HELLO AGAIN!!!!

It has been a long while since i posted any thing up on here but that is because i have been busy trying to get my collarbone sorted after another break!!! this injury put me out for the rest of the season so the tainted fzr has gone and im getting myself fit and ready for the upcoming season.

while i have been off my dad has been racing and has done very well for an old timer! at the last 4 rounds of the year he was in the points 11 times with 8 of those in the top 10. (the pic is of dad on his way to his best finish of 4th at snetterton!) all of these results put him in 15th overall in the championship, which has left him hungry for more so a new bike, and a new aim of podium finishes and a top 5 in the championship leave him with a great challenge for 2010 so good luck dad!!

My 2010 season has already started with me getting myself fit and ready as well as getting my new bike ready. i have bought my dads Honda cbr600 from him so there is no excuses now as he has proved what the bike can do. we got the cbr dyno tested to find that we are running the same horsepower as the 2008 and 2009 championship winning cbr600 ( which also missed out on the 2007 title by 1 point!) the main difference between the 2 bike is the fact the champions bike has ram air and a fuel pump, which we have bought so definately no excuses now.

im really excited about this year as the thunderbike uk championship team have announced that they will be running a rookie cup in 2010 which has given me an added incentive as i believe i have the abilty to be 'up there' with this bike and as all rookies experience is 'limited' were all in the same boat!

not only is this a going to be a good year racing wise, its going to be an amazing year for me personally as my girlfriend has agreed to marry me and we tie the knot on aug 7th!!! she has put up with alot from me over these past 4 years with one thing or another so i thought i was going to be told where to go when i asked!..... she must be glutten for punishment. love you babe!

Hope everyone has a very merry christmas and a great new year!

HERES TO 2010!!!!!

Cadwell park may 16 - 17

With the collar bone freshly healed and the bike sort of back in one piece the trip for the second round of the bumpstop thunderbike uk championship could commence!

for this round and hopefully the rest of the season my dad has got himself a cbr 600 to race in the series so the rivalry would start at cadwell!

The rain had fallen on the saturday morning so the wets wer on for the first practice session on the now drying track. first go out on the wets and i was surprised to find how much grip they do give you, all though they did give me a little warning as i had a bit of a tank slapper out of the old hairpin under the trees! at the end of the session i found myself with the 18th fastest time while my dad ( coming back after a 20 odd year lay off from racing) came in in 22nd. The grid for the first race was sorted out on previous results so how i ended up in 17th is anybodies guess as i believe i landed on head the last time i rode my bike!

The first race is about to go and as i let go of my clutch the bike seems to be hardly moving even though it is revving really highly!... great lap 1 and a slipping clutch! i manage to gain a couple of places from where i had found myself back in 28th to finish 26th. not to bad considering but i was hoping to try and challenge for some points as my grid slot was so good.

right time to sort out the clutch. me, my dad and my pit man for the weekend ( joshy) had the great task of finding out what had gone wrong and to try and sort the problem before race 2. a few hours later the first of three calls for our race came over the tannoy! bugger, time to put the bike back together! my dad and just manage to get to the grid in time only to be told that we miss our warm up lap, and have to start at the back of the grid.

so after dads 20th postion in race 1 we was gutted to have to start 28th with me 29th . as the lights go out the same thing happens again the clutch is spinning. so again its a case of just riding to finish so a 25th was not a bad result again.

overnight we had the help of rob bean a fellow thunderbiker who unfortunately couldnt ride as his zxr had had enough on the friday practice day. we did what we could, or rob did what he could i should say, but the damage had been done. it turns out that the fzr with a wet clutch cannot handle a synthetic oil!?! so the clutch plates were beyond repair! nothing we can do about it so we wait fo sunday....

the hevans had opened so on go the wets again and off we go! the race was so much fun with the bike sliding around every where! i never liked riding in the rain on the road but this was great! with my best ever result of 21st i was more than happy. especially when i found that my dad finished 20th! ill get you next time old man!hahaha.

for the 4th and final race the rain got worse and worse, so my dad had decided to pull out and not risk an accident. i couldnt wait! but as we set of down the start finish straight i notice that my rear wheel felt extremly wobbley so after losing all my places to end up last i found that i couldnt ride round the problem so i pulled in to find that my tyre was full of cracks and was telling me it had had enough. glad i pulled in another accident wouldnt look too good!

overall it was a good weekend with some good results and some great fun but i couldnt help feeling gutted about my dnf but thats racing.....

see you next time at snetterton

Brands hatch march 7-8

Friday 6th- the vans loaded and my dad and i are ready for the trip down to brands. Once were there we get the marquee set up and the van unloaded. then we decide to go for a wonder and it hits us just how unprepared we really are! we meet a really good bloke who races an fz750 in the thunderbikes called phil smith without his help i would have been in the gravel at paddock hill!

On the saturday we borrowed a pump off phil to sort out the tyre pressures(they were 10psi in both!) and i start getting myself ready after a night on the van floor! i head out for qualifying which was also my first time on the bike. luckily it goes thru the gears ok! phil leads me round for 2 laps to show me the lines then i realise i cant change gear! my shift rod fell out! an end to qualifying with a time of 1.08. 38th/38 on the grid woohoo!

with the bike back we sort all the little gremlins out and with my confidence at an all time low my dad asked ben from alto performance to have a quick look over my bike. the 3 things he told me to change were my old road tyres! to some race rubber, my pads and discs from road gear to race ones and adjust my suspension! as my budget was 0 we could only adjust the suspension but only for the 2nd race.

the 1st race i started last but was able to run around and keep upright making a couple of places before the end.34/38 with a best time of 1.00 so a bit of an improvement.

the 2nd race came along and we had sorted the suspension so i was feeling a little better in my self. i start were i finished the last race so 34th on the grid. the race gets under way and i lost 2 places as i slowly get used to the better feel of my bike. 3 laps out of 10 had gone by and i had made up 1 place. then out of nowhere in the next 2 laps i made up 5 places! i then have a 5 lap battle wit mark sclater on his svx550 supermoto. we swap places until the final lap when on the run out of clearways i beat him by 0.04 of a second! wow i got 29th! but what a racewith a time of 59.4!

that night i was awarded the first ever Bumpstop 'spirit of thunderbike uk' award for my efforts and circumstances over that day.

sunday starts and im on such a high from the previous evening i go out for my warm up and go quicker than ive bin before!

race 1 on sunday taught me the up and downs of racing as all i can remember is the start! ive been told that i highsided coming out of clearways the bike hit me on the head which broke my collar bone and the following bike hit me! you could say i came back to earth with a bang!

ive now had an operation to plate and screw my collar bone back to gether so should be fixed in time for cadwell! i have heard that mark sclater hit me and broke his arm in the process so my best wishes go out to him.

check back soon for more news and reports on my progress in the thunderbike uk series

My first race bike

my dad, my brother(jason) and i hired a van to go pick my first race bike up that we found on gumtree.co.uk for £350. We went all the way down to a small village close to andover to see my new fzr600! The bike came with loads of spares and a dyno reading of 92.4 bhp! pretty impressive for an 18 year old bike! She started up first time and sounded sweet as a nut, i was jumping for joy inside! (it had been a year since i had a motorcycle, i started to get withdrawal symptoms) we got the bike home and into my shed, where it would stay for the next 3 weeks before my first bmcrc club meeting at brands hatch.

with the bike back in my shed it was time to prepare it as best as i could for the thunderbike uk class that i will be competing in this season. The Thunderbike uk class is a fantastic class that basically works on a power to weight ratio that makes kawasaki zxr 400's competitive against ducati 748 r's!

After a good ol clean up and check over i had a quick look round the engine to see i needed to lockwire all the sump bolts, oil plugs...etc. no one told me how tedious that job really is!

On the week running up to brands we had to fabricate an oil catch tray to comply with the acu regs... tank god for the handbook! we manage to sort this out so on to the spraying. The fairings were black and silver but i decided i wanted a nice redto try and stand out from the crowd(as if my orange novice vest wasnt enough) As my dad had finished doing the spraying on the thursday before the race weekend we thought it may be an idea to go to brands on the friday so some unexpecting fellow 'racers' could be begged and borrowed to help make sure we could get through scrutineering, incase anything was missing.