ACU Supermono Championship - Rounds 10 & 11
Cadwell Park - October 8th & 9th

Preparing the Rampisham Garage Supermono for the final two rounds of the Championship became a bit of a nightmare compared to the dust off she required before Snetterton. Firstly I’d got the squashed exhaust to repair, which I fixed straight after the last meeting. Fortunately my RVF 400 has exactly the same diameter Carbon Fibre outer sleeves and I’d got one spare, so it was a simple job repacking the silencer and pop riveting the carbon in place.

I didn’t touch the bike then until the week before Cadwell, which is always a bad move, I should’ve learnt by now to prepare the race bikes with more time in hand. It seemed like everything I touched fell apart!!! But that’s why it’s so important to go over them with a fine toothcomb so nothing goes wrong at the track. Everything from rear brake disc bolts, fuel line and front mudguard had to be fixed as well as needing to change tyres at Richardsons Honda, fit different gearing, change the oil and the obligatory clean and polish!

Fortunately when I came to load up on the Thursday evening Young Tom (aged 9) from next-door saw me and came out to help…. Charlene thinks its slave labour, I reckon it’s character building!!! I have to keep apologising to his mum though for sending him home with his clothes covered in oil!!! He’s a damn good help though and knows exactly what to bring out of the garage to put in the van!!

Eddie was a star as always and offered to get the food for the weekend, including making a chilli for Saturday night’s tea. Unfortunately he then got called into work and couldn’t come with us but he did drop everything off on Friday Evening. Neil Black turned up early to help me hitch up the caravan. Andy-Tim, & Papillon Photo man Simon Ellison arrived after 6pm, we bundled into the van and set off at about 6:30pm.

Apart from heavy traffic around Nottingham due to the M1 being blocked and everyone getting off we had a good run and stopped at the Chippy in Wragby. Just in time too as they were about to shut at 9:30pm and it was gone twenty past. We finally got to the track at about 10pm but struggled to find a space because for the amount of unnecessary cars parked in the paddock, very frustrating.

Eventually we found a gap big enough to squeeze the caravan through into an open space. We managed to get far enough back to allow room for Brian Wyles who arrived soon after. Neil had brought his easy up gazebo, which went between my van & caravan, we unloaded the kit from the vans and called it a night.

Andy helped me push the bike through scruitineering first thing in the morning and we had to bleed the oil through, as I was unable to run the bike on my own at home to ensure it was fully bled. That done we could get ready for practice which was first session of the day. We started the bike and warmed the engine before briefly fitting the tyre warmers.

I’d fitted Dunlop KR364 intermediates at Richardsons because I knew the track would be damp at this time of year, and I’d wrecked the rear Slick at Snetterton. You can usually turn the tyre around on the rim if one side is torn, especially as clockwise circuits have predominantly right hand bends, but at Cadwell there are fast left hand turns as well and the tyre was just too bad. As it happened the track wasn’t to damp but it was cold so the intermediates were ideal.

I went down for practice and went straight out onto the track but I’d only done a lap and the session was red flagged so I came back in and waited in the holding area. We restarted the bike on the portable rollers and I had a really good practice session. Cadwell has always been one of my favourite circuits and I really enjoyed riding around there again. I was happy that the gearing was fine and the bike was handling brilliantly.

The track was dry and slicks would’ve been more suitable for qualifying, I got a rear Dunlop off Mark Lawes but it was worse than the Pirelli that I had with me!! I considered fitting the Pirelli’s again but eventually saw sense and stayed on the intermediates, I wasn’t expecting to qualify at all well on them. I needed to get some fast laps in early, before the tyres got too hot and started moving around. We took the chill off with the warmers but didn’t cook them. I only did 4 laps and I qualified 4^th!!! Front row of the grid!!! Well impressed…

Mark Lawes offered me his Qualifying tyre, which was in brilliant condition so we swapped the rear tyre and fitted the front off Brian’s Supermono. However by the time I’d fed & watered everyone the weather had took a turn for the worst and the sky had gone very black although hadn’t yet rained. They thought I was mad when I said I wanted to put the Intermediates back on!!! We changed the tyre back and by the time I left the paddock to go to the holding area it was beginning to spit with rain…Knowledge of circuits counts for a lot!!

By the time I got to the holding area the rain was beginning to wet the ground and all the others with slicks on were looking very worried indeed. Then the heavens opened big time and the organisers granted us 5 minutes to change to wets. I eventually took up my place on the front row of the grid after the warm up lap, knowing that the wets would be pretty cold, fortunately they had been scrubbed at Snetterton.

The grid assembled behind us and the flag marshal moved to the side. I’d got the clutch on the bite point and the revs up before the lights even came on and the bike began to creep forward. I dipped the clutch slightly to stop the forward motion, as the lights seemed to be held for ages, just as I did the lights went out. I dropped 3 or 4 places off the start but pulled back to 6^th by the end of lap one, I rode around the outside of European Champion Benny Jerzenbeck at Charlie’s and dived up the inside of Tony Crowe at the goose neck, but I did think the latter move was going to end in tears on the wet track, but the tyres held and I pulled the move off, giving me the confidence in my wet racing abilities which I’d been lacking for a while.

I soon reeled in Performance Bike Magazine’s road Tester Bruce Dunn who I followed for several laps before eventually riding around the outside of him at Chris curve on lap 7. By now it was raining heavily again and I began to catch the leading group but couldn’t quite get close enough to join the fray. I crossed the line in 4^th place overall which was a fantastic 2^nd in the water-cooled class, which did my championship standing the world of good as I came into the meeting in a disappointing 7^th place overall. My fastest lap for the race was 1m50.77 seconds on lap 8 after I’d passed Bruce.

I collected my trophy at the presentation and spent some time checking over the bike ready for Sunday before watching some racing in the afternoon and sheltering from the persistent rain. The Supermono series sponsor 90-one held a barbeque with free beer but being on antibiotics I couldn’t partake, however the team made the most of it!!!

Sunday dawned nice and cold but at least it wasn’t raining, we’d left the wet tyres on the Supermono expecting it to be wet so I did the morning warm up on the wets. The circuit had no dry line and there were damp patches everywhere especially under the trees and it was so cold that the wets were the perfect tyres for the conditions. The session was untimed and it was just an opportunity to blow the cobwebs away.

My friends Dik & Kay Stapley who painted my helmet for me turned up which was brilliant, as I hadn’t seen them for a while. Dik has been involved in building one off specials and custom bikes for years and was impressed with the concept of the Supermono, shoehorning huge tuned single cylinder engines into pure racing chassis!!! It was soon time for my race though and having been closely monitoring the weather and track conditions all morning we’d fitted Mark Lawes rear Dunlop slick and put the front wheel off Brian Wyles Supermono into the bike.

I had a better start this time but so did everyone else!! I had a big slide at the Goose Neck on lap 2 and thought I was grass bound but managed to stay on the track. Tony Crowe passed me on the exit of Barn and made me shape myself, I passed him on the brakes into Park and pulled away from him. I held 6^th place until Charlie Fazakerley came past on a mission fighting for his 3^rd place in the championship.

I got trapped by back markers towards the end of the race and allowed Tony to catch up and sneak past on the main straight, this time I didn’t get back past him and finished the race 6^th in class.

My fastest lap was only 1m43.57seconds, and I was disappointed to have had such a poor finish compared to Saturday but feel that the Antibiotics had finally taken their toll and sapped my energy.

However a successful weekend in general has moved me up to a final water-cooled championship position of fourth just 3 points off third place. My overall standing in the Supermono Championship is 9^th.

My next venture is the Supermono Presentation Evening to be held on February 11^th, I’ve volunteered to organise it so this time it’s being held in Cheshire!!