21st & 22nd May 2005 - Silverstone

Silverstone MRO was my opportunity to have a go out on the other Mike Edwards' Minitwin. Mike is the co-founder of this race series with Tim Jones, set up as a low cost, close and competitive Championship for twin cylinder machine machines.

The rules, simply put, allow a maximum of 72BHP twins (which the Suzuki SV 650 is most common) with no modification to the major components yet allowing cosmetic changes including fairings, exhausts etc. Check out www.minitwins.co.uk for further details.

Mike had arranged a practice day on the Friday before the two day meeting but the weather was forecast was grim to say the least! We arrived early morning and finally met the other Mike Edwards in the flesh.
He showed me his machine, I thought it was going to be a Suzuki SV 650 but walking into the garage it turned out to be a Cagiva Raptor 650. A Suzuki motor but with a Cagiva 1000 Raptor chassis! As it turned out it was the only Cagiva in the race. Was there something he wasn't telling me?

The first session was wet but was the ideal chance to familiarise myself with the Silverstone club circuit and the bike. Even with full wets fitted the surface was extremely slippy and as for the last turn, well, 'a chicane from hell' is the only way to describe it!

Straight away I knew the rear suspension was miles away from being right, way too soft, even for a super lightweight rider, let alone my weight. Closer inspection revealed a 7kg spring on the Ohlins unit, I suggested changing to 9.5kg.

Steve Jordan was on hand to change the spring and also help us with the forks, that weren't right either.

The next session was dry, so now I could pick up the pace and start to push the front, I discovered the forks were still too hard in the dry; something would have to be done.

The pace of the bike was good and I began to feel at home on it. I really wanted to replace the fork springs for a lighter weight ones, but with none available, the best we could do was to just take some oil out of the forks and reduce the amount of preload on the spring.

Only problem now was the rain had started again, so after a few laps, unable to really try the changes, I pitted and called it a day.

Saturday, was similar weather, wet to start then drying out, with rain again at the end. I managed to miss the 5 minute untimed practice session as I (along with several other riders) couldn't find the assembly area in time. So any set up now would have to be done in the timed session. The rain eventually stopped but the surface was very wet with lots of lying water so with full wets on I ventured out on to track.

I thought it would be a good idea to hook on to the back of a quick rider to judge my pace, and as luck would have it I was in the same group as 'Sideshow' Bob Collins, he clearly knew where he was going and set a great pace. I caught and passed him but now suffered with poor vision, my visor was misting up badly so after about 5 laps I pitted. I was quite pleased to find out I had set pole position, not bad after just 5 laps!

I felt the bike was much better but we were running out of things to change, the forks although better were still too firm but having no replacement springs I took out some more oil and reduced the rebound damping.

Saturday's race was like a Super Pole event where the first four riders home could move up on the grid if they finished higher than their timed position! It was at this point that I realised that I had not practiced a start, but no worries the bikes are so easy to ride that getting them off the line is easy. Maybe too easy because at turn one it seemed that everyone had got a good start, it was a real shoulder to shoulder thing.

The track was almost dry, so I had gone for the Pirelli Superport tyres, they were perfect with plenty of grip. The race quickly settled down between 'Sideshow Bob' and myself, however ex motocross Champion Perry Leask was on fire.

He joined us and made his way to the front, still feeling my way I followed him for a while before passing him and then tried to break the tow. Perry lost the front in turn one crashing out. Bob and I continued our battle to the end with me holding him off to the flag taking pole position.

Initially on Sunday the weather looked like it would be much better. The first race was dry, and after the start I put my head down and tried to get away, but the bike was protesting.

The rear under acceleration wallowed around and I was running out of ground clearance, after a couple of near do's I opted to slow the pace down and control it from the front. This worked fine for a while, only the chasing group caught Bob and I up, so I had to do a bit of 'danger braking' to keep in front, it was a really close thing and over the line I thought I had it in the bag. Major problem being where the flag was, in fact was not the finish line - but the start line! I crossed it waving at young Matt Bond and closed the throttle. The finish line was a further 10 yards up the track, and as a consequence he pipped me by 0.006 of a second. Bugger! A real novice thing to do - but I'd had a great race all the same.

The weather was very changeable, one minute raining then bright sun, a nightmare. At the start of race two it was drizzling with rain, most of the track was damp but with 12 laps to play with, and the sun looked like it was coming out, so I thought it would pay off to take a few laps to assess the conditions.

My decision seemed to work; Matt fell on lap one, at the second corner, and 'Sideshow Bob Collins' was off and running looking like he was going to disappear into the distance, however second lap second corner he suffered a similar fate to Matt.

The conditions were very difficult, the bike was moving around all the time but I concentrated on pressing on as fast as I thought I could go whilst staying upright.

Keeping an eye on my pit board my lead soon went up 2, 5, 8, 12, 15 seconds. I just kept going because in the past I have slowed down, only then to loose concentration and make mistakes, or even fall off! That was not going to happen today! The win along with my second place earlier gave me the overall race win.

I really enjoyed my outing on Mike's Cagiva and meeting lots of the other riders in the class reinforced the feeling that this class has a great future. Friendly guys and girls on good competitive machines all able to race on a extremely realistic budget. Long live the Minitwins!

PS. as Arnie says "I'll be back".

Silverstone had a mini tornado that picked up one of the marquees being erected for WSB - and dumped it trackside. Luckily no one was hurt.