5th April 2003 - Lydden

I really don't like Lydden! I have a history there of falling off really early in the day and injuring myself and smashing my bike up. Despite this it was to be the inaugural round of the new MiniTwins championship that I had started with Tim Jones so I had to be there and I had to get out and race.

I have known Tim for a few years as we both instruct for the Motorcycle Folly. He has had an SV650 since they came out and suggested a race series using similar bikes. I put together some rules and regulations, arranged discounts with a number of suspension and race preparation suppliers and, after more phone calls and emails than I care to count, we had a full blown race series on our hands.

For the first meeting we had 16 bikes entered for the MiniTwins, 15 SV650s and a solitary Honda CB500. The weather forecast was for sunshine but I was still worried about the circuit and the problems with the forks. I had the preload washers now so the chatter should be reduced but I thought the forks were still al little soft. A quick call to Performance Techniques who has been preparing another SV650 for the MiniTwins and I was booked in to get them sorted.

Finally collected the forks on the Friday morning and immediately headed down to Lydden to get everything set up ready for Saturday. For a change there was no practice at Lydden before the race weekend so we were able to sit around in the sunshine after Red had done another top job at blagging somewhere for a group of us to park.

Up bright and early, well, early anyway on Saturday morning. Went and found one of the guys from Performance Techniques who adjusted the forks and rear shock to cope with the circuit a bit better, had the bike scrutineered and went out for ten minutes of practice. I had forgotten how scary I find Lydden. Despite being here a couple of weeks before I hadn't really been able to do much testing as the bike really wasn't ready so this was going to be a trial by fire!

I was a bit disappointed to find that I was gridded in 25th place. We were lined up on the back of the SuperTwins grid with the first MiniTwins bike up in 17th. Bah Humbug! I doubted it would make much difference as I would be taking it easy for a bit until I got my head around the place but it would have been nice to have the opportunity - That's 8 bikes less I would have to pass :-)

Race 1 - Mini Twins

Arrived on the grid and practiced my start on the warm up lap. Wow! Got it spot on with the front wheel just skipping over the tarmac. I made up almost two rows and scared myself as I wasn't used to it going so well! Of course when the real thing came around I messed it up a bit and was almost up with the row in front when Gary Nicholas started to move over on me. I had a choice of braking or heading for the grass so I did the valiant thing and made it round the corner in one piece.

The first couple of corners were insane with about six bike abreast at one point and everyone moving around trying to get a better line for the next corner. I'm just visible in the first photo just behind the number 74 Aprilia Mille. We started to spread out over the next few laps but despite giving away 50 odd horse power some of the slower Aprilias weren't pulling away as fast I had expected.

I stuck on to the back of a bunch of guys for a bit but they gradually pulled away. I had a few false neutrals going in to the scary left hander and started to drop back. With nobody to chase I slowed a little which was a mistake as towards the end I could see I had been slowly catching a Ducati 748S and could have caught him if I had got my head down a bit.

I tried to look around on the last couple of laps to see how hard to push but as there was nothing there I kept a slightly easier pace than I should have done. Turns out Gary Morris had been stalking me and was sitting right in my blind spot when I looked round. He came past as I braked for the last corner and despite having to take a strange line I had missed a gear going in so was in no position to catch him before the line. Doh!

A frustrating race but I had survived, I hadn't fallen off and it looked like I could stay with a few of the faster boys with a bit more practice. I ended up lapping in the low 50 second bracket which I was actually quite pleased with given my performance here on previous occasions. Despite giving a place away to Gary I still finished 12th out of 15 starters.

We did have 16 entries but Danny Sweet crashed in the morning practice breaking his collar bone. Get well soon mate!

Race 2 - Mini Twins

I was even more nervous for the second race as I was gridded one place down from my start position thanks to Gary Morris so there was no way I could get the outside line in to the first corner. I braked far too early letting a couple of bikes by that were gridded behind me. This proved to be a major headache and although I soon got by David Daws I was stuck behind Roger Wallace for most of the race. Roger had crashed here in the practice a couple of weeks ago and was rather nervous about the left hander. This was making him lose concentration and his riding was a bit unpredictable and we almost collided at every corner when I tried to get by.

I had already lost a couple of places so wasn't happy and really lost my sense of humour when I had to brake to avoid Roger again only to have David slip through the gap between us both and pull out a gap on us. Gary managed to bin it on the way out of the hairpin on lap 5 when I was stuck behind Roger. He slammed on the brakes to avoid Gary's bike and I almost ran in tot he back of him. Great, more time between us and the guys in front! After about 7 laps I got totally fed up and instead of showing Roger my front wheel a few times I simply pushed my way through on the way out of Chessons and set about catching the guys in front. I did manage to get down to almost the same lap times as the morning race which was good as I had completely lost my rhythm with all the near misses.

I finished in 12th place again but should have had at least two more places, if not more. Still I had a best lap of 0:50.35s versus Roger's best of 0:51.50s so it shows how much I was being held up. I was still in one piece although very tired. Hopefully Sunday would prove a bit more productive.

A good first outing on the SV650. Happy that I was in one piece and had been getting on okay although frustrated with myself that I should have done better getting through the traffic. Never mind, it'll come over the next few races.