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SuperMoto Man
Jonathon Green is an aging computer software engineer with a tragic hairstyle who spends most of his life behind a desk, normally(?) races an MuZ Skorpion very slowly in the Bemsee Supermono class when he's not doing outrageous stuff like Supermoto or road-racing on the Isle of Man with somebody elses bike, he admits to being an utterly talentless rider. He says "You can do better than him so get on the phone to NORA, BMRC, your local club, the ACU, or whoever and get out there and give it a shot"
Rider: Jonathon Green Class: NORA SuperMoto Circuit: Manby Date: 11th June 2000
It's Sunday morning, I've been up until some ridiculous hour of the morning eating and drinking with about 60 speed-crazed loons following yet another spiffing Ixion two-day track extravaganza at Cadwell Park. I've spend a substantial portion of that time doing two sessions on, one session off as I've been instructing in the Eeyores (our version of "Touring") group while playing in the Tiggers (our "Fast" group), I've learned to take the Coppice, Charlies 1, Charlies 2 complex (and it is a single complex once you get it right) faster than I'd ever have thought possible thanks to John taylor, who, apart from being blindingly fast is a bloody superb teacher. I've ridden a Ducati 916 for the very first time, had my first track experience of a T955 Daytona, and ridden a thoroughly sorted (Maxton suspension, HRC motor) CBR600 racer, so I should be curled up in bed sleeping off a combination hangover and adrenaline overdose, or trying to winch my madly protruding eyes back into their usual location, but no, that would be too easy. Instead I'm sitting on a Yamaha YZ400 four-stroke motocrosser, which in turn is sitting on a set of gorgeous gold anodised Talon 17" wheels encased in heavily re-cut road-race intermediate tyres. There are 16 crazed lunatics with dubious hairstyles (and even more dubious body piercings I suspect) on similar machines, an even more crazed lunatic on a Triumph Tiger, and Martin Childs lined up around me and I'm watching a set of starting lights ready to launch the whole insane assembly down 200 yards of runway then hard left onto an unsurfaced track.
In short, I'm about to go Supermoto racing....
It's all Dave Lippett's fault, he's been riding Super Motards since before they were really fashionable, and reckons (in a good natured sort of way) all Road Racers are a bunch of wusses. With the Manby round of the NORA (National Off Road Association) series happening just a few miles down from Louth the day after the ixion@cadwell.2000 track extravaganza it seems quite reasonable to just pop along and watch, What I hadn't reckoned on was Dave's YZ400 "Trail Bike" being available, and that NORA's laid back, non ACU sanctioned organisation makes it perfectly possible to just turn up on the day and race. I'd ridden the YZ round Cadwell the day before, and been utterly captivated by its lightness, agility, and acceleration, so when Dave assured me that the Manby track was an easy one which was perfectly manageable for someone with no competitive off road experience whatsoever, and that I'd be just fine, I naively believed him, and signed on to share the days four rides with Keith MacKay.
 So, about Supermoto, the YZ400, and Manby. Well Supermoto, for those who haven't come across it before, is, as far as I'm aware is a French invention, it originally started with a one off event called le Guidon D'Or (Golden Handlebars) intended to find the best all round motorcycle racer in the world by combining the disciplines of road racing and motocross. Basically, it's rallycross for motorcycles run on a course which combines tarmac and off-road sections. The bikes are highly tuned motocrossers fitted with street sized wheels, cut slick (or race intermediate) tyres, and bigger brakes, and the participants are barking mad.
The YZ400 is bit of a phenomenon in that it broke the dominance of small capacity, lightweight, 250cc 2-strokes in motocross by packing a very cleverly designed 400cc 4-stroke motor into the more or less the same space (and weight) as a 250 stroker. It's a little cracker, weighing almost nothing, power band a mile wide, and plenty of poke. I'd previously imagined Motocross bikes to be brutal affairs which would spit off an unwary rider if you so much as looked at the throttle in the lower gears, but the YZ (as well as being desperately pretty) is a precision tool in the Ducati 916 mould. Like the Ducati it inspires instant confidence and flatters inexperienced riders. Incompetent twonks like me look like they know what they're doing, and real riders can work magic with it...
Manby's a disused airfield, and here's what the course looks like. From the starting grid there's a 200 yard sprint down a section of dusty, degraded tarmac to a 90 degree left turn onto dirt, the track then curves gradually through 90 degrees left, there' a short straight(ish), a 90 degree left then a 90 degrees right, a small jump, a tight 90 degrees left, another short straight, a tight 90 degrees left, a bigger jump, a fast, open 90 degree left onto tarmac, a short straight, a tight 180 degree right hand hairpin, yet another short straight, another tight 180 hairpin, to the left for a change bring's you back onto the start/finish straight, but here's one more sadistic trick in store though, as rather than howling straight over the grid there's a right, left, left, right "Bus Stop" chicane which, takes the course past the starting grid on the grass. Eeek!
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