ACU Supermono Championship - Round 7
Mallory Park - August 21st

It seems to be a current theme with racing this year that there’s a function to attend, this time a friends birthday on the Saturday evening. I’d planned to go to Mallory on the Sunday morning as it’s only just over an hour drive from home, but Charlene said that with the lack of sleep caused by our 3 week old son, it would be much better for me to go the night before and at least grab a few hours unbroken sleep!!

I was short of help leading up to going to Mallory, with Brian Wyles in the Isle of Man for the Manx GP, and Tony Davies out with injury, I didn’t expect his sons Stuart & Phil to journey out of Wales. With the week going on fast I got a text from fellow MAG Sport rider Duncan Baillie’s Mechanic and good friend Neil Black, who’d recently moved from Scotland to Staffordshire, just a few miles from me. He was enquiring if there was a spare seat in the van for Mallory!!! He must be telepathic!!! By now Eddie Davenport had finally got some time off work and called to say he was coming too.

So at the last minute with the Supermono prepared and loaded I decided to drag the caravan along, then at least we’d have a bit of comfort and somewhere to cook and brew up!! At least with a Sunday meeting it gives you all Saturday to get ready. Ed arrived at about 8:45pm and dragged me away from the party. I pulled the van & caravan off the drive in perfect timing as Neil drove up the street and straight onto the drive.

We eventually left Rode Heath at about 9:15 and had a good journey getting to Mallory in plenty of time to call in at the pub for a pint and a chill out. We drove into the paddock and the joy with the caravan is being able to pull up, unhitch, wind the legs down and go straight to bed!! No putting awnings up and unloading the van just to make some room to sleep!!

I wish I’d read Duncan’s reports a bit closer though, my god can Neil snore, at least the baby only cries every 3 hours, this was vibrating the whole caravan all night long!!! Fortunately I had some earplugs to hand. Dunc, how ever did you cope????

Sunday dawned bright and warm, which is typical because I’d decided to leave the intermediate tyres on the bike and not fit the new slicks which had finally arrived (if I’d fitted the slicks it would have been damp!!). No problems at Scruitineering, however I was very disappointed by New Era as they wouldn’t refund my Castle Coombe entry, or even give me a credit note. It’s not like I didn’t intend going, my van was loaded ready to go…No compassion…It’s a lot of money to throw away too…It makes you loose faith in people but if you make a stand, where are you going to race??? If I make an issue I could be blocked from getting International permission or worse still being banned, look at Guy Martin, he has to race out of Ireland because he upset the ACU who will not give him a licence any more…Rant over…

Untimed practice for the Supermono’s was the first session of the morning which meant that there was plenty of time to change the tyres before qualifying, so I decided to leave the intermediate Dunlop 364’s on for practice, for fear of cutting it fine if they didn’t get changed in time. By now it was lovely and hot. I used James Luck’s rollers to start the bike in exchange for bacon butties after qualifying!! The tyre warmers hadn’t been on very long so I took my time and steadily built up the pace and got into sub 1-minute laps according to Eddie with the stopwatch. I thoroughly enjoyed the session, which seemed to go on for ages, probably due to Mallory being quite short!!

As soon as I got in we pulled the wheels out and took them to Holbeach tyres to have the Pirelli slicks fitted, who’s also put his prices up!! We got the wheels back in and tyre warmers on with a few minutes to spare before going out again for qualifying this time. When I got to the holding area it was already very full, I had a few very busy laps until the traffic cleared but it was chance to scrub the new slicks before pushing them too hard. I got the hammer down and managed to put in a couple of fast flowing laps in succession, until I began catching slower bikes again and called it a day and came in.

The tyres and suspension were working beautifully, thanks to Kev Spurr of S&S Tuning for setting the bike up for me. I got onto low 59s laps, which is slightly better than my qualifying time in June when I was at Mallory on this bike. It’s not a massive improvement but the bike certainly felt better and easier to hold a line around Gerrards. Better Still I had managed to qualify 6th on the grid, finally out qualifying riders who I’ve struggled catching all year.

Eddie cooked some lunch for us and we paid our debt to Lucky Jim by feeding him bacon butties and lots of tea. The bike was refuelled and checked over for the race. Tyres warmers fitted and ready to go, so I went for a lie down and a chill out!!

The Supermono race was first after lunch, I got up to the holding area just as the gates opened to let the bikes onto the circuit, they have stopped using the main pit lane which means that we now filter straight out onto the grid from the paddock. I took up my place on the second row of the grid and the engine stalled, or did I stall the engine??? Anyway, it stopped!!! I had no way of starting the bike because I’d told the boys to leave the mobile starter at the van!!

I got the bike over to the pit wall after the other bikes had left on their warm up lap. In the meantime my saviour Stuart Davies, who had turned up after all, had commandeered a set of rollers and got me going again whilst shouting at me not to get too stressed and fired up!! I shot off after the pack knowing that by the time I got back to the grid, they would’ve been waiting ages and over heating on the grid. I flew through them at about 50 mph to take up my place. The red flag man moved and the lights changed as quickly as that.

I dumped the clutch (unusually for me) and pulled a huge wheelie off the line, I dipped the clutch, which dropped the wheel, and promptly pulled another 4 before the bike settled down. But by now the damage was done and I’d dropped back to at least 13th place going into Gerrards. I always make things difficult for myself!! I passed a few riders and found myself behind a battling group of 5 or 6 bikes.

For a few laps I couldn’t see a way past, but the group caught up with back markers and I seized the distraction to begin working my way past, over the next few laps I worked my way by. Richard Rowley had broken free of the group and I spent the next few laps reeling him in and having a bit of fun with Richard who always puts up a good fight. I eventually got past and made it stick, but I honestly expected to see him come back past. I was enormously relieved to see the boys on the pit wall signalling that I’d pulled clear with no threat. I couldn’t believe how many back markers I was carving through. I really enjoy the long races because they give you a chance to recover from stupid mistakes etc but I was more than glad to see the last lap flag of the 20-lap race.

I came in but hadn’t a clue where I’d finished in the race. I stayed sat on the bike until the lads came running down from pit lane to take the bike off me!! They proudly announced that I was 3rd in the water-cooled class, which I was more than happy with. Better still was that I was rapidly catching 2nd placed man and didn’t put my fastest lap in until lap 13. Even better was a fastest lap and personal best of 58.41 seconds, a full second faster than last time we were here.

Eddie who’s had a long spell away from the racing has vowed to make every meeting till the end of the season, bitten by the bug again and I think Neil was quite impressed too.

My first pot in the Supermono Water-cooled Class, brilliant, I just wish I’d woken up earlier in the year!! Finally something to go to the presentation for!!

My championship standing took a battering by missing 2 rounds at Castle Coombe and even with a good result at Mallory I’m back down in 7th place. I was hoping for a top 3 in the Water-cooled Class, but might have to settle for top 5. There’s still 4 points scoring rounds to go…Bring it on!!!

The next Supermono meeting will be rounds 8 & 9 at Snetterton, on the 17th & 18th September.