’m not sure the fast lads even brake!) and then like I said earlier on ended up on the wrong side of the track on the exit!!

I qualified 32 out of out of 42 with a 1.52.437, so basically crap, but I expected no different, I never really got a lap where I put all of it together and got a clear run, I was more about getting some familiarity with the circuit than setting a good quali time.

Race 1



Was frustrating, I should have done better and been with the group in front of me, but I kept making daft mistakes and being inconsistent with lines and gear selection, this was basically as I was still learning the track in all honesty. I seemed quicker than those around me but kept getting tangled up with them, which nearly ended in disaster a couple of times as they suddenly seemed to stop mid apex, especially at Sheene Curve where I had a real moment with Harley Godzisz, at one point I was thinking I was going to clip him and end up on the grass, then on my Arse !

When I eventually got clear I’d lost to much time to those in front, I dropped those that had been holding me up easily once I got a clear run and dropped 1.5 to 2seconds off my laptimes, until the last lap where there was a big crash and oil flags out heading into Hawthorns, and westfield. I slowed down way too much and let Gav Schofield onto my tail, I was about 2 seconds ahead at the end of Lap 5 but we crossed the line the take the chequers 0.6seconds apart.

I finish 6 seconds behind the group in front but I lost 3 of those seconds on the last lap slowing down way too much for the oil flags, the last lap is my slowest bar the first lap!!

I am a bit disappointed with my ride as I did think I could have been further up and didn’t get me act together until lap 3ish, but when I get the results I have finished 19th in the F400 and 3rd in Sub64 class. I’ve gotten lucky as one of the bikes that crashed at Hawthorns was the leading Sub64, but fuck it. 3rd is 3rd! I’ll be going home with a cheap hat and plastic pot!!

I really love following your write up's

What gearing were you running for Brands GP out of interest - are you still on the 14/42 you started with?

Thanks GeeTee, appreciate the kind words, it makes it a bit easier now I have the camera.

I changed the front for a 15 but left the rear so ran with 15/42.

i think i could have gotten away with a 15/43 but I forgot I had one in the toolbox so left the rear as 42.

It wasnt revving out but was close.

Caught you on my GoPro in quali going round the outside of me at Graham hill bend, my bike only lasted 1 more lap.

Ah shit bad news, did you manage to get it sorted and get back out?

Happy with Race 2,

I tried to be a bit stronger into turn 1 off the line, I actually make places up off the line on the initial jump, but seem to give those away again in the first corner. Which happens again but I really didn’t want those I’d gotten caught up with in race 1 getting past me and causing problem again in race 2.

The first lap and a half was a bit poor, I nearly got passed by Alan Clark going round the outside of me at Surtees on lap 2, this gave me the kick up the arse I needed and I got my head down and caught and passed Ray Petty in a lap, and to be honest going into Clearways at the end of lap 2 should have maybe gotten past Adam as this was an easier pass than the one I made on the last lap into clearways to grab 3rd sub64 from Adam.

The battle with Adam was great fun though, he’s a mega safe rider, and was a lot quicker than me at Donington so I was pleased to be able to battle with him at a track I don’t know, I seemed to be quicker than Adam through Sheene and westfield, but he got out of Clearways better than me everylap, luckily when I did make the pas on him he was expecting me to go wide so he could power up the inside of me and get me back before the line, I managed to hold it tight tho and this meant he had to roll and try to go round the outside of me, this was the only reason I managed to outdrag him to the line. I got 3rd in class by 0.065seconds.

We walked the track on Saturday night with Adam and about 30 other EDIAsia F400 riders as our sponsor was doing a charity walk around the track in aid of the British Lung Foundation, Our sponsor John is a big guy (150kgs ish) so although it doesn’t sound like much of a task it was and it was a great achievement when we completed it.

After this we went to the Presentation in the kentagon to get my two 3rd place pots and hats.



Sunday morn was wet, as was Sunday night, it bounced with rain overnight from about 4 onwards. Again we were late in the schedule, so we took the supercorsa’s out the bike and left it up on stands with no wheels in it to save time, the track was drying and the wind was warm as was the sun when it got out from behind the clouds. We had the inters in the warmers and thought it was a decision between these and the wets.

With about 40mins before our race I made my decision put the inters in and was happy………………….for all of 2 minutes, then questioned myself, should I really be out on the supercorsa’s? sometimes having 3 sets of tyres is a curse as it just throws additional confusion into the situation.

20 mins to go the suns out its warm and there is blue sky, shit I should be on supercorsa’s, there are a couple of damp patched but they will be fast disappearing, then the decision gets made for me.

The thunderbike race has just set off, its two races before ours, the 400’s that went out in the thunderbike race on wet tyres are all heading down pitlane on lap 2, they can’t stay out as they will trash the wets in a couple of laps.

We bung the rear supercorsa in and get it on the warmer ASAP, we leave the front as it is on the inter, we wont really have time to change the front and get it on the warmer quick enough to get any temp into it, and I don’t fancy paddock hill on a chilly front tyre. I have run the Dunlop KR364 on a hot dry day before when I first started racing and had no issues, but I am a bit quicker now than I was then, still I am happy that the inter will be ok.

Race 3 Sunday Morning