Countdown to Spa. II
In preparation for the big classic endurance race at Spa, Boasty has been practicing his podium wave, while Team Bike have been fettling suspension
IT’S BEEN CRAZY since we finished second at the Donington Endurance Legends event last month. First I went to the PRE-TT races on the Isle of Man. We took five bikes, two vans and a whole gang of helpers. We finished every race we entered, which was a real result, and we got second in the classic Superbike race on my old Yamaha OW-01, so I was made up with that. Then I was off to Oschersleben for the next of the Endurance Legends races, riding the Katana for Team Classic Suzuki. My co-rider was John Reynolds, which was a real honour. I was scrapping around for 12th place when John was winning the BSB championship so sharing the bike with him was mega. And he’s still really fast. We blew an engine in practice, borrowed another one and then had a great race and ended up third overall and winning the Superbike class. The team did a great job. Next up Cadwell Park, back on the OW-01 and I got three wins and a second. Amazing. Of course, all this good luck couldn’t last. The boys from Lincolnshire Classic Suzuki took the GSX-R750 that Guy Martin and I are racing at Spa and put it on Guy’s dyno, and the engine blew. They’ve managed to borrow another one, though it’s a bit down on power, which meant that we could get some shake-down laps in at Cadwell before we load the bike in the van for Spa, though Guy’s still not ridden it. Still, the weather forecast is good, so it’ll be a great weekend.
WE HAVEN’T RACED the Team Bike Honda RC30S since we won the Classic Bol d’or in 2015, though the bikes have been out doing parades and trackdays. It means there’s been quite a bit to do to get them ready. I’m spending the last hours before we load the van drilling bolts for lockwire, then the tyres arrive from Dunlop tomorrow morning and we should be good to go. But the last week has been hectic. We’d got new shock absorbers and fork internals from Maxton and took the bikes to a test day at Croixen-ternois in northern France. Stephane Mertens, our star rider, wasn’t happy so we took the bike back to Maxton last week. Richard Adams from Maxton pointed out that ‘old school’ riders like Stephane (World Endurance champ in 1995 and 2002) like a more compliant ride than today’s young racers who use a really aggressive set-up. Richard changed the springs and serviced everything, and lent us some other springs to try too. Stephane should be happy now. Next, we couldn’t get the spare bike running properly, so the other Ian (Ian Martin, who’ll co-ride at Spa with Stephane) took it down to GT Motorcycles, Plymouth and we set it up on their dyno. It’s much better now. We’re planning to test the bikes at a track day at Spa on Thursday (it’s Tuesday now) but we’ve just found out there’s a 100db noise limit. We’ve got a cheeky plan for that.
‘We finished every race we entered’