What a weekend.

Silverstone BSB - Danny has secured a ride on the Flitwick Motorcycles
Daytona 675 in the Triumph 675 Challenge. Talking to Danny on Friday
and I ask the important question - "what do you want to acheive this
weekend?" His reply is along the lines of "Try this bike out to see if
I want to buy one, and if I get into the top 12 in either race I'll be
happy enough. We can build on that next year with setting it up if I
like how it goes and handles". The 675 Challenge is run as two classes
in one race - the Michelin Young Guns aged between 16 and 24, and the
over 24s. At 34 Danny isn't a young gun. Danny has never ridden this
bike in anger before, only done a few laps at a trackday on it.

Free Practice on Friday - he posts 5th fastest lap on Metzeler
Racetechs, fastest of the TDG cup guys. We know we have to run Michelin
Pilot Power Race in qualifying and the races, but we can't get any
because the control tyres aren't released until 6-30pm, so we send him
out on what's on there anyway just to get some track time in because
he's never raced the international circuit before either. It's not
really looking all that hopeful, to be honest.

Saturday:

1st Qualifying - not the best because we had to run Michelins that were
new and an unknown quantity, still got 11th. Danny's having problems
with the handling through Abbey and Bridge.

2nd Qualifying - I'd dropped the yokes down the forks by 5mm, fitted
new front pads and did some basic adjustments to the damping to suit
Danny. I also asked the Michelin staff what pressures to run and got
those set right - we were told way off those by someone racing in
another class who gave us a hot pressure. I never measure hot, because
there's two different hots - just out of warmers hot, and just finished
race hot - post-race hot varies depending on track and weather, so it's
a bugger to set tyre pressures by this method. Mr Michelin gives us a
base cold pressure and we work to that. This is Olie Linsdell's old
Manx GP bike, and there's at least 3 1/2 stone difference between them
so these changes matter. Danny went out and qualified 9th on the grid,
just missing second row by thousandths.

Sunday:

1st race - He's nervous, but composed, gets a reasonable start and
works his way up to 7th, then the leader crashes out leaving it open
for the current leader of the championship to clinch the title on
points. Danny romps home at 6th overall, and 3rd in the TDG Cup race.
We're ecstatic, so are the organisers.

2nd race - It's 5-50pm and the sky is darkening. I ask Steve Linsdell
if he brought the road fairing with headlights with him. This race is
being televised live on Eurosport[1]. Danny gets a good start and is
already climbing from his 9th grid place by the time they get to Copse,
he's picking them off one by one when it starts to spit with rain. With
two laps to go three riders go down in front of him on a damp section,
Danny loses the front while he's knee-down, but somehow manages to get
it back and then sees the red flags. As the race has gone so far they
call it a finish. Danny is awarded 2nd place and we're absolutely over
the moon with that. Tony Scott asks Danny to buy a 675 so he can liven
things up in the TDG Cup and raise the game for the Young Guns.

I'm knackered, but had a great weekend. I saw Leon Haslam and Tom Sykes
sharing the Sykes' hot-tub outside the motorhome on Friday, bet they
won't be sharing it tonight or for a long time. I'd personally like to
thank Steve Linsdell of Flitwick Motorcycles for the help and advice he
gave me over the weekend, and for trusting me to look after his bike
for Danny to ride.

 

Sounds like a cracking weekend was had by all involved.
Shame I didn't come along - family engagement.

Well done !

 

Sounds like a cracking weekend was had by all involved.
Shame I didn't come along - family engagement.

Well done !

 

Great write-up.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"It's a moron working with power tools.
How much more suspenseful can you get?"
- House

 

Nice write up, Loz. This may come out as patronising, but it's not
meant to be - it sounds like you've really found your feet as a race
mechanic. Good on yer.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Lozzo

Been meaning to reply to this. Great job mate, congratulations to the
team.

 

Coming from you, I take that as a big compliment - thanks.

 

Cheers.

 

Thanks. Every time I walk into my kitchen and see the trophies a huge
grin comes over my chops (I forgot to put them back in the van when I
returned it to Danny last night.)

Unfortunately not, I only saw him briefly and didn't even know he had a
sister at that point. Besides, if she's that fit I'll keep it for
myself.

 

To quote a long term female friend of mine "I don't have a type as
such, I respond well to flattery and big cocks"

 

Yeah, probably...I'm crap at flattery

 

NP.

My racing experience is really pretty limited, but even in the stuff
I've done, being able to focus all of one's attention on just riding
the bike, and *knowing* that everything mechanical has just been done
right made a huge difference to my pace - when I had Black Mike (with
input from Slick) looking after the MGP bikes in 2006 and 2007, it
made such a difference to my riding.

When you hear racers and team heads (e.g. Jeremy Burgess) use 'we' all
the time when talking to the media, it really is accurate - motor
racing really is a team sport.

 

That's exactly what I try to acheive when I spanner Danny's bikes. He
rides it, that's all, he doesn't need to worry about whether he
tightened this or that, fuelled it, checked tyre pressures etc, I do
all that and he can concentrate solely on riding it with nothing else
going through his head. As we say to him "You only touch the things
your arse hands and feet need to touch when you ride, everything else
you leave to me". I don't like Danny touching tools, he's not
mechanically minded and I find I have to go over the whole bike if I
know he's done one small thing to it. I do this for my own piece of
mind after he fitted some brake pads without my knowledge and put one
of them in the wrong way round. If he'd crashed because of a brake
failure everyone would have been pointing the finger at me - luckily I
discovered the fault in front of a huge crowd in a trackday garage at
Oulton and called him out on it, so there are people who know. He's
been told in no uncertain terms by his father - who used to spanner for
him - and myself that if he ever touches the bike with tools again I
will just pack up and walk away from it.

When I first get to the bike on a weekend I do a full nut and bolt
check, look over things like pads (especially pads after the
aforementioned incident), tyres etc and then make suggestions about
what needs doing. When we've come to agreement on what gets replaced or
adjusted I write a checklist on strips of duct tape and stick them on
the fuel tank - there's a small strip right at the front with "CHECK"
written on it. As I complete each job I remove the appropiate piece of
tape so we all know its been done. After each race or qualifying
session we talk and Danny tells me what the bike is doing, we decide
what we'll change for the next outing, and again a checklist is made
and worked to - it works, we don't have things going wrong and he
doesn't go out on wet suspension settings when we've swopped back to
slicks.

You're dead right, without support any racer would find it difficult to
get good results. The higher up the levels you go, the more your
support team comes into play. I was lucky, I started in this sport at
Bemsee MRO level with a rider who was already very well established and
at the top of the tree on a ZX10R in Powerbikes - in a way I was thrown
in at the deep end and somehow bungled my way through the first season
and kept him there in the top three with a couple of wins and a load of
podiums to his credit. As I've gone on it's got easier, and helping him
at trackdays as well has given me extra knowledge of the bike and what
it needs to stay competetive.

To date we've only left two meetings in 3 seasons without any trophies.
Once because he crashed heavily in qualifying at Mallory and we spent
all weekend trying to straighten a very badly bent ZX10R when we should
really have just put it in the van and gone home - He ended up crashing
it again in exactly the same spot as before which nearly put paid o the
rest of the season. The second time was at Oulton on a borrowed 2006 R6
with foul handling that we'd been told was tuned to supersport spec,
but it turned out to make less power on the dyno than a stock one. He
was having his arse kicked on the straights and in the corners, the
only thing the bike did well was stop.

We were meant to be campaigning an RGV 250 this year, but it turned out
to have so many running problems that some proper stroker experts
couldn't cure. It culminated in an off the throttle seizure at a
Mallory test afternoon that had Danny over the bars at 90. We don't
know why it seized, because it was running on ever so slightly
oversized jets and the plugs appeared to be running slightly rich in
the dry sunny morning, but after he crashed in the colder damper
afternoon the plugs were about right...go figure. Danny just asked the
owner to collect it and told him he'll never ride it again. I miss his
old ZX10R now he's sold it, but the weekend's ride on the Flitwick
M/Cs/Wheeler Electrical 675 has given us hope, and I loved working on
the bike too, which really does help. It looks like next year Danny's
entering the Triumph Daytona 675 Challenge going after the TDG cup, in
with the Michelin Young Guns. I hope he does because it's good close
racing with massive media coverage for a club level series, and there
are some really nice people involved in the championship.

 

Most definitely. The RGV's running problems were caused by the owner
building a ram air system that put the carbs inside the airbox. There
were pipes and balance bottles all over to equalise the pressure in the
airbox with that in the tank to ensure fuel flow was correct. Still
we'd get problems with it appearing perfect in one session, only to run
massively lean in the next, when our weather station was showing no
change. It's a shame we never had it running properly, because when I
rode it at Donington it was most definitely the sweetest handling bike
I had ever ridden, it's just a pity I was running it in and couldn't
give it the berries.

 

Not the same thing. A balance bottle equalises pressure in both tank
and airbox, it does this by having a pipe running from the top of the
tank[1] going into a bottle that also has a pipe running from the
airbox. In theory the airbox pressure is always higher so it creates
pressure in the tank to ensure fuel flow is right. If the pressure is
lower in the fuel tank the float bowls won't fill, and the bike will
run permanently lean.

[1]with a one-way valve in it to stop spillage out and into the bottle