Cheers Mark,

Here is Race 4 from Sunday afternoon

Race 4 was good fun, again I felt like I was battling the entire race.

I was a bit too timid off the start, I got a good launch and should have held it on a little more into turn one, but it’s easy saying that whilst watching it back, at the time not so!

I made another lunge up the inside into surtees, but it massively hurt me, as I buggered my run down pilgrims and with the pack so tightly bunched I got nabbed by Adam, I tried to get up the inside of him into Hawthorns, but in all honestly, I didn’t have the balls to chuck it in, as going down would have taken us both down and it would have really hurt.

I try to stick with Adam but he’s just got a little more pace, however we seem to drag our way back to the group in front.

I managed to get better drive out of there on lap 3 and nick past Darren Corkett on his Castrol VFR, and then im really quick from here to Stirlings, the entire pack has bunced up and heading into Stirlings I get the short end of the straw, I go wide, completely miss the apex and lose all the time ive made back up and lose the place ive just gained back to Darren. So basically a complete balls up!

Head down and I try and get back through, Adam Darren the TZR of Doug Edmondson are all sub64 and the group in front of them has 2nd place sub64 Dave Haveriek in it. I need to get past and onto the back of Adam who will hopefully drag me through to the next group.

I again try and pull a move into Hawthorns and go underneath both Doug and Darren into Hawthorns but can’t make it happen, I Brake as late as I dare and lift he rear wheel off the deck going into Hawthorns but have to pull out the move.

Then a miracle happens, I have been trying to really push myself into stirlings and clearways as I know I’m weak here, I pass Doug round clearways!!! I was genuinely shocked, I can only assume he made a total hash of it!

The next couple laps are spent dicing with Darren and Doug whilst James Robinson, whis quicker than us, yo yo’s backwards and forwards through the pack as he keep making errors. Its good fun but we are all holding each other up and costs ourselves time so that the group in front break away from us.

I need to get past Darren so push to get up behind him again, however I miss the last lap flag (I did miss it this time as it was out, you can see it on the vid, but I missed it!) so heading into clearways I was halfway alongside Darren but pull out of the move not realising it was the last lap. I then turn too tight really and get a little slide, robbing me of drive.

I should really of passed Darren here, if I’d have forced the issue I could have passed him into Clearways and then out dragged him to the line, but as I thought I had another lap I backed out of it. My own fault but still a little annoying.

So I finish up 5th in sub64, with a best lap of 1.45.614 so a lump faster again from race 3. 0.700 faster infact so happy with that. Even more encouraging is the “Potential” best lap which is the best sector times over the race through the 3 sectors, this shows my best 3 sectors would give me a 1.44.817 so another 0.800 quicker potentially.

Normally my fastest lap and my “Potential” fastest is very similar but this show the laptime I can produce all I need to do now is pull it all together, The fact I was battling most of the race kinda explains why the “Potential” and actual fastest laps are a bit different as there was not really 1 lap where I was completely on my own and able to put a clean lap together.

Although im a little let down with myself for not have gotten 4th I am made up as I again seem to have taken a step forward all weekend every time I have gotten on the bike. And for me that’s the most important thing at the minute.

I was happy with Brands as a round, I was rusty as I expected to be due to being off the bike etc, but I progressed quickly. Last year I felt this was by far my most competitive round, and to beat my PB in race 1, where to be honest I felt I rode a bit poor and inconsistent, was encouraging. I was a little disappointed with the results, but I can’t effect how others are riding and we have new riders in the class this year who seem to be raising the strength at the front of the class.

It’s a good thing really as it’ll only help me improve, and also only build on the classes strength so that it remains as a full prominent class within the Bemsee club.

The next round up was Cadwell park, where i had not been last year as i had to miss that round and i'd also had to miss the round that the club ran there in June this year due to expecting the birth of my daughter.

The last time i was there was in 2013, when i was in my first year of racing, so i expected to be able to beat my PB and had set an idea in my head of where i wanted to be at in terms of laptimes. I was however a bit apprehensive about the results as i had a feeling I'd be struggling to be near the front of the sub64 class.

Good luck at the next meeting

Cadwell is the most physically challenging circuit I've ridden so far, with Oulton Park coming a close second

Cheers GeeTee,

Cadwell was last weekend, and was an utter disaster, all of my own making, I'll write it up over the next few days once I stop sulking!

Oh dear - sorry to hear that

The next round up was Cadwell park, I had not been to Cadwell last year as I had to miss that round and I'd also had to miss the round that the club ran there in June this year due to expecting the birth of my daughter.

The last time I was there was in 2013, when I was in my first year of racing, so I expected to be able to beat my PB and had set an idea in my head of where I wanted to be at in terms of laptimes. I was however a bit apprehensive about the results as I had a feeling I'd be struggling to be near the front of the sub64 class.

So I travelled across on Friday got set up and had a catch up with some people, setting up took and age with the awning etc.

Tea track-walk and bed was about as exciting as Friday got.

Saturday I woke up at 4ish to the sound of rain, we were the first group out on sat morn for quali so this was not a good sign, as the track would probably be a damp patchy affair for our qualifying.
Which it was the track from hall bends was wet, the course car had spray coming up from the tyres when it went through, but out in the open from charlies to the top of the goose neck was dry, Mansfield and the chicane was wet but the mountain was again dry.

Tyre choice was a pain, there was no right tyre. So I stuck a wet front in with a dry rear. I thought it would be very easy to lose the front in the cold wet sections, if it felt really sketchy I would simply do 3 laps so as to put one full lap in and qualify, then come in rather than risk a crash.

In the end it was ok, but I was losing the rear coming down gears on the wet areas especially into the chicane, I qualified poorly but as I was also attempting to learn the track as well as deal with the half dry half wet track I wasn’t too fussed. Best lap was the last lap of 2.05.503 25th on the grid out of 34 F400 bikes.

My previous PB was a 1.53. So a way to go, and I had set myself a target time of under a 1.48.000 for the Saturday, hoping to sneak into the 1.45.000’s in the Sunday races as the ultimate aim.

This weekend as I was lacking in track knowledge massively I had entered the Thunderbike sport class to try and get me some extra tracktime to get myself a bit more familiar with the track and get consistent. So this meant I at least got a fully dry quali session in thunderbike sport a couple hours later.

This gave me an extra 5 laps to learn the track in the dry and I got my times down to 1.56.049 putting me 10th on the thunderbike sport grid, I was pretty happy with that as after 5 dry laps I was pretty close to my existing PB and I wasn’t trying that hard and spent a couple laps tucked up behing slower riders on bigger capacity bikes who got in my way in the corners and then blasted me down the straights. I spent two consecutive laps passing them on the brakes from the gooseneck to charlies only for them all to come steaming past me down park straight.

So with Quali done it was time to get ready for F400 race 1 which was pretty soon after the Thunderbike sport quali.

We messed up with the camera’s and for one reason or another managed to forget to put them on the bike for race 1. This is a shame as this would have explained where my weekend took a massive downward spiral.

Race 1 was hard work, I spent all race stuck behind riders that had risked a bit more in quali than me. So I was starting to get a little frustrated, eventually I got past them all and cam round for the last lap. Only to miss a gear down park straight and let a rider back past me.

I past this rider into Mansfield the previous lap pretty easily by carrying good speed through the gooseneck and then out braking them down the inside into Mansfield, so this was the plan to get them back, but I expected them to anticipated this and protect their line into Mansfield.

I never got this far though, I came into the goose neck quick, and missed the apex for the first right, making me really wide for the left, I threw it in anyway and could feel the front pushing for what felt like an age before I lost the front and lowsided.

It was a strange experience, I have only had 2 very small low speed crashes this one was pretty quick, but to be honest was nothing scary. I have crashed MX bikes a lot in the previous 25 years of racing them and in comparision this was lovely.

I even had time to peer over my shoulder to keep an eye on the bike as it bounced its way down the grass on the right hand side of the track on the exit of Gooseneck, all I could think was please don’t let it dig in and flip, thankfully it didn’t.

I jumped up once I had slowed down a bit and jogged to the bike so I could turn it off so as not to let it run on its side and damage itself but it stalled just as I got to it, but it had only been ticking over whilst on its side so I wasn’t too worried it would have harmed itself.

So I left it to the marshalls and walked out of the way to the barriers. Pissed off at myself for having a dumb crash on the last lap.

The laptimes were good in the race best of a 1.47.487, encouraging given my lack of riding around Cadwell and this was race one of a possible 8. Crashing the bike though was less encouraging!!

The bike looked to be in OK shape. It needed a little bit of a fibreglass repair to the lowers a clip on tube and the tyga rearset was snapped on the hanger. All stuff I carry as spares so I was pretty happy we would be able to get it out and give it a test in the thunderbike race to check it was A OK.

How wrong was I, the main damage repaired we went back through scruitineering and then when called went to park ferme for the thunderbike race. And this is where we ran into problems, whilst pulling away to go to the dummy grid from the parc ferme it dropped onto 3 cylinders. It ran ok till I got to the grid where I wasn’t sure what was happening, mainly as I couldn’t hear the bike as I was on the grid next to a sodding noisy rattly Italian POS, that the rider insisted on blipping away at the throttle constantly.

I started the warm up lap and it was running rough as hell on 3 cylinders, so I pulled off and headed back to the pits.

The bike stunk of fuel so we pulled the tank off and sure enough the overflow from the carbs were pissing fuel, so we had 3 races to pull the carbs off and get it sorted, the inlet was full of fuel so whilst I took the float bowl off the offending carb to make sure the float was ok my brother pulled the plug out and turned the engine over to get rid of the flooded fuel.

Bike back together we start it up and the thing wont idle properly, the revs won’t fall below 4000rpm. Guessing its drawing air through a carb clamp we pull the carbs again re seat them try again same thing. Fast approaching the call for the 2nd F400 race I’m running out of ideas, the bike seems fine but it won’t idle below 4000 rpm, the idle adjuster is all the way out. And I’m out of ideas.

As it is throttle related I can’t/won’t risk riding it in case something is amiss and the throttle sticks open, this would be bad obviously, but more to the point I’d feel 10 times worse if it also affected someone else, I won’t risk taking someone else out so the only safe option is to watch the 2nd F400 race and then try and get the bike sorted for a test in the 2nd Thunderbike sport race so that we are good to go for Sundays races.

It’s annoying but it’s the only safe and sensible choice.

After fiddling about it appears that the barrel on the carb where the throttle cable attached is not fully returning, its staying open a fraction, the throttle is closing and snapping shut perfectly, but if I give it a shove with my finger with the bike running the barrel will move a tiny amount (like 2mm) this is enough though, doing this drops the revs to the normal idle. I have no clue whats caused this to happen, we remove the carbs again and with a toothbrush and some WD40 and this cures it………… Briefly.

After running for a couple mins and blipping the throttle to make sure it’s all solved it reverts back to the 4000k idle game. I’m stumped, I don’t want to adjust the carbs to make it tick over correctly as if it suddenly decided to return correctly then the bike will stall out. But im also not happy with it ticking over at 4k rpm as if we get held on the grid or parc ferme the bike is going to get hot and quick!

We put it back together and decide to give it a run in the thunderbike sport race, but only as I am happy that the throttle won’t stick open, it is returning and snapping shut as it should it is literally just staying open a tiny tiny fraction.

I put the camera on for the 2nd thunderbike sport race, but I was really just testing the bike to make sure it ran properly, which it seemed to do, it was a fairly dull race, I’ll upload it at some point but I basically got stuck behind a steelie 600 that was slow as hell in the corners and held me up then sodded off down the straights, I wasn’t that arsed, I was more interested in giving the bike a shake down and cocking about over the mountain.

The times were kinda irrespective but even so we were down in 1.49.260 so not too bad considering I was getting held up horribly in places and I wasn’t push too hard.

OK ive neglected this as well a 6month old daughter takes up a lot of time, and to be honest after Cadwell I was a bit pissed off.

Basically the rest of Cadwell went a bit like this –

First race on Sunday F400 race 1 – bike ran but felt shit and I was struggling to do much, then it dropped onto 3 and it felt like it was bvattery related but the clocks were still working, then I was made to pull off and sit and watch the race as you can’t tour on the track which I essentially was.

We checked it over A LOT, AGAIN found nothing

Second race of the day thuderbike sport race 1, pulled off on the warm up lap as once again the bike was farting and burping and dropping onto 3.

Stumped we changed out the coils as I really wanted the bike to run and finish the F400 race as I needed championship points.

Race 3 of the day F400 race 2 the bike finally runs OK, but it feels a little off when picking the throttle up in certain corners, anyway it runs we make progress forwards and we finish a race for only the 2nd time out of 6 attempts!!

Basically the weekend was ballsed up thanks to crashing in race 1, still it happens.

Here is the 2nd F400 race from Sunday starring VFRKieran












https://youtu.be/tn2m6k_2nr4

The only good things to come out of Cadwell