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Rounds 4 and 5 of the Championship were to take place at Knockhill, making use of the Test afternoon on the Saturday Team YPE Power lined up in the paddock

31 Toruil Patersons K6 Suzuki, 36 Murry Strathdee’s ZXR Kawasaki
& 27 Alex’s RVF Honda

This was also the first chance we have had to see Alex RVF since its transformation into its new guise and it looked Beautiful certainly the nicest bike in the class and after the work which has been carried out on it the BEST bike in the class.

Alex came in after his first outing with a smile from ear to ear and I can’t print how he described it but would say he was more than pleased with the work both YPE and ERS had done, some small adjustments to the new suspension and he was back on track after only 3 laps Alex’s engine spectacularly blew up.

Our hearts sank as a plume of smoke bellowing from one of the exhaust pipes followed him up the start / finish straight. After recovering the bike Alex told us it was his fault,

To Explain

The gearbox shift pattern on the RVF is different from the CB, Back to front, Upside down, which ever is best to try and describe it the CB gearbox shift pattern is 1 down 5 up, whereas the RVF is 1 up 5 down.

In a moment of “BRAIN FADE"” Alex had shifted down the gearbox instead of up, coming out of the hairpin in second gear as he hit the rev limiter at around 14 thousand RPM he shifted down into 1st gear causing catastrophic engine damage.

Now at that I started to clear a space for the bike to go into our trailer, Stuart and Dougie of YPE pushed the bike by me and into their van leaving the circuit and heading for the workshop in Edinburgh. I was shocked at this, as remember they still had another two team members out on track, but every credit to them they had already arranged another engine to be delivered to their workshop and worked into the early hours of Sunday morning to have Alex’s bike ready for race day.

Stuart told me later he was very pleased with Alex, “After blowing up his engine I asked?.......”Not for damaging the engine” Stuart said for “owning up” to damaging the engine. It would have been very easy for a young rider in a new team to say “HE didn’t know what happened and the engine just lost power.” “That would have left us wondering what we had done wrong all credit to him and his honesty”.

Sunday was a bonus if it had been left up to me Alex would never have made the meeting.

Now Eddie Stone of “ERS Suspension” had also been busy with that side and had reworked both ends of the bike out in first practice and every thing looked good Alex posted the fastest time however when he came in Alex was not happy with the rear end and Eddie worked it through with Alex and fixed the problem.

(On a personal note I stood back and watched, this is what Alex needed, instead of the two of us shouting at one and other, here Alex was explaining & gesticulating what the bike was doing to a man who could fix the problem.).

Time for Qualifying and after only one lap Alex returned to pit lane, the alteration to the back of the bike had changed the handling of the front, Eddie listened and started to work on the front forks but the session was drawing to a close Alex got back out on track and I listened to the commentary,
“and its Graig McClelland in provisional pole with Lewis Farrow in 2nd. Down in last place young Alex Gault, That’s all about to change as I see the # 27 bike head up the start and finish straight, YES into 3rd position goes Alex Gault”

Alex with Stuart Young of YPE before the first race of the day.
(I know, I know Alex hiding behind his crash helmet again but this shot was not planned and was snatched as Alex made his way onto Track)

That was a relief a provisional front row start. Then again the commentary piped up

“Here he comes again, this looks even faster Yes ! Yes! An Astounding Lap from Alex Gault puts him in Pole position for the race by over 3 tenths of a second.

So onto race one as the lights went out Alex had a pretty good start putting him with the leaders as they went out of sight and down “DUFFIS DIP” Listening to the commentary “It’s very tight at the front its Lewis Farrow From Graig McClelland and Alex Gault……OH NO! ALEX GAULT IS OFF!!!

Now it’s a long time between hearing that and the realisation; that as there are no red flags that Alex is OK and even longer until you see the result of the crash but back they came in the recovery van after the race had ended. It seems a coming together between Alex and the now Championship leader McClelland had broken off Alex’s Brake lever as he was pushed off the track, absolutely destroying Alex’s bike in the process.

Franticly we worked to repair it before the next race, “DUCK TAPE TO THE RESCUE” now no pictures as we were quit busy but to say it was held together with the stuff is an understatement. A problem arose when we couldn’t source a replacement screen, “Jock” Stuart young’s father, went out to the Spectators Bike park and managed to get a lad with an RVF road bike to lend us the screen from his bike for the race!

With minutes to go we got the bike through scrutineering and into the assembly area. Sighs of relief all round as the lined up for the race. As the race started a slower start from Alex still seen him come round in 4th place lap two and up into third spot on the heels of McClelland then as the bikes came back into view NO ALEX the commentators didn’t know where he was either, no flags of any colour around the circuit and no other mention until someone came up to me and said Alex had pulled of the circuit with his hand up which pointed to mechanical failure.

Bitter, Bitter Disappointment.

Our worst meeting for as long as I can remember. It turned out that in the crash a small electrical wire had been damaged; which during race 2 had shorted out which caused the battery to drain (there is no charging system on the RVF) so after only two laps there was simply no power to run the ignition system. After every ones hard work it boiled down to a small piece of wire which put us out of the race.

Alex now sits in 4th place in the championship 36 points behind leader David McClelland there is still 8 races to go a lot can happen in 8 races!

Oh and to cap it all, half way home and my phone rang, I had the keys of the lad who gave us a loan of the screen from his road going RVF in my toolbox, I had to go back to Knockhill and return his keys.

Just the straw that broke the camels back as they say!

Do you know in all the commotion I never caught his name but our thanks go out to him.


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