28hodge wrote:Hi Benny,

yeah we were in garage 26 I think. he got all sorted out and with a bit of luck he should be on the grid at brands but it kinda depends on him getting an aprillia rs125 sold to fund his season.

you got yours up and running?

We were in 25! Had a FZR in my garage with me and that was the only Yam i noticed. Was a NC30 a few garages down too in pretty standard trim. Then mine that never ran...

Brands Indy Round 1

I have never been to the opening round of the BMCRC championships, mainly as its early in the year so I haven't ridden and need to do a trackday, also as brands is 5hours from my house its a very long way to go for sub 1minute lap times, even if you do get 12 lap races.

However this year I need to get as much racing done early in the year as my girlfriend is pregnant, she is due on 4th July so after that I may have to knock racing on the head for this year, though I am still pretty certain I will be at brands GP as I think its on equal terms as Oulton as being my favourite track.

So as Bemsee have introduced a new super slick online booking system I have booked every round other than round 2 snetterton as family commitments make this impossible and round 6 I think at Pembrey as that is the same date as the baby due date.

I was mega keen for this year as I have done loads to the bike, its had a full engine refresh and then been set up and played with the carbs reverting back to running a full airbox and pulling 63 on Dynotechs Dynapro dyno.

I have also put a full 675 front end in along with R6 radial calipers and radial M/C. Other than it leaking oil out of the gearbox output shaft on a trackday 3 weeks before meaning I had to get the engine out, down to the engine builder and then get it all back together in 1 weekend ready for brands everything went pretty smoothly.

I however didn't get allocated a garage which was a bit of a nightmare, I sent my email bang on 2pm when booking for garages become available, but apparently 120 people managed to email before me! smelt fishy to me but lucky Bean stepped in a saved the day by letting me share his garage. I'd have been sunk without it as my dad was away with the generator and my Gala tent is pretty rubbish.

So I Loaded up Thursday night and had Friday off work, plan was to set off at 10.30 ish and get to brands for 3.30ish. thankfully traffic was good and I did the trip in a new PB of 4hrs 40mins. I unloaded to go to tech only to feel a little play in the headset when I wheeled the bike out the van so had to take the top yoke off and nip that up prior to going through tech and then unloaded into the garages.

Friday night happened, my brother turned up I went to bed, I got up busting for a piss at 4amish and once again had to venture across the pits in my boxer shorts but other than that it was pretty uneventful.

Morning quali, we were the 5th group on a 10 race schedule for the weekend. it was dry but cold and pretty windy so the supercorsa's were on, I was pretty nervous before quali, I hadn't ridden since brands GP back in August which was getting on for 7 months ago, and I hadn't ridden the Indy circuit, ok I had ridden the GP circuit but even so from Graham hill bend to Paddock was new to me, which in reality is half the Indy circuit.

I did a couple of slow laps to get a feeling as other than 3 trackday sessions bedding in the refreshed engine until I had to pack up and come home due to the oil leak, I hadn't ridden with the new front end and brakes.

The 675 front end is completely ridiculous, I mean the braking power and positive feeling you get with the front end is stunning. I grant you I was coming from the original damper rod forks but still, my brakes were totally overhauled with new seals and they felt like bits of wood compared to the radials. Nobody needs a NC30 with 675 forks and radial brakes for the road but on track, its the only worthwhile front end swap in my eyes.

I could brake so hard going into Druids that I could have the rear end of the bike 2ft in the air and the thing was stable and solid as a rock. I however was not, I felt a bit un co ordinated and felt as if I was snatching at things, basically I was a little rusty and it showed, no where near as bad as I was a the start of last year at Silverstone where I was utter rubbish.

I qualified 25th out of 36 F400's the 12 F400 rookies were on a separate grid.

My best lap was a 58.941 which was ok but really those that I battled with last year at Brands GP were 2 seconds up the road so I had plenty to improve on. However I managed to get 12 laps in during Quali and each was faster than the previous bar 2 were there was yellow flags out for a big highside out of Druids so we had to slow down.

The bike felt ok but a little odd at certain parts of the track at certain rev ranges, I couldn't really put my finger on it but it felt really good from low down.

Race one I stuck the camera on so here it is -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBsvhb7JFxw

I think I could have done better in race one, and was a bit pissed off with myself whilst I stood at trackside watching the final 2-3 laps of the race.

I got a really good start, I had swapped the NC35 box out and put the original nc30 back in as even after the short trackday I could tell I preferred the nc30 box over the 35’s. The 30 box is meant to be worse of the line, but I made a belter of a start and should really have stuck it out round the outside into paddock and nipped past a few more, but decided to try to get back to the apex of paddock so that I could have a run down the inside at some others and outbrake them into Druids.

I snuck past Dan Hardy into Druids but the bike felt a little odd at the top of the rev range, This was pretty clear on the start straight where I got spanked by anything and everything around me, Dan came past like I’d stopped, OK he’s in the full power F400 class but still he left me for dust, and I had to try and make back the time on the brakes into Paddock and Druids which I did, but every lap they’d pull on me from the exit of Clearways to paddock and started to edge away.

Then I got stuck up behind James Buckett on his ZXR, I was quicker but couldn’t make a pass stick as I didn’t have the punch to get past and he’d also gap me down the start finish straight, my only option was to run through Surtees quicker and dive down the inside at Clearways and pull a bit of a block pass as my lack of top end power didn’t effect me as much here.

Two dummy runs and I got it done, only for the bike to drop onto 3 cylinders coming out of Clearways and then not want to rev, I thought that the battery had died but the clocks were still working so I guessed that it must have been something else as the first thing that goes when the power drops is the clocks as they freeze up. Which they hadn’t so I was a bit stumped.

Even more so when the bike fired up and ran on 3 when I went to put it into the back of the recovery van. Then ran as if nothing had happened when back in the garages. Lifting the tank off soon solved the issue, I run a long fuel hose that loops round to the left handside of the bike where there is a dry break connector as my fuel tap leaks. This lets me break the fuel line to stop it pouring fuel into the sump when its sat. But does mean that unless I route the fuel hose correctly it can get pinched between the tank and the rear cylinder rocker cover which is what had happened.

At a guess the fuel was dribbling through and keeping the bike running but wasn’t filling the carb float bowls as quickly as they were being drained, and this only got worse when the fuel tank got lower towards the end of the race and there was less head to force the fuel through the gravity fed system. It also explained the poor running at higher revs and speeds and why I was taking such a spanking down the start straight.

Thankfully an easy fix and £1.50p and a 2” longer piece of fuel hose later we were ready for race 2.

Looking at my lap times in race 1 was encouraging as they were really consistent, all a little down on what I’d ideally like but more than likely some of that was down to the bike lacking a little top end power due to the fueling issue. With that sorted I was confident that I could drop the times down by at least 1sec to 1.5 secs and be in and around where I felt I should be.

Due to the DNF I had to go from the back of the grid with only the other DNF’ers from race one behind me.
2 of which were rapid so if I could grab a wheel of them for a lap or so that’d be a big help.

So here's race 2 from the back of the grid in slot 31,

I got up to 22nd F400 and 5th Sub64 which was OK but I think I could have been in the top three of the sub’s if I had not been at the back of the grid. I got so badly baulked on lap one especially up the start finish straight and lost so much time here that it made getting in touch with the leading sub64 bikes a bit of an impossible task. Still it’s my own fault for DNF’ing race 1.

I got another really good jump on the start and fired past 2 rows of bikes and got up behind Dave Haviek, I should of held on and gone right round the outside at Paddock but decided to drop in behind and try and get up the inside at Druids instead and this cost me loads of time as I got baulked from here on until lap 2 when the field had spread out a little.

I had a bit of a moment with Danielle Cooper at Paddock on lap 2 where I thought I had the pass made until Steve Young dived up the inside of me and took my eye leaving Danielle the opportunity to drop across in front of me, I thought I was going to clip her at one point and had to grab a bit more front brake than I wanted, Which with the radials being so strong is a bit of an issue when you suddenly need to squeeze the lever a touch more whilst leant over.

I managed to nip past Danielle after Graham Hill and then tried to tag onto Dan Hardy and Steve Young and make my way through with them two, which I did ok with, the only issue was staying with them when we got to slower riders as they were able to punch past out of Clearways up the start finish and I didn’t seem to have the power to do that. Both Steve and Dan are on full power ZXR’s so that made sense that they had that little extra to get them past.

Dan & Steve got past Steve Born and Harley up the start straight and into Druids and I felt pretty happy I could get out of Druids well and out brake Harley into Graham hill, but I made an utter arse of a gear change heading down into Graham Hill and had to abort that plan,

I really didn’t wnt to get stuck behind them for another lap and let Dan and Steve Young go, I had a go at getting Harley outta cascades but had to roll otherwise out lines would have met.

Next lap I pull the pass I was trying to do when I missed a gear, Steve Born had tagged onto Dan and Steve Young and it took me a lap to get anywhere near them again, having lost a bit of time behind Harley.

We get lapped by the first two which is hardly surprising as they are pulling mid to low 51.s.
Steve Born makes a little mistake into Druids, I seemed able to catch time on him into paddock on the brakes and into Druids and this coupled with him going in to tight to early into druids and then possibly being in the wrong gear and not being able to get on the power till late as he was wide on the exit, this allows me to power past and hold him off on the brakes into Graham Hill.

I can’t see any other sub64 bikes but decided to get my head down and see if I could get back up to Steve and Dan.

And I damn near do and really push on the last lap, I get right up behind Dan and steve into Clearways but I am never going to have the power to outdrag them to the line.

I finish 22nd F400 and 5th Sub64 the laptimes are good also each lap is quicker than the previous and they steadily march down to the last lap where I got clear track and pushed hard to get back to Steve & Dan, a stick in a 56.282, happy with that as I still feel rusty and know I am not riding as well as I was at the end of last year. With a couple more dry races tomorrow I am pretty confident I can drag another second out of the laptime.

However the weather doesn’t look like it’s about to help let that happen!!

However the weather doesn’t look like it’s about to help let that happen!!

It was always forecast to rain on the Sunday, in truth the weather on Saturday had forecast rain that never quite happened so the fact we got 2 dry races on Saturday was a bonus.

The rain woke me at about 5.30ish and steadily got worse, Morning warm up was 3 laps, a few went out, I didn’t see the point, I rarely do, it’s just an opportunity to crash, and leave yourself racing to get the bike kicked straight for the first race, even more so in the wet. And it’s was definitely wet and the only tyre option was full wets.

I don’t mind the wet, I think this is as I raced MX for so many years that the depreciation in grip between a dry track to a wet track doesn’t bother me too much, the difference in grip from a dry MX track to a wet one is massive, whereas circuit racing the difference in grip is nowhere near as much between wet and dry.

My main issue is my tyres, my rear is 14 years old, when I first got it I managed to misread the date stamp and thought it was manufactured in 2010, but it’s not, it’s dated 2001! So that’s not ideal, and the front isn’t a lot better as its 2006 I think.

Anyway I have used them before at Oulton last year in race 1 where it was really really wet, and they were fine and I got my best result to date in the full F400 class with 15th.

However I had a feeling the chances of crashing where pretty high, as Brands in the wet is pretty slippery, especially graham hill bend. So I decided not to put the camera on as I figured that it was only something else to replace if I did crash, then changed my mind and slung it on last minute, only to forget to put the memory card in it!!

Which is a bit of a bugger as I had a mega race, I got up from 22nd to 7th in the main F400 class, and 3rd Sub64, so got a pot and a hat for my efforts.

I was on grid slot 22 so the left-hand side of row 8, meaning I was again on the outside for Paddock hill.

I again got a belter of a start, 3 for 3 so far, my starts were really good, but seemed to disappear towards the back end of last year, but at Brands all weekend the starts are one thing I nailed in every race.

I am hazy on the details of this race, but I do remember wondering in the first couple of laps why everyone was going so slowly, I seemed to be passing bikes quite easily and felt pretty comfortable, it wasn’t raining as we started but it begun raining again as the race went on.

I was pretty consistent with my laptime up to lap 7 they were all within .500 of each other, but as I came across the line each lap I could see a pit board being hung out for someone else behind me, and it was decreasing until lap 8 where it was reading +0. So I had someone right behind me, worse still I knew who it was as I had clocked the fella holding out the board on the pit straight. It was Dave Harviek behind who was in the same garage as us and also in the sub64 class.

I stuck my head down, I had been trying to keep pace with Ricky McGovern as he’s normally pretty quick and races the Manx so guessed he’d be a good gauge, he’d slowly gotten away from me, but for the next 4 laps I managed to keep the gap between me and Ricky the same, and dropped my laptimes by around 2secs.

But on the second to last lap Dave managed to slip up the inside of me into Graham Hill putting me 4th in sub64! But he had gone in hot ran ever so slightly wide on the exit and this let me get good drive and get alongside him into Surtees where I held my nerve and braked later and got back in front heading into clearways.

Last lap and I pushed like hell and took some risks. I was struggling into Graham hill where there was a river running across the track right where I was wanting to get off the gas from exiting Druids and get on the brakes and come back one gear for graham hill. Every lap I was getting the back moving through this section, which unsettled the bike and made me a little slow into and round Graham Hill.

On the last lap I held the gas open a fraction longer and then braked a little harder after I had cleared the stream, and this settled the bike a lot better than I had been every lap into Graham Hill. I was conscious that Dave had gotten past me down here the previous lap, so knew I had to take a risk into here to keep him behind, and it seemed to work as I managed to keep Dave behind and get over the line in 8th F400 and 3rd Sub64, with a best lap on the last lap of 1.02.042. The last lap was my best lap by 0.750secs

But it needed to be as Dave did his best lap of 1.02.217 on the last lap also. My 8th got amended to 7th overall as Ricky McGovern finished 7th but was awarded a 10sec penalty for passing under a yellow flag.

7th F400 is by far and away my best result in the F400 class so I was and am made up with that, but a little downbeat with my 3rd in Sub64, being 7th F400 I kinda thought that would result in a better sub64 placing, but it goes to show just how competitive the sub64 class is with the leading sub64 class bikes regularly well into the top 10 in the full class.

I was happy with Race 3, looking at the laptimes though I think I maybe should have been a bit quicker in the middle of the race, the last lap was my quickest but the next quickest was .700 slower and that was the only lap within a second of my best, but in the middle of the race I was out on my own, which never helps, and couldn’t see a sub64 bike so didn’t want to go down chasing Ricky in the full F400 class.

At some point I nipped down to see Kieran from here who was doing his first race weekend in the Rookies class. I’d nipped down to see if I could find him earlier, I managed to find his bike & Van but he was elsewhere. Caught him second time round and had a chat and was good to put a name to a face.

Between race 3 and 4 we packed the van as much as we could get away with and gave the bike a once over, I didn’t really expect to have to change anything ready for race 4 but with about 1.5hrs until my race a dry line was just starting to appear. It had stopped raining and there was a strong breeze which was drying the track more than I thought it would. The minitwins were race 1 and we were 5, they all went out on wets, but there was little to no spray coming off them.

I hate this sort of situation, especially when I have inters, which should be about perfect for the conditions, but I don’t trust them as I think they are past their best, being a proper race tyre age kills them, still ok for a trackday but maybe not ideal for pushing 100% in races.

My options were, risk full drys, or a wet front dry rear, or use the KR364 inters and hope they would be ok, which was a bit of an unknown or go with full wets as there was a chance of rain around 4.30pm according to MetCheck which was right around the time our race would be out.

In the end I put the KR364 rear in and a wet front, then 2 races before mine changed the wet front out for the kr364 inters as the track looked dry but still had damp patches. It looked quite bright and clear so I was guessing we would get done without any further rainfall.

My other concern was thanks to my good result in race 3 I was going off the front of the 3rd row. If it had been wet this would have been great, as I’d have had the speed to run in that position, but in drier conditions there were plenty behind me that had much better dry pace so I was going to have a fight on my hands to try and stay anywhere near where I was starting from.

I’d managed to put the memory card in the camera this time so here is Race 4

Love this, videos, detailed break downs of meeting and races, I feel I was there even though I'm not. We need pictures of the track beast and trophies.

Cheers Royster, glad my waffling keeps you entertained.

Ask and you shall receive, Some photo's from the weekend, most of which are from Dan Hardy's mum who spends a massive amount of time snapping all classes in all weathers.




Waiting for the bus of shame back to the pits after stopping in race 1



Chasing Dan through in race 2

As close to getting my knee down as I get